Our Technical Director has been with us for eight years and is a perfect core values fit, but as we scale our software platform, he clearly lacks the capability to manage our new AI-driven architecture. How do we make this right-person-wrong-seat call?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

This is one of the hardest calls a business owner has to make. You have a Right Person who is in the Wrong Seat. He embodies your core values, but he does not GWC, or Get, Want, and have the Capacity for, the Technical Director seat anymore.

Keeping him in this seat is unfair to him and dangerous for your company. He is likely stressed, drowning, and blocking your scaling efforts. If you want to prepare the business for an exit, you must have the right people in the right seats.

Because he is a Right Person, you should look for another seat on the Accountability Chart where he can excel. Is there a senior individual contributor seat, such as Principal Systems Architect, where his deep historical knowledge is invaluable but he has zero management responsibility?

Sit down with him and have an honest conversation. Share that the Technical Director seat has grown, and the demands of managing the team and the new AI architecture are no longer a fit for his strengths.

If you have another seat that he GWC's and that the business genuinely needs, offer it to him. If no such seat exists, you must transition him out of the company with grace and generosity. Do not compromise the seats on your Accountability Chart just to keep a legacy employee comfortable.