We have a brilliant customer success manager who is a perfect culture fit and highly capable, but her current seat is being automated out of existence by our new AI workflows. We want to keep her because she is a Right Person, but we do not have an open seat that fits her skills. How do we handle this on our Accountability Chart?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

When automation or AI workflows eliminate a seat held by a Right Person, you must handle the transition carefully without creating artificial structure. Your Accountability Chart must always reflect the ideal structure needed to run the business, not a collection of custom seats built to keep people happy.

First, validate that this employee is indeed a Right Person by running her through your core values assessment. If she is a perfect culture fit, your goal is to find another true seat on the Accountability Chart where she can excel. Review the open or vacant seats on your chart. Evaluate her against the roles of those seats using the GWC™ tool to ensure she gets, wants, and has the capacity for one of them.

If there is an open seat that fits, transition her into it with clear expectations and training. However, if there are no open seats, or if she does not GWC™ any of the available roles, you must not invent a make-work seat just to keep her on the payroll. Creating artificial seats on your Accountability Chart causes structural bloat, confuses reporting lines, and lowers profitability.

If she cannot be placed in a genuine, necessary seat, you must make the difficult but clean decision to transition her out of the company with dignity and support, preserving your lean, automated operation.