When building our first Accountability Chart, we have legacy employees who do a little bit of everything. Trying to pin them down to five core roles is causing massive internal friction. How do we simplify their seats?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Legacy employees often wear multiple hats because they grew up with the business, but this lack of focus becomes a major bottleneck as you scale. To solve this, you must apply the structure before people rule. Stop trying to write roles that match everything your legacy employee currently does in a day. Instead, design the ideal seats your business needs to run efficiently. Once you have the empty seats defined, look at the legacy employee. They might be occupying three different seats on the new chart, such as customer service, office administration, and basic bookkeeping. Go ahead and write their name in all three seats. This makes their multi-hat reality visible to everyone. However, you must explain to them that this is temporary. As the business grows, they will need to delegate some of those seats so they can focus on the one seat they GWC™ best. To write the five core roles for each seat, focus only on the high-level, essential outcomes of that function, not a laundry list of daily tasks. Keep the roles simple and outcome-focused. This clarity reduces friction because the legacy employee finally knows exactly what success looks like, and it allows you to systematically hire help to peel off their extra seats over time.