When the Numbers Finally Tell the Truth
I recently worked with a leadership team facing a serious decline in revenue.
The problem had not appeared clearly enough on the company’s scorecard. By the time the extent of the gap became undeniable, the business was facing some very difficult decisions.
As we began to IDS the issue, the person responsible for commercial growth explained that the market had contracted. There was less work available, competitors were chasing the same opportunities & the company was simply receiving a smaller share of a smaller pie.
That would have been a reasonable explanation – if it had been supported by evidence.
So we started asking questions.
- How large is the addressable market?
- How has it changed?
- What share of it do we currently hold?
- What is happening to enquiry volumes, conversion rates & average deal sizes?
- Which segments are growing or declining?
- Where is the reliable market intelligence supporting the forecast?
There were no clear answers.
Some external research suggested the broader market may actually have been growing. That research was disputed because it did not perfectly match the company’s particular niche.
That criticism may have been valid.
But it missed the point.
The most important discovery was not whether the market was growing or shrinking. It was that the person accountable for generating revenue did not know.
They were guessing.
They had previously agreed to the company’s revenue target without raising a material concern about the market. They had not sounded an early warning. They had not brought evidence to the leadership team. They had not created the visibility the business needed to respond before the problem became critical.
The ineffective scorecard allowed the issue to remain hidden.
But the lack of ownership allowed it to grow.
Wanting The Seat Is Not the Same as Being Able to Do the Job
In EOS®, we talk about whether someone Gets it, Wants it & has the Capacity to do it.
Most struggling employees will tell you that they want the role.
They may want the title, the authority, the salary or the status that comes with it.
But wanting the seat is only one-third of the equation.
A capable commercial leader should understand the market, the opportunity, the pipeline & the risks. They should be able to explain what is happening using more than instinct & anecdotes. Most importantly, they should raise problems while the leadership team still has time to do something about them.
Finding out that the revenue target will be missed when jobs are already at risk is not forecasting.
It is reporting the accident after it has happened.
A similar pattern can appear elsewhere in a company. An employee may be delightful in conversations with the owner while being rigid, unhelpful or belligerent with everyone else. They may hide behind their job description, resist accountability & behave in ways that contradict the organisation’s core values.
Yet the owner continues to see them as wonderful.
That employee has learned how to manage up.
Managing up effectively is not the same as leading effectively.
Loyalty is not a performance measure
This is where owners become trapped.
“But they have been with me for years.”
“They have always been loyal.”
“Our clients know them.”
“I’m worried that the relationships will leave with them.”
“I genuinely like them.”
Those statements may all be true.
None of them answers the essential question: Are they the right person in the right seat?
Someone can:
- Be loyal & still be wrong for the role.
- Be likeable & still be damaging the team.
- Have valuable relationships & still be creating an unacceptable level of risk.
In fact, when all of the company’s important relationships live inside one employee’s phone, head or personal network, that is not an argument for avoiding the problem. It is evidence of a dangerous key-person dependency that should have been addressed already.
The answer is to bring those relationships into the business: shared account ownership, documented information, proper CRM discipline, joint client meetings & deliberate succession planning.
Keeping the wrong person indefinitely does not solve the dependency.
It deepens it.
Listen To the Version of the Person That You Do Not See
Owners must also recognise that they often receive a specially curated version of an employee.
The owner controls salaries, opportunities, influence & job security. Of course, some people behave differently around them.
That does not mean every complaint from the team is automatically correct. Leadership teams can contain conflict, politics & misunderstandings.
But when several capable people independently describe the same behaviour, the owner cannot simply dismiss it because it does not match their personal experience.
Your team may be seeing something you are protected from.
Ask for examples. Look for patterns. Compare the behaviour with your core values. Establish clear outcomes for the seat. Measure performance properly. Then act on what the evidence tells you.
Accountability Does Not Always Begin with Termination
This is not necessarily a firing issue on day one.
It is an accountability issue on day one.
The person deserves clarity about what the role requires, where they are falling short, what must change & by when. The process should be fair, direct & properly documented.
From there, the possible outcomes are straightforward:
They demonstrate that they Get it, Want it & have the Capacity to do it.
They move into a seat that is genuinely suited to them.
Or they leave the organisation.
What cannot continue is endless accommodation without consequences while the rest of the business absorbs the cost.
Because the cost is rarely paid by the protected employee. It is paid by the:
- Strong performers who become frustrated & leave.
- Leadership team that stops speaking honestly.
- Employees whose positions become vulnerable when revenue disappears.
- Owner whose business becomes less valuable, less stable & less enjoyable to run.
The Decision Still Belongs to the Owner
As an EOS Implementer, I can help a leadership team uncover the real issue.
I can ask the uncomfortable questions, help people say the things they have been avoiding, & challenge explanations that are not supported by evidence & help the team identify what must happen next.
But I cannot make the decision for the owner.
Eventually, the owner must choose between protecting a relationship & protecting the business.
And refusing to make that choice is still a choice.
To put it bluntly: a person can be lovely, loyal & long-serving & still fuck your business.
Keeping them in the wrong seat is not kindness.
It is choosing your own comfort over everyone else’s future.
Right People, Right Seats is not a slogan. Ignore it long enough, & it becomes a redundancy list.
