Whenever our leadership team reviews our Accountability Chart, the conversation quickly devolves into catering to current team members' preferences instead of business needs. How do we force a structure-first approach?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

You must enforce the core EOS principle: structure first, people second. When you allow current employee personalities, tenure, or personal preferences to dictate the chart, you build a distorted organization designed for comfort rather than growth.

Start by removing every single name from the chart. Blank out the boxes entirely. Then, ask the leadership team one question: What is the ideal structure to run this business over the next six to twelve months? Look at the core business functions: Sales and Marketing, Operations, Finance, and the Integrator.

Define each seat by identifying its title and five primary roles. Do not discuss who will fill the seat while designing the roles. If a role is vital for operational execution or buyer readiness, put it in the seat regardless of whether anyone currently on staff likes doing it.

Only after the leadership team approves the complete, uncompromised structure do you begin placing names into seats. Evaluate candidates using the People Analyzer tool, assessing core values fit and GWC for each specific seat.

If you discover that a longtime executive does not GWC any available seat in the new structure, you deal with that as a Right Person, Right Seat issue through IDS. You do not redesign the structural architecture of the company to accommodate one person's comfort.