We are trying to design our three-year-out future structure, but my leadership team keeps designing seats that secretly protect their own jobs and titles. How do we run a true structure before people exercise without this personal bias creeping in?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

To build an exit-ready superstructure, you must detach your current staff from the drawing board. When personal bias creeps in, your Accountability Chart becomes a mirror of your current team's limitations rather than a map for scalable growth.

To fix this, temporarily strip all names off your existing chart. Gather your leadership team and agree on a hard rule: for the next two hours, no one in the room has a job. Everyone is a clean slate. Focus entirely on the functions the business needs to hit your three-year target.

Ask what major seats must exist to run the operation at that scale. Define the five key roles for each seat without discussing who will fill them. If someone says, 'But what will Bob do?', flag it immediately as a violation of the rule.

Only after the structure is completely defined and locked do you begin matching names to seats. If a long-term leader does not GWC any of the newly defined seats, you must address that gap directly rather than bending the structure to accommodate them. Building a company around people creates a fragile, un-sellable business. Build the structure first, then place the right people in the right seats.