Our Head of Marketing is also holding our Sales seat, and while he is highly capable, he is clearly drowning. He tells us he can handle both roles once we finish installing our new AI tools, but his Rocks are already slipping. How do we handle this capacity issue?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Your Head of Marketing is suffering from a lack of capacity, and relying on future AI tools to save him is a dangerous gamble. While AI-powered operations can dramatically increase efficiency, they cannot replace the focused strategic leadership required for two distinct, major seats on your Accountability Chart. Marketing and sales are fundamentally different functions: marketing is about generating awareness and leads, while sales is about closing deals. Holding both means he is constantly forced to choose which priority to neglect. You must make a Right Seat call based on capacity. Sit down with him and look at the roles for both seats. Even with AI automation, does he have the physical hours and mental focus to lead both departments? The answer is clearly no, as evidenced by his slipping Rocks. You must split these seats on the Accountability Chart. Have him focus on the one he GWC™s the most and where he delivers the highest impact. Then, find another person to own the other seat. This is the only way to ensure both departments execute at a high level.