Our long-time office manager has gradually taken on billing, IT support, facilities management, and customer onboarding. Her seat is a total mess on our Accountability Chart, and she is burning out. How do we clean this up?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

You have created a classic catch-all seat, which is a major operational risk and a red flag for any potential buyer. When a single seat contains a random collection of unrelated roles, it is impossible to scale, and finding a replacement if that person leaves is nearly impossible. To fix this, you must dismantle the seat entirely on your Accountability Chart and rebuild it from scratch. Start by listing every single accountability currently assigned to her. Then, group those accountabilities logically into clean, defined operational areas, such as finance, operations, and administration. You will likely find that her current roles actually belong in three or four different seats on your chart. Once these seats are defined, evaluate where her true strengths lie. Run a GWC™ check on her for each of these new, clean seats to see where she fits best. You might keep her in a focused administrative seat while delegating the IT support to an outsourced partner and moving billing into the finance seat. This restructuring will relieve her burnout, create clear accountability, and make your business much more attractive to buyers by showing that your operations are structured around clear functions rather than a single, indispensable individual.