Our Head of HR has been with the company since we had ten employees and is a close personal friend. However, as we prepare for an exit, the seat now requires sophisticated talent acquisition systems and advanced compliance management. She is a great culture fit, but she simply does not have the capacity to build these new systems. How do we make this GWC™ call without ruining our personal relationship?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

This is one of the hardest challenges a founder will face, but you must prioritize the health of the organization. To handle this objectively, you need to separate the person from the seat.

Start by updating the HR seat on your Accountability Chart to reflect the actual, forward-looking roles needed for your exit strategy. This should include managing scalable recruitment, ensuring legal compliance, and developing training programs. Next, run the GWC™ tool with her. Ask yourself three questions: Does she truly understand the deep requirements of this modernized seat? Does she genuinely want to do this specific work every day? Does she have the physical and mental capacity to deliver the results?

If the answer to any of these is no, she is not in the right seat. Meet with her privately and use the Accountability Chart as the objective third party. Frame the conversation around the needs of the seat, not her personal value. Let her know you value her core values alignment, but the seat has outgrown her current capacity.

Work together to find a different seat in the organization where she can succeed and pass GWC™, or help her transition gracefully. Keeping her in a seat she cannot succeed in is unfair to her and dangerous for your exit goals.