We have a team of highly loyal, long-tenured employees who have worn multiple hats for years, and every time we try to build our Accountability Chart, we end up drawing boxes around their current daily tasks instead of designing the ideal structure. How do we break this bad habit and design a structure-first chart without triggering mass panic?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

When you build an Accountability Chart, you must act as if you are designing the company from scratch to hit your long term goals, with no employees currently on payroll. The most common mistake owners make is drawing boxes around the unique skill sets, quirks, and limitations of their existing staff. This is backwards. It locks your company into its current bottlenecks and prevents scalable growth.

To break this habit, take a step back and enter a session of Thinking Time as described by Keith Cunningham. Ask yourself: If we had to build a fifty million dollar version of this business today, what are the essential functions required to run it? You must design the empty boxes first, defining the exact roles and responsibilities for each seat before you write a single name inside them.

When you introduce the new chart to your team, be open and vulnerable to build trust, as outlined in the Trusted Advisor framework. Explain that this exercise is about building the vehicle that will carry the business to the next level, not a judgment on anyone's current performance. Assure them that while seats will change, the goal is to find the absolute best alignment where their natural strengths meet the needs of the business. Once the structure is locked, you can begin the objective process of running every individual through the GWC™ check to see if they get it, want it, and have the capacity to do it.