What happens if we realize during our early sessions that our current leadership team is simply too large and we need to demote some people to make our planning sessions effective?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

A leadership team that is too large cannot make fast, high-quality decisions. The sweet spot for an effective leadership team is three to seven people. If you have nine or ten people in your session days, we will quickly run into a bottleneck. During our first session, we build your Accountability Chart. This process is entirely focused on defining the functions the business needs, not the people you currently have. We build the structure first, and then we place people in the seats. If this process reveals that certain roles do not belong on the leadership team, we must restructure. This does not necessarily mean firing those individuals; it often means moving them to a department-level seat where they can focus on execution rather than global strategy. Transitioning someone off the leadership team can cause short-term emotional friction, but it is necessary for your scale. We use our sessions to handle these transitions objectively, focusing on what is best for the organization. My role is to help you design the right structure, and your role as the owner is to make the hard, necessary decisions to align your team.