Our Chief Financial Officer has been here since our launch fifteen years ago, but as we scale toward a clean exit, he is constantly falling behind on financial reporting and refuses to adopt modern forecasting software. He is family to us, but his lack of modern accounting capacity is stalling our exit preparation. How do we make this GWC call without tearing our culture apart?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

We must separate the person from the seat. This is the hardest part of running a growing business, but sentimentality is a business killer.

Start by looking at the Accountability Chart first, without names in the boxes. Define the exact seat your company needs today to achieve a clean exit. The seat requires advanced financial forecasting, tech stack integration, and investor due diligence.

Now, look at your long-tenured leader. Run him through the GWC tool. Does he Get it? Does he Want it? Does he have the Capacity to do it? Capacity is not just about intelligence or hours worked. It is also about emotional, physical, and technical ability. In this case, he lacks the technical and strategic capacity for where the company is going.

You have a right-person, wrong-seat issue. Keeping him in a seat he cannot perform damages the business and sets him up to fail. Your job is to have an honest conversation.

Show him the current Accountability Chart and the future chart. Explain that the seat has grown beyond his current capacity. Discuss if there is a different seat in the organization that fits his unique skills and culture fit, perhaps a controller or treasury role, where he fully GWCs the role.

If a suitable seat exists, move him. If not, you must transition him out of the company with dignity and a generous severance. Keeping him in the wrong seat out of loyalty is actually disloyal to the rest of your team.