Have you ever worked with, or heaven forbid, hired someone who was a really great person, and they just werenโt good at their job? Weโve all seen it. They were a great team player. They were an amazing core values fit, but they either could not or did not accomplish what they needed to.
When it comes down to it, bottom line, they were just not in the right seat. So, how do you avoid this and get your employees in the right seats? Todayโs episode is about discussing that very thing. In EOSยฎ, Right Seats is a powerful tool that focuses on placing the right people in the right roles within your organization.
Itโs about ensuring every team memberโs skills, strengths, and passions are aligned with their specific accountabilities. The Right Seat tool ensures that every team member finds their perfect fit within your organization, maximizing their potential. Placing all employees in the right seats creates clarity and productivity throughout your organization.
By identifying the key roles and responsibilities for a seat, you can objectively evaluate if you have a โright personโ in it. This simplifies your hiring, firing, reviewing, rewarding, and recognizing because itโs clear what needs to be accomplished within the role. Additionally, focusing on the right seats will help with capacity planning in your organization.
The right seats are part of the EOS Accountability Chart, which you should always have mapped out 6โ12 months ahead of time. Remember to focus on structure first, people second. Seats are never created just to fit someone into your company. Imagine a whiteboard and inheriting your company as it is right now and saying, โIf we could start from scratch, what is the right structure to be more efficient, to clearly and cleanly deliver exactly what we do?โ
Letโs come back to that Accountability Chart. How do you know if someoneโs in the right seat? You determine this using your People Analyzerยฎ and the EOS GWCโข tool. Thatโs the right seat portion of the People Analyzer. G stands for โget itโ.
โWantโ is the W, and โcapacity to do itโ is the C. When youโre using this tool, itโs important to be open and honest. First, you have to ask yourself, does the employee get what the seat is? Do they understand what must be done and what it takes to do their job? If someone is in the right seat, itโs part of their DNA.
I often ask teams at this point to think about a bookkeeper. If you think about the DNA of a bookkeeper, you might hit some bullet-pointed kind of things that would globally, accurately describe the DNA of someone who would be a great bookkeeper. They might be more introverted, and more organized.
They might love having a number of computer monitors going at the same time. They might really progress and think in linear terms. They might appreciate being in a quieter part of an office and less outward facing, more inward facing. They have natural problem-solving skillsโthings like that.
If you compare that DNA to someone whoโs more of a hunter-salesperson, they might be more outgoing. Theyโre more extroverted, maybe a little more gregarious. They like being outside of the company. Their office might be the front seat of their car. They might not be perceived as the most organized person. Things like that are DNA; itโs in the very fiber of who they are.
The second one: Want it. You want to evaluate if your employee truly wants that seat. Again, this is where you have to be open, honest, and vulnerable. You canโt want a seat for someone else. You have to look at whether they come in fired up, excited, and leave with as much energy at the end of the day as they came in with at the beginning of the day.
If you truly want it, you would do it whether you were paid or not. Itโs the kind of thing that brings out the best in who you are. And by doing that work, you in turn get the energy and excitement from what you get to contribute. Itโs a reciprocity thing.
Last, youโre going to ask yourself if that employee has the capacity to do the job.
Do they have the time, the energy, and the experience to successfully sit in that seat? When youโre evaluating this, do not get caught in the โpotential trap.โ If they donโt have the skills today, theyโre a no for now. If your organization needs those skills at their highest functioning level, you have to have someone whoโs there at this moment.
If they could grow into it over time, you cannot compromise the greater good of your company for that employeeโs learning curve. If they can learn their seat, theyโre the right person, and if they can get it done in a time that suits the organization, then absolutely invest the time. Lack of delegation to any seat is usually a sign you donโt believe someone has the capacity.
They either donโt get it, donโt want it, or canโt get it done because you donโt trust them. You will hang on to it as a good leader and get it done yourself. Now, if you answer no to any of the above questionsโget it, want it, or capacityโthat employee is in the wrong seat. Should that happen, itโs time to make a change.
If the employee is a right person, meaning they are a core values fit, you want to look at The Accountability Chartโข to see if thereโs an open seat they could fit in. You go through that GWC process for the new seat to ensure that they truly get it, want it, and have the capacity to succeed in that role.
It is a binary answer. It is a โHell yes!โ or a โHell no!โ. Anything short of 100% yes is no. If thereโs not an open seat, you have to do the right thing for the greater good of the company. And you have to let that person go even when theyโre a right person. And this can be a really difficult thing to do.
However, you have to vote for the greater good of the whole. Let me give you an example. If thereโs an employee whoโs a right person, and they joined your company as, say, a marketing specialist, and they excel in problem-solving, and they also happen to have a knack for analytics, but theyโre not succeeding in that seat, you could use GWC, and you might discover their true passion and skill set aligns more with data analysis and insights.
And if thatโs the case, and thereโs an open seat in data analytics or insights, you shift them and move them into that seat, which would get them to be in a right seat and enhance both their performance and their job satisfaction.
As you determine the right seats, itโs critical to ensure only one person is in each seat. When you attempt to share accountabilityโwhen two or more people are accountableโno one is accountable. It creates confusion, and it doesnโt allow you to clearly see where your issues are. Said another way, if your butt is in someone elseโs seat, their butt wonโt fit!
You also have to keep in mind that an employee can become the wrong person over time. It can erode that core values fit if they stay in a wrong seat too long. Sometimes when smaller companies are getting going, they multitask. Every employee is like a Swiss army knife. And because of that, thereโs no role clarity.
So if you go back to that hunter-salesperson and bookkeeper example, imagine if that hunter-salesperson had ninja masks. They can do bookkeeping, but they really donโt thrive at that kind of work. They might fill a short-term need for the company, but youโre going to ruin the best of that human.
And over time, they will no longer be a good human in your culture. They wonโt fit, so you have to consistently be evaluating your Accountability Chart as often as you need to, ensuring itโs a forward-facing map of accountabilities for your company, always 6โ12 months into the future. Short term, can an employee fill more than one seat?
We donโt recommend it for any length of time. I had a client once, and there were four owners. One of the owners was struggling in a seat, and they had taken on a finance seat because they did happen to have those kinds of skills. When we truly unlocked what was happening, that person actually ended up stepping off the leadership team during a session, and they went into the body of the organization.
In other words, they took off their owner seat or owner hat, and they became an employee. And guess what? Once they got out of the wrong seat, it was the right fit. And even though they were an owner, they functioned as a team member, and they were happy every day at work. Allowing him to get back to doing his highest and best work actually helped grow the company.
These are tough conversations to have because our ego gets in the way. But really truly, when you think about what The EOS Lifeยฎ is aboutโdoing work you love with people you love, making a huge difference, being compensated appropriately with time for other passionsโit sometimes means that seat isnโt necessarily something in front of you.
It might be something you were doing before you ascended to a leadership position. It does happen. Itโs not the rule. Itโs the exception to the rule, but it does happen. The most important thing you can do is get people doing work they love with people they love. Right Seats is about doing work you love.
Consistently evaluating whether your employees are in the right seats is the key to achieving freedom within EOS. It allows you to delegate effectively and keep your organization growing efficiently while using your people analyzer to hire, fire, review, reward, and recognize people with clarity and confidence.
When every employee is the right person in the right seat, they excel in roles that capitalize on their strengths. This leads to increased productivity, a fully engaged culture, and overall business success.
