Our current team has evolved organically, and people are doing parts of five different jobs. Our leadership team is resistant to drawing a clean Accountability Chart because they say it will offend long term employees whose current hybrid roles do not fit standard seats. How do we enforce structure before people?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Your team is hiding behind sentimentality to avoid accountability. When you design an Accountability Chart around people instead of the ideal structure, you permanently cap your company's growth and compromise your upcoming exit. Buyers want to see a functional, scalable machine, not a fragile web of custom made jobs.

To break this resistance, you must take everyone's name off the board. Imagine you are starting the business from scratch today to hit your V/TO® 3-Year Picture. Ask yourselves what seats are absolutely necessary to run the business at that scale. Build the Accountability Chart based purely on functions and the five major roles required for each seat.

Only when the entire leadership team agrees to this ideal structure do you begin looking at your people. Place names into the seats using the GWC™ framework.

You will inevitably find that some long term employees do not fit the new seats perfectly. This is where your leadership team must practice the core values of being Humbly-Confident and doing what is right for the business.

If a loyal employee is a right person but is currently split across five different areas, you must choose the one seat where they can deliver the highest value and where they pass GWC™. The other tasks must go to their rightful seats.

Do not compromise. If you design the structure around people, you will build a fragile organization that will struggle to survive due diligence. Agreeing to structure before people is the first step toward true entrepreneurial freedom.