Our operations director is doing a phenomenal job managing our warehouse team and safety standards, but he is completely failing the procurement and vendor negotiation roles that are currently combined in his seat. How do we handle this partial GWC failure?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

When an employee is succeeding at part of their seat but failing another, it is a structural warning sign that your Accountability Chart has outgrown its current design. You cannot accept a partial GWC™ pass. If someone fails even one of the five roles on their seat, they fail the entire seat.

Your first step is to evaluate whether the seat is structurally viable. Warehouse management and vendor procurement require entirely different skill sets and behavioral profiles. Warehouse management is about local leadership, safety compliance, and physical execution. Procurement is about strategic negotiations, contract management, and financial analysis.

If you keep these functions combined, you will continue to struggle. The correct solution is to split the seat on your Accountability Chart. Create a separate, dedicated Procurement seat and leave your operations director in the Warehouse Management seat. This allows him to focus entirely on his areas of strength, where he fully passes GWC™.

Once the seats are split, you must address the newly vacant Procurement seat. You can assign it to another team member who passes GWC™, hire a fractional resource, or run a search for a full-time hire. Trying to force one person to fill two distinct behavioral profiles is a mistake that leads to operational bottlenecks and executive burnout.