Our VP of Operations has been with us for eight years, lives our core values, and works eighty hours a week, but she fundamentally does not get the data-driven systems required to scale past twenty million in revenue. How do we address a deficit in 'Get' with an intensely loyal leader?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Addressing a deficit in 'Get' is one of the hardest calls a leadership team faces because effort and loyalty do not compensate for an inability to understand the seat. A leader who lacks 'Get' does not have the natural mental wiring or conceptual grasp to navigate the complexity of their role. You cannot train or motivate someone into getting a seat.

Begin by using the People Analyzer to evaluate the situation objectively. Your VP of Operations is a Right Person because she matches your core values, but she is in the Wrong Seat. Working eighty hours a week is actually a symptom of the deficit; she is trying to overcome a lack of intuitive understanding through sheer brute force, which leads to burnout and operational bottlenecks.

Have an honest, private conversation using the EOS three-strike approach or a direct quarterly review. Lay out the specific accountabilities of the seat on the Accountability Chart, highlighting the operational metrics, systems architecture, and forecasting required for your next stage of growth. Explain the gap between what the seat requires and what she naturally delivers.

Because she is a Right Person, your objective should be to retain her within the company if an appropriate seat exists. Look at the Accountability Chart to see if her strengths align with a specialized seat, such as managing frontline relationships, fleet logistics, or key vendor accounts. However, you cannot protect her feelings by leaving her in the leadership seat. Keeping a leader who lacks 'Get' holds the entire organization hostage and limits your company enterprise value.