We have nine people sitting on our leadership team because every early employee wants the title and status of being in the room, but our meetings are bloated and slow. How do we use the Accountability Chart to restructure the team down to a healthy size without causing a mass exodus of key staff?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

A nine-person leadership team is not a leadership team; it is a committee. When a team gets that large, healthy debate dies, Level 10 Meetings become long and boring, and decisions grind to a halt. A healthy leadership team should typically consist of three to seven people.

To fix this, you must separate seat structure from human ego. Sit down with your Integrator and build the Accountability Chart for where the business needs to be in the next twelve months, completely ignoring the names of your current staff. Focus entirely on the major functions required to run the business. This process almost always yields a tighter, more focused structure of four or five key seats.

Once the ideal chart is built, map your people to the seats based on GWC. For those legacy employees who will no longer sit on the leadership team, you must have a proactive, respectful conversation. Explain that this restructuring is about operational efficiency and scaling the company, not a reflection of their value.

Show them how their new, highly focused seats allow them to make a bigger impact without the burden of weekly executive meetings. Emphasize that they are still critical to the company's success. By framing this transition around focus and execution rather than status and hierarchy, you can streamline your leadership team while keeping your legacy talent engaged.