I have a VP of Marketing who has been with us for eight years and is a perfect culture fit, but as we scale toward a thirty-million-dollar exit, they lack the strategic capability to build a modern, multi-channel marketing department. How do I navigate this gap without destroying their dignity or the team's morale?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

This is one of the hardest challenges a business owner faces. Your VP of marketing has high core values alignment and has shown years of loyalty, but the seat has outgrown them. If you keep them in a seat they cannot fulfill, you are setting them up to fail and hurting the entire company.

You must separate the person from the seat by running them through the GWC™ tool. Ask yourself honestly: Do they get it, want it, and have the capacity to do it? In this case, they may get it and want it, but they lack the capacity to scale the department to thirty million dollars. Capacity includes intellectual, emotional, and physical capability.

The solution is to restructure the Accountability Chart for where the business is going, not where it has been. You need to hire a heavy-hitting marketing leader who can run the department at scale. At the same time, you should design a new, highly valued seat for your loyal employee that fits their actual conative strengths.

To find this new seat, look at their Kolbe A™ Index results. If they are natural at building relationships or managing specific projects rather than scaling strategic systems, move them to a specialized role that utilizes those natural talents. Present this transition as an opportunity for them to focus on what they do best, free from the stress of a role that is crushing them. You preserve their dignity, keep their institutional knowledge, and protect team morale by showing that loyalty is respected, but accountability is absolute.