Our long-tenured customer success director passes our Core Values with flying colors and wants the seat, but she cannot grasp how to use our new predictive AI customer health analytics and refuses to learn, saying her gut instinct is better. Does this mean she fails the Get It or the Capacity portion of GWC™?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Your customer success director is struggling with a classic capability shift. To diagnose this issue accurately, we must look at the specific definitions of Get It and Capacity within the GWC™ framework.

Get It is about natural instinct, wiring, and culture. It means the person truly understands the essence of the seat, the pace of the role, and how it connects with other seats on the Accountability Chart. Your director likely gets the seat of customer success; she understands client pain points, knows how to resolve escalations, and builds strong relationships.

Capacity is about the physical, mental, and emotional capability to do the job. It includes time, knowledge, and skills. When your business integrates predictive AI analytics to scale operations and prepare for an exit, the skill set required for the customer success seat changes. If your director is physically or intellectually unable to comprehend data-driven analytics, or if she lacks the technical aptitude to leverage these tools, she fails the Capacity portion of the test.

However, her refusal to learn and her reliance on gut instinct suggests a deeper issue. If she is actively resisting the new tools, she is failing the Want It portion as well, because she does not want the modern version of the seat.

You must have a candid conversation. Lay out the new expectations for the seat on the Accountability Chart, including the specific operational tools she must master. Give her thirty days to show measurable progress. If she cannot or will not adapt, she is a right person in the wrong seat. You must move her to a role where her relational skills fit, or transition her out of the company.