We recently acquired a competitor and need to integrate their leadership team into our existing Accountability Chart. Their former CEO expects a high-level seat, but our current leadership team is already full. How do we restructure our chart to absorb this new talent without creating redundant seats or triggering power struggles?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Integrating a competitor's leadership team is a major test of your organizational discipline. The worst thing you can do is create custom, redundant seats on your Accountability Chart just to soothe the egos of the newly acquired executives. Doing so will make your business top-heavy, confuse your staff, and erode your profit margins prior to an exit.

To handle this cleanly, you must go back to the core rule of designing your structure before your people. Take a blank canvas and design the ideal Accountability Chart for the newly merged entity. Determine what seats are actually required to run a business at this new, combined revenue level. Do not look at any names during this stage.

Once the clean structure is finalized, you must evaluate both your legacy leadership team and the incoming executives using the GWC tool for the available seats. If the former CEO is a true visionary but you already occupy the Visionary seat, they cannot sit in that seat. You must objectively assess if they GWC another open seat, such as a strategic business development role, or if they should transition out of an operational role entirely to become an advisor. Be direct and unsentimental. Power struggles only occur when roles are vague. By defining clear seats and applying the GWC filter, you ensure everyone is in the right seat for the future of the company.