We have a regulatory compliance and data privacy seat on our Accountability Chart that is currently unassigned because none of our department heads want the administrative headache. If we do not fill it, it will hurt our valuation when we prepare for an exit. How do we assign a seat that everyone actively avoids without causing resentment?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

When a critical seat remains empty because it is viewed as a miserable chore, you have a design problem, not a people problem. Forcing an unwilling department head into this seat is a guaranteed way to ensure compliance is neglected and balls are dropped. It fails the Want It portion of GWC™ immediately.

To solve this, use Keith Cunningham's Thinking Time framework to ask: How might we unbundle the compliance seat so that its tasks match the natural behavioral profiles of our existing team, or how can we outsource the heavy lifting while keeping final accountability inside a specific seat?

First, look at the Kolbe Index scores of your current team. Compliance requires a high Fact Finder and high Follow Thru. If your department heads are all high Quickstarts, they will naturally resist this work. Do not force it. Instead, assign the ultimate accountability for compliance to your Integrator or Finance seat, but outsource the execution to a specialized third-party vendor.

Alternatively, hire a fractional compliance manager. Your internal seat holder then simply owns the role of managing that vendor and reviewing their reports, rather than doing the administrative heavy lifting themselves. This keeps the Accountability Chart clean, protects your valuation for a clean exit, and prevents your internal team from burning out on tasks that run completely counter to their natural cognitive strengths.