I am currently holding four seats on our Accountability Chart while we prepare for future hires. When writing the roles for these seats, I find myself blending the responsibilities together into a giant, confusing job description. How do I write clean, distinct roles for each of my four seats so I can maintain accountability and eventually offload them?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Wearing multiple hats is common in scaling companies, but you must keep those hats completely separate. If you blend the responsibilities of your four seats into a giant, single job description, you will never be able to delegate them. You will remain trapped in the daily grind, and prospective buyers will see your business as a risky, owner-dependent operation.

To clean this up, treat each of your four seats as if you were preparing to hire an external candidate for them tomorrow. Dedicate uninterrupted Thinking Time to write down the five major, high-level roles for each seat. Do not write down a list of tasks. Focus on the core accountabilities.

For your Visionary seat, your roles might be long-range vision, big relationships, and culture. For your Finance seat, it might be cash flow management, financial reporting, and compliance.

Keep these roles completely distinct on your Accountability Chart. When you are sitting in your Finance seat, you must act as the conservative protector of capital. When you are in your Visionary seat, you are the creative driver.

By isolating these roles, you can clearly see the capacity required for each. This allows you to plan your hiring roadmap and offload one clean, well-defined seat at a time.