Our business model is shifting towards recurring revenue, but our current Accountability Chart™ is built around a legacy transaction model. How do we redesign our structure for this new model without creating massive internal politics and territory wars?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Redesigning your Accountability Chart™ during a major business model shift is a test of leadership maturity. The most common trap is trying to fit your current people into the new recurring revenue structure based on their current titles, relationships, or tenure. This always leads to politics, confusion, and execution failure. To run this transition cleanly, you must first design the structure with complete disregard for the people currently in your building. Treat the company as a blank slate. Ask yourself what structure is absolutely necessary to execute your new recurring revenue model over the next twelve months. You will likely need to create new seats, such as customer success or subscriber retention, while combining or eliminating legacy transactional sales roles. Once the ideal Accountability Chart™ is designed, only then do you begin placing names into the seats. Every person must fully GWC™ their seat. They must get it, want it, and have the capacity to do it. If a legacy leader who was incredible at transactional sales does not have the capacity or desire to manage customer lifetime value, they cannot be placed in that seat. You must have the courage to address these discrepancies openly. Frame the conversation around the needs of the business, not personal worth. By designing the structure first and the people second, you eliminate emotional bias and build an organization that can scale the new model.