My leadership team is resisting our efforts to design a forward-looking Accountability Chart for our three-year picture, arguing that we should only focus on the seats and people we have today. How do I get them to shift their mindset and structure the organization for future scale?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Your leadership team is falling into the common trap of letting current headcount dictate your organizational design. If you only build your Accountability Chart for today, you will constantly play catch-up, reacting to operational bottlenecks instead of preventing them. You must shift their mindset from a people-first approach to a structure-first approach.

During your next strategic quarterly meeting, introduce Keith Cunningham's concept of Thinking Time to help them zoom out. Ask the team: If our revenue were to double tomorrow, where would our current systems and team members break first? This framing shifts the conversation from personal emotions to objective organizational needs.

Next, guide the team to build the "three-year Accountability Chart." This is a map of the organization as it must look in thirty-six months to support your V/TO® goals. Instruct them to completely ignore the names of current employees during this exercise. Focus solely on identifying the seats, roles, and reporting lines necessary to handle the projected volume of work.

Once this future chart is designed, you will likely see new seats that do not exist today, as well as current seats that need to be split. This gives your team a clear, visual roadmap of your future hiring needs. It also helps current leaders understand how their own seats will evolve, allowing them to proactively build the capacity and skills needed to scale with the business.