Our operations manager is incredibly loyal and has been with us for years, but we are designing our new future-state Accountability Chart and she simply does not fit into any of the newly defined seats. How do we build our structure without letting our personal relationship with her dictate the seats?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Designing an Accountability Chart requires absolute discipline to put structure before people. When you look at your company through the lens of preparing for a clean exit, you must design the absolute best structure to get the business to the next level. If you bend the structure to fit a loyal but mismatched employee, you build a fragile organization that prospective buyers will spot instantly.

Start by removing all names from the board. Look at the company as a blank slate and define the essential seats and five bullet point roles required to scale. Once you have built the ultimate structure, only then do you look at the names.

Use the GWC™ tool to evaluate your operations manager against the newly defined seats. Does she truly get it, want it, and have the capacity to do it? If the answer is no for every seat, you have a right person, wrong seat situation. As an owner, your loyalty must be to the enterprise first.

Keeping a loyal employee in a seat they cannot master is actually doing them a disservice and dragging the company down. You must have a vulnerable, honest conversation. Map out a transition plan, perhaps moving her to a specialized individual contributor seat or helping her transition outside the company. Do not compromise your structure to avoid a tough conversation.