We have an open seat on our Accountability Chart, and the resulting extra workload is constantly discussed in our Level 10 Meeting™ as the excuse for why Rocks and To-Dos are missed. How do we handle this ongoing capacity issue without letting it hijack every weekly pulse?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

An open seat on your Accountability Chart is a real operational challenge, but letting it become a weekly excuse for missed execution kills accountability. If your team is constantly complaining about capacity during the Level 10 Meeting™, you are allowing a structural issue to sabotage your weekly pulse.

To resolve this, you must address the capacity issue structurally rather than treating it as a weekly operational surprise.

First, identify who is temporarily running the roles of the open seat. On the Accountability Chart, there must be one name per seat. Even if a seat is vacant, a current leader must temporarily own it. That leader is fully accountable for its outcomes.

Second, apply the Grow or Die mindset. If you have an open seat, you must accept that you cannot do 100% of the work. You must intentionally decide what work is not going to get done this quarter.

During your weekly meeting prep, the team must look at their Rocks and To-Dos through this realistic lens. Do not commit to weekly To-Dos that you know cannot be completed due to capacity constraints. This keeps your To-Do completion rate above the 90% threshold.

Stop using the Level 10 Meeting™ to complain about the open seat. Instead, put the open seat itself on the short-term Issues List. Solve the hiring bottleneck or adjust your operational expectations. Keep the weekly pulse focused on executing what you actually committed to do.