Our Head of Marketing wants to rewrite her five roles on the Accountability Chart to focus entirely on brand strategy, leaving lead generation to a junior seat, but we need high-volume lead generation to hit our V/TO™ targets. How do we handle this pushback?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

In EOS®, we always design the structure of the Accountability Chart first, then we place the right people in those seats. We never rewrite a seat to accommodate the personal preferences of an employee.

Your Head of Marketing is attempting to customize her seat to fit her personal strengths and interests. Brand strategy is creative and exciting, while lead generation is analytical and requires consistent accountability. However, if your V/TO™ targets require high-volume lead generation to fuel your sales pipeline, then lead generation must remain a core role of the Head of Marketing seat.

If your Head of Marketing refuses to own lead generation, she is failing the GWC™ check for that seat. She might get it and want the strategic parts, but she lacks the capacity or desire to execute the lead generation roles.

You must have a candid conversation with her. Explain that the business dictates the roles in the seat, not the individual. If the seat requires lead generation, the person sitting in it must own that metric.

If she cannot or will not own it, you have a right-person-wrong-seat issue. You must either find another seat where her skills match the business needs or replace her with a marketing leader who is eager to be held accountable for lead generation metrics. Do not compromise your pipeline to keep a team member comfortable.