When we build our Accountability Chart structure without names, it becomes painfully obvious that an early employee cannot fulfill the newly defined leadership seat. How do we keep the room focused on structure before people when everyone knows an existing leader is about to lose their seat?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

When you build an Accountability Chart correctly, you strip away every name and look at the company as a cold system designed to hit the V/TO®. That process inevitably exposes seats where a long-standing leader cannot cut it. If the room feels nervous, address it head-on. Remind the team that you cannot solve two problems at once: you cannot simultaneously architect a thirty-million-dollar company and manage someone's personal feelings.

First, enforce the rule that no names are spoken during the structure design phase. You are designing boxes and accountabilities based purely on what the business requires over the next six to twelve months. If someone says an existing manager cannot handle a role, call a timeout. The question is not what that manager can do; the question is what the seat requires.

Second, once the structure is established, conduct GWC™ (Gets It, Wants It, Capacity to do it) evaluations privately or with the Integrator and Visionary. If a person does not have GWC for the newly structured seat, you have three options:
- Redefine their scope into a more focused seat where they have total GWC.
- Elevate them to an individual contributor role if their technical skills are unmatched.
- Transition them out of the business with dignity and generous severance.

Do not cripple the entire enterprise to spare one person's ego. A business that bends its architecture around underperforming people will eventually break under market pressure.