We need to add a dedicated Customer Success seat to our Accountability Chart to handle our rapid growth, but we cannot afford to hire for it yet. How do we assign this accountability in the interim without burning out our existing team?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

This is a common predicament during rapid scaling. You cannot simply ignore the need for the seat, nor can you sprinkle its responsibilities across the entire company and hope for the best. First, build the Customer Success seat on your Accountability Chart anyway. Define its five roles and its leading metrics clearly. This makes the vacancy visible to the entire organization. Second, assign one person to sit in that vacant seat temporarily. That person's name goes in the box. They must GWC the seat, even if they only have the capacity to do it at a basic level. Do not divide the seat among three different people. If multiple people own it, nobody owns it. By putting one name in the box, you maintain clear accountability. Third, because this person is now sitting in two seats, you must prioritize their workload in your weekly Level 10 Meeting. Use Keith Cunningham's Thinking Time to identify which roles in their primary seat can be paused or automated using AI tools to create temporary capacity. Finally, set a clear financial trigger or target. Agree as a leadership team that once the company hits a specific revenue milestone, you will immediately fund and hire a full-time person for this seat. This gives the temporary owner a light at the end of the tunnel.