A while back, we started working with a CEO whose team was struggling with something I see all the time. They were great at writing things down. They had processes. They had systems. But actually putting it all to work, and keeping it going, kept slipping through the cracks.
So one of our Fractional COOs stepped in. She helped the CEO hand more work to her assistant, set up the meetings, trained her, and made sure everything ran smoothly.
Today, the work lands with the right people. Natalie Swan, CEO of Swan & Associates, said it best. “It’s been amazing to see responsibilities finally being handled by the right people.”
That kind of shift is possible for your team too, and it starts with something I say all the time.
Don’t design the seat around a butt. Get clear on the seat first… then pick the butt that fits best. Yes, you can quote me on that.
It’s a silly line. It’s also one of the most useful questions a growing company can ask. Most “people problems” are really structure problems, and once you can see that, they get a lot easier to fix.
Why growing companies build seats around people
Because leaders genuinely care about their teams. Some team members have been there since the early days. Some are family. Some have been your right hand through every pivot. So when the business shifts, the question quietly becomes, “What else could they do for us? How can we use them?”
It’s a kind question. It comes from caring about your people.
It’s easy to keep someone busy, especially someone you love working with. But the question that helps your business grow is a different one. What does the business need today, and who owns it?
3 signs you have a seat problem
Seat problems are sneaky because they rarely look like seat problems. They look like dropped balls, stalled decisions, and work that keeps landing back on the founder’s desk. Here’s what to watch for:
Nobody owns it. Everyone assumes someone else has it. “I’m sure somebody owns that.” No. It’s got to be black and white.
Two people own it. I’m all for a cross-trained team. But when ownership is shared, it gets loosey-goosey. It’s not clear enough for either person, and it gets frustrating or unnecessarily confusing.
Everything runs through the founder. Founders often hold far more than anyone realizes. If your team can’t say what you’re responsible for, they don’t know who to go to for what… so it all comes back to you.
If deadlines are slipping a few days at a time while you quietly pick up the slack, those small gaps add up faster than you’d think. We break that down in Overcoming Communication Gaps…Because Your Ops Can’t Thrive Without It.
If nobody owns it, there’s no accountability. The good news is that every one of these can be fixed, and usually faster than you’d think.
It’s a seat problem, not a people problem
Most people problems start as seat problems. When you get clear on what the seat requires, you take the emotion and personalities out of it and design around what the business structure actually needs. That’s not an HR conversation. It’s an operations one.
It doesn’t mean the person isn’t good enough. It means setting the person aside long enough to see the seat clearly. This is about what the seat needs, not whether you like the person. I know I say this a lot. It’s hard when we really like our people!
What is a Roles + Responsibilities Chart?
A Roles + Responsibilities Chart is a simple spreadsheet that maps every responsibility in your business to exactly one owner. It’s one of the main tools we use when we do team design with clients.
Every primary responsibility gets a row.
Every person, contractor, and vendor gets a column.
Every row gets exactly one owner.
Ownership doesn’t mean doing all the work. You may not be the one doing it, but it’s your job to make sure it gets done. That’s the difference between handing off tasks and handing off outcomes, which we dig into in Build a Stronger Backstage by Investing in Your 2nd-in-Command.
The chart works for future seats, too. Map a role you’ll need next year now, so when the budget’s ready, you already know what goes on its plate.
Ours also has an AI column. Anything we plan to hand off to AI gets a little robot emoji, because AI needs an owner, too. If no one is tracking what AI has been told to do, it’s like building email funnels nobody can keep track of.
Assigning and maintaining ownership across all of it, people, vendors, and AI, is a core part of what a fractional COO does.
How to start your Roles + Responsibilities Chart in 10 minutes
Start with one department and fill in the rows. Then highlight:
Any row with no owner
Any row with two owners
The three rows you’d hand off first
That list is where your next leadership conversation starts. You might be surprised how quickly you can knock it out, and how intuitive it feels once you start.
Download the Roles + Responsibilities Chart Template below. It’s the exact one we use at Backstage Ops and with our clients, AI column and all.
Clarity is kind: what clear ownership does for your team
When things are clear, it’s kind to the people stepping in and wanting to own their work effectively. Nobody does their best work while guessing what they’re responsible for.
Fewer interruptions. Once in a while, my team goes back to our chart to check, “Wait, who owns this? Who do I ask?” It cuts down on a lot of unnecessary communication.
Cleaner contractor and vendor agreements. We pull each person’s rows straight into their statement of work, so it’s crystal clear what they own.
Clear seats don’t happen by accident. If you filled in the chart and found more empty rows than you expected, or saw just how much still runs through you, that’s normal. It’s where most teams start. Once every seat has a clear owner, your team gets to do their best work, and you get your time back.
Schedule a call and let’s map your seats, assign the owners, and build the systems that keep it all clear.
