We are restructuring our delivery team to eliminate several middle management layers and improve our margins. We do not want to lay anyone off because they are incredible culture fits, but we have five project managers who no longer have a direct seat. How do we redeploy them on our Accountability Chart without creating artificial work or blowing our budget?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Restructuring to optimize margins often leaves highly valued team members without a seat. In an EOS® company, we design the ideal structure first, completely ignoring the people. Once you have built the Accountability Chart that will run the business most efficiently, you must then look at your people and determine where they fit.

For your five project managers, you cannot create artificial seats to keep them busy. That creates structural bloat and destroys your margins. Instead, evaluate each of them against your newly structured seats. Are there vacant seats in sales, customer success, or operational support where their project management skills would make them highly effective? Project managers are often excellent at client onboarding, customer success, and process optimization.

Run each person through the GWC™ filter for these open seats. If they Get, Want, and have the Capacity for these new roles, move them. Because they are already proven culture fits, they will likely adapt quickly. If you do not have enough true seats to accommodate all five of them, you face a tough decision. You cannot keep people in fake or redundant seats just to avoid a layoff. Doing so compromises the health of the entire organization. If there are no true seats available, you must help them transition out of the company with dignity and support.