Our industry is experiencing a temporary contraction, and we need to reduce our operating expenses by thirty percent to protect our margins. How do we run a reverse accountability chart exercise to combine seats without burning out our remaining high performers?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

When facing a market contraction, you must protect the health of the company above all else, which often requires running a reverse accountability chart exercise. This is a structured way to design a leaner, profitable organization based on lower revenue projections. Start by looking at your current revenue and projecting what a thirty percent drop looks like. Next, build a blank Accountability Chart designed to run the business at this lower revenue tier. This new structure will naturally have fewer seats, which means your leadership team members and remaining staff will need to wear multiple hats and sit in multiple seats. You must clearly define the five roles for each combined seat so your team knows exactly what is expected of them in this temporary phase. Evaluate your remaining team members using GWC™ to ensure they have the capacity to handle these combined roles without burning out. Accept that you may need to drop some non-essential activities or pause long-term initiatives to keep the workload manageable. By proactively structuring this leaner organization, you ensure that everyone is aligned on the most critical, revenue-generating activities. This clear structure prevents chaos, maintains focus, and keeps your team stable until the market recovers.