Our Marketing Director passes GWC on four out of their five roles on the Accountability Chart, but they consistently fail at managing digital advertising spend and analytics. Do we redesign the seat around their strengths or find someone who can own all five roles?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Never redesign an essential seat on your Accountability Chart around the personal limitations of an employee. In EOS, structure must always precede people. If your business model requires digital advertising management and data analysis to hit its revenue targets, that role must remain part of the marketing function.

When you carve out core responsibilities just to protect an underperforming leader, you create orphaned accountabilities and operational friction across departments. The proper path depends on whether managing digital spend requires internal execution or executive oversight.

Clarify the five roles for the seat. The seat does not necessarily require the director to write code or configure ad platforms daily, but it does require them to own the measurable outcome. If the director has the Capacity to manage an external digital agency, set targets, and interpret metrics, rewrite the role as managing digital performance partners. This keeps accountability anchored in the seat while utilizing external technical expertise.

However, if the leader fundamentally cannot grasp analytics, cannot hold an agency accountable, and consistently misses Scorecard numbers, they fail GWC for the seat. At that point, you must make the tough Right Seat call: either transition them into a specialized creative seat where they have complete GWC, or recruit a competent Marketing Director who can own all five roles without excuses.