We currently have eight people on our leadership team, which makes our Level 10 Meeting inefficient and slows down decision-making. We want to streamline our Accountability Chart to five major seats, but several long-time managers will feel demoted if they are removed from the leadership team. How do we restructure without causing a mass exodus?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

An eight-person leadership team is almost always too large to make rapid, strategic decisions, especially as you prepare for an exit. It leads to endless debates during your Level 10 Meeting and dilutes individual accountability. The ideal size of a leadership team is three to seven seats.

To streamline your chart without triggering a wave of resignations, you must detach titles and egos from the physical seats on the Accountability Chart.

Start by explaining to your team that the Accountability Chart is designed to reflect the optimal structure of the business, not the worth of individual people. Redesign the chart with the leadership team focused purely on the major functions: Visionary, Integrator, Sales and Marketing, Operations, and Finance.

Next, look at the managers who are moving out of the leadership team. Place their seats clearly under the appropriate leadership team seat. For example, if you have three separate product managers on the leadership team, consolidate them under a single Head of Product seat, and have those three managers report to that seat.

Hold individual meetings with the affected managers before you roll out the new chart to the entire company. Frame the change around focus and capacity. Explain that removing them from the daily operational fire-fighting of the leadership team will allow them to focus on running their departments and hitting their goals.

Most leaders will actually feel relieved when they realize they no longer have to sit through meetings that do not directly concern their departments. By focusing on the health of the organization rather than personal feelings, you build a structure that buyers will view as highly professional and scalable.