We have an unsexy but critical Data Integrity and System Auditing seat that has been passed around our leadership team like a hot potato. Nobody wants to own it, and everyone claims it is beneath their pay grade. How do we resolve this without hiring an expensive outsider?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

If a seat is critical to your operations, it must live on your Accountability Chart with one name in it. Passing it around or leaving it unowned is a recipe for operational failure, especially if you are preparing for a clean exit where clean data is paramount.

First, look at the seat, not the people. Define the five core responsibilities of this Data Integrity seat. Once the roles are clear, your leadership team must identify who has the capacity and the skill set to lead this function. If it is truly beneath the pay grade of your leadership team, the solution is not to ignore it. Instead, you must delegate the daily tasks of the seat to a direct report while keeping one leadership team member accountable for its performance.

The leader who owns the department where this seat lives is ultimately accountable for its numbers on the Scorecard. They must manage the person running the daily tasks. If you cannot delegate it downward because you lack the staff, then one of your leadership team members must swallow their pride, put their name in the seat, and own it until you scale enough to hire.

Do not let egos dictate your structure. Every seat must have a clear owner who passes GWC™ for that role, regardless of how unsexy the work is. If you cannot find anyone internally to GWC this seat, use your Level 10 Meeting™ to IDS® the issue and determine if you need to hire a junior administrator to take over the daily execution.