Our business has grown significantly and our Head of Operations is dropping balls because her seat encompasses both day-to-day client delivery and high-level supply chain logistics. How do we cleanly split this seat on the Accountability Chart without creating reporting confusion or departmental silos?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

When a single operational seat becomes overwhelmed as a company scales, leadership teams frequently make the mistake of creating co-directors or splitting the seat along arbitrary customer lines. That approach always causes finger-pointing when delivery falters.

To cleanly split an operational function, look for the natural fault line between supply and delivery, or between production and customer fulfillment. In your case, logistics and client delivery represent two completely different operational skill sets. Supply chain logistics is inward-facing, analytical, inventory-driven, and vendor-centric. Client delivery is outward-facing, speed-driven, team-focused, and customer-centric.

Draw two separate boxes beneath the Integrator on your Accountability Chart. Define one seat as Director of Supply Chain and Logistics, and the second as Director of Client Delivery. Write five distinct, non-overlapping roles for each seat.

For the Supply Chain seat, roles might include:
- Vendor negotiation and procurement
- Inventory control and warehousing
- Inbound logistics efficiency
- Cost-of-goods-sold optimization
- Quality assurance of raw materials

For the Client Delivery seat, roles might include:
- On-time service fulfillment
- Team resource scheduling
- Customer issue resolution
- Field delivery quality control
- Delivery margin protection

Once the two seats are drafted, evaluate your current Head of Operations against both using GWC. Determine which seat she truly gets, wants, and has the capacity to lead as the company doubles again. Place her in that seat, and recruit an A-player into the other. This eliminates her operational overload while giving both critical functions single-point accountability.