How to build an accountability chart for your business

Executive overview

Most org charts show hierarchy. An accountability chart shows ownership — who is responsible for each function delivering results.

Every business has exactly three major functions: sales and marketing, operations, and finance. All three must be strong; weakness in any one creates a predictable failure mode.

A weak function is always the bottleneck — fix the seat before filling it.

The three major functions and their failure modes

• Weak finance: selling and delivering, but money leaks out
• Weak sales/marketing: talented team with no customers to serve
• Weak operations: can sell but can't deliver — produces one-time customers

Building the structure

• Start with the three functions, then customise seats to fit your business
• Sales/marketing may split into two seats; ops may span one to three; finance may include HR
• Design seats for where the business needs to be in the next six to twelve months
• For each seat, define the five major roles — what that seat must deliver to the organisation

The visionary and integrator seats

• Every organisation has two additional fixed seats: the visionary and the integrator
• The visionary is typically the founder — the big-idea person
• The integrator harmoniously orchestrates operations and executes day-to-day
• Define the five specific roles each of these individuals brings to the organisation

Putting the right people in the right seats

• Right person = shares core values
• Right seat = they get, want, and have the capacity to do the role well
• Once seats are defined, place names in each seat based on that three-part test