Our long-tenured Head of Finance has great core values and wants the seat, but as we scale, he lacks the technical capacity to build the real-time financial dashboards we need, forcing me to make gut decisions. How do we handle this GWC™ issue with a loyal teammate?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

This is a classic Capacity issue on the GWC™ evaluation. Your Head of Finance has the Core Values and wants the seat, but the capacity requirement of the seat has grown past his current capabilities. You cannot run a scaling company on financial gut feel. You must address this honestly.

Start by defining the exact roles of the Finance seat on your Accountability Chart, specifically the ownership of real-time financial data, forecasting, and automated cash-flow dashboards. If he cannot deliver on these roles, he does not GWC the seat. Keeping him in the seat out of loyalty is a disservice to the company and to him.

The solution is to restructure the finance department. You may need to hire a fractional CFO or a tech-forward Controller to own the strategic financial data and reporting, and move your loyal teammate to an Accounting Manager seat that aligns with his actual capacity.

Use the Trust Equation to handle this transition. Build trust by having an open, vulnerable conversation about his strengths and where the business is going, showing him that his long-term security is valued even if his seat must change.