The Hidden Cost of Wearing Too Many Hats: The EOS Fix | Debra Chantry-Taylor | Ep 221

Debra Chantry-Taylor  00:08

Hi there and welcome back to Better Business, Better Life Podcast. I'm Debra Chantry-Taylor, the host EOS implementer, family business advisor and business owner, Debra music. Today I'm going to be diving into something I see all the time in family businesses and professional services firms. It's where everyone's wearing too many hats, and believe it or not, it's costing the business more than you think.

I've been very privileged to work with over 600 business owners, many of them in family run or partner led businesses and time and time again, one thing that crops up is people doing a bit of everything, but no one truly owning anything. Does that sound familiar to you?

Debra Chantry-Taylor  00:53

So let's have a talk about the problem, the problem of too many hats. If you think about what this actually looks like in real life, it's where you've got things like founders still approving every single decision in the business. We've got partners doing admin instead of strategy. So working in the business, not on the business. You've got family members stepping into roles that they're not really suited for, because that's how it's always been.

It starts with good intentions, pitching in, helping out, filling the gaps, but it usually ends with burnout, finger pointing and drop balls. I once worked with a professional services firm where six partners were all doing a bit of sales, a bit of ops, a bit of hiring. Their team didn't know who to go to for the decisions, and clients were confused too. The result was that morale was low and revenue was flat. And why was that? Because everybody thought someone else had it.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  01:40

And now layer in family so family business gets even more complicated. It's not just about hats, but it's about history. It might be birth order, dinner table conversations, decades of unspoken assumptions, and there's all these emotional traps in a family business. You've got roles that are chosen by relationships, not skill sets. You're avoiding the hard conversations to keep the peace in the family, or you're approaching it with the we're all equal mindset, leading to no leadership. One of the tools that I love to use is the Harvard Three-Circle Model, because it's a great way to understand the complexity. You're not just business owners, you're family. You may also be operators. That's three different circles with three different sets of decisions, but most family businesses make the decisions from the overlap, and that's where it gets messy, and that's where it gets messy. So how do we fix it? How do we fix this? Too many hats, the overlap between the three circles. What is the thing we can actually do to kind of simplify this all down? And I think the first fix is using the EOS Accountability Chart. It's not an organisational chart, it's a clarity chart. And we always say that clarity creates confidence. So what it does is defines the right seats for the business today, and then we put the right people into those seats. We always say, structure, first, people, second. And the key features about the accountability chart is it really is based on function, not title.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  03:00

So we look at the business and we say, Hey, what are the main functions in the business? So by looking at the function and actually defining what we require from the lead of that function, the person is accountable, whereas we've got one seat one, but on that seat no shared ownership, it makes it really clear about who people should go to. And then we use a thing called GWC. And GWC and GWC is an EOS term. It's about getting it, wanting it, and capacity to do it. And if you think about this from these three perspectives, so get it means it's absolutely in their DNA. They know what this job entails. They were born to do it. It's kind of part of their unique ability. They absolutely get what is required by that role. The want it comes down to do. They genuinely want to get out of bed every single morning and come into work because it's a job that they absolutely love.

And finally, the capacity to do it has a couple of elements to it. So the first one is, do they have the technical knowledge, the expertise, the experience, the qualifications to actually do that role properly? And do they have the time capacity as well? And the time capacity really comes down to not whether or not they have enough time, because we all have 24 hours in a day, seven days a week. But do they have the capacity to do the role? Is it a full time role? Is it a part time role? Do they actually have that time to do it, and with all of their capability, can they do it in the right amount of time?

Debra Chantry-Taylor  04:16

So an example in a multi-generational family business that I worked with, Mum was still running finance, stab was handling ops, and the kids were stepping into random roles. We paused, and we stepped back, and we mapped the real functions, sales and marketing, ops, finance and people. And it turns out one of the sons was an absolute natural integrator, but nobody had really seen it because he was stuck doing random admin. And that shift changed everything. Another tool that I love to use is to go a little bit deeper, is about using what is called the RASCI. And the RASCI is a tool that's designed for complexity, so sometimes that accountability chart just isn't enough, especially when you've got more complex like multiple partners, project based work or even a board or a private equity partner. And that's where I bring in RASCI. And yes, mine includes the all important . So that's R, A, S, C, I, and the all important S is for specialist. So if you think about the racing, it normally stands for responsible, accountable, consulted, uninformed, but with a s in there as well. So racing with an S, it's actually a person who's got deep technical, legal expertise, who aren't responsible or accountable, but whose input is critical.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  05:24

So if we think about what RASCI stands for, R is responsible, who's actually doing the work? Who's responsible for getting this stuff done, the A is accountable. So who actually owns the outcome? So the person on the accountability chart who actually owns the outcome may not be the person who's actually doing the work, but they actually own getting to that end result. The specialist or S is for the person who brings in specific expertise and consulted with. The C is for who gets asked for input. So consultant does does not mean you have to take on board what they say 100% but you're asking for input so you can make an informed decision. And then the I in race is for informed so it's who gets told what's going on. The tool is absolute gold when you've got too many cooks or when there is a board involved. So why do boards trigger racies? Because board members are often consulted or informed, but they don't run the actual business. But the lines tend to get blurred, especially in family businesses, where board members are also family, or when the board is made with investors and professional services firms, that can be another kind of, you know, blurring of lines.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  06:26

And so I once worked with a professional services business with a very active advisory board. The leadership team didn't know where their role ended and the boards began. Everyone thought they had to run everything past the board, but the board was getting bogged down in day to day. Once we introduced the RASCI, the tension dropped. Decision Making sped up, and everyone got back in their lane. And what that RASCI did was it defined, you know, where does the board actually need to be involved? They need to be involved in the long-term strategic planning of the business. That is what as a board is all about. But they're not involved in the day-to-day operations. They're not involved in the scorecard and the rocks and the things that go on day to day. And so by introducing the race here, that tension dropped. Everybody got back on with it. It gave them a shared language and a structure, in combination with the accountability chart to stop things from getting political or overly involved. So what's the cost of inaction?

Debra Chantry-Taylor  07:14

Here's the reality, if you don't get clarity, you'll lose good people. The good ones will burn out, or they'll leave, and you'll keep fighting fires instead of building the future. What this means is things like misgrowth, stress on relationships, the family tension spills into business decisions and partners losing sight of their own role. So you're probably thinking, okay, where on earth do I start? My desperate plea to you is, don't overthink it. Just start here. Number one, define the functions of your business, the main functions of your business, and use the adage of less is more or less but obsess. I could argue for hours about whether sales and marketing is split into one or two seats, one or two functions. I could argue for hours about whether or not you have all of the different operational divisions being represented, the leadership team. The reality is, less is more. Your normal three areas are sales and marketing, operations and finance. What that means is we sell shit, we make shit and we bill for shit. And once you've got that, they're the main functions in the business. Number two is to build that accountability chart.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  08:14

So using the accountability chart tools that you'll find in the traction book or onto my podcasts, you want to go through and go if this is the main function of the business, what are the roles and responsibilities we want to hold that person accountable for? And so now what we've got is a box without with a function at the top and five or six main accountabilities or roles that they have to do.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  08:33

Once you've got that structure right, then you start to review each seat using GWC. Do you have a person that genuinely gets it, wants it, has capacity to do it. And then once you've got that, then you've normally got, you know, your sales, marketing, operations, finance, you've got your integrated, got your visionary. If you've now got a board involved, or you've got some kind of complex workflow, bring in the racy tool. Just be really clear. Where does the board actually have an accountability? Where don't they and then, of course, the last thing is, have the tough conversations. Sometimes we have to have those difficult conversations to really get to the bottom of what's going on.

And I would always say honestly, but with kindness or honestly with love. So those are the couple of tools that I really believe help when you've got complexity in either multi partner businesses or family businesses where emotions are running high and that the too,l that the tools are the accountability chart, the RASCI and the three circle family business model. If you're unsure where to begin, this is exactly what I help clients do during focused days and self implemented days. We get everything out of your head and onto paper so you can stop guessing and start leading.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  09:43

So ask yourself the honest question, are you actually wearing too many hats? Are your people wearing too many hats? Are your family members wearing too many hats? It's time to get really clear, because clarity creates confidence, and confidence creates traction. If any of this struck a chord.

With you, and you want help mapping out your structure, let's have a chat. Just email me at hello@businessaction.co.nz, or check out www.businessaction.co.nz, let's get you in the right seats and moving fast in the right direction.