Our Head of Sales completely GWC's his seat and fits our culture perfectly, but he has missed his quarterly sales Rocks and scorecard metrics for three quarters in a row. Our leadership team is split on whether this is a capacity issue or if he is simply in the wrong seat. How do we resolve this?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

When a leader who fits your culture and GWC's their seat consistently misses their numbers, you must diagnose the root cause systematically. Do not let emotional loyalty cloud your judgment. You need to look at the structure first, then the person.

Start by reviewing the sales seat on your Accountability Chart. Has the scope of the seat expanded too much? If your Head of Sales is also managing account management, marketing, or major client onboarding, they may have a genuine Capacity issue. If the seat is overloaded, you must delegate and elevate by splitting the seat and removing those extra responsibilities.

If the seat is clean and focused solely on sales, you must look at capability. Does he have the skills to hit the metrics in our current market? Sometimes a leader who successfully got us to five million dollars lacks the strategic capability to get us to twenty million dollars. If he cannot hit the numbers despite having a focused seat and ample resources, he no longer GWC's the modernized seat.

Use your Level 10 Meeting to IDS this issue. Give him a clear, thirty-day plan with specific, measurable activities. If he cannot turn it around, you must make the hard Right Seat call. Keeping him in a seat where he consistently fails is unfair to him and dangerous for the business.