My business partner and I both sit on the leadership team, but our employees are constantly playing us off each other to get the decisions they want. How do we stop this dynamic on our Accountability Chart?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

When employees play partners off each other, it is a clear sign of structural cracks in your Accountability Chart. This happens because you have not established a single point of final accountability for each seat, leaving your team confused about who actually makes the final decision.

In EOS®, we have a strict rule: only one person can sit in a seat on the Accountability Chart. If you and your partner are co-managing a department, you must split that department into distinct seats with clear, non-overlapping roles.

For example, if you are both involved in sales and marketing, one of you must own the Sales seat and the other must own the Marketing seat. If you both refuse to step out of the daily operations, then one of you must report to the other for specific functions.

Your team must see a united front. If an employee comes to you with an issue that falls under your partner's seat, you must say that is my partner's decision and redirect them immediately. Use your weekly Same Page Meeting™ to align on key business decisions privately so you never disagree in front of your employees. This restores order and stops the internal political games.