Glossary
Right Person, Right Seat
Right person, right seat is a two-part test: the right person shares your core values, and the right seat means they get the job, want it and can do it. Splitting the question matters because the two failures need opposite responses. A values problem is usually a leaving conversation. A seat problem is often just a move.
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How EOS® uses Right Person, Right Seat
EOS scores the first half with the People Analyzer® and the second with GWC™. The pairing turns up in the quarterly conversation and whenever a leadership team looks at the Accountability Chart™, because a chart with names in it is a set of claims about right person and right seat that somebody has to be willing to defend.
Managers who blur the two questions get stuck. Somebody everybody likes who cannot do the job gets carried for two years, and a strong performer who ignores how the company works gets promoted anyway. Asking about values and capability separately gives you a clear next step in both cases, even when the step is one nobody wants.
Worked example: A logistics company had an operations manager everyone liked, nine years in and a fit on every value. On the seat test he did not want the job as it had grown. He wanted the version of it from when the company was half the size. They created a smaller dispatch role he was better at, and he stayed another six years.
Sources: Traction, Gino Wickman, chapter on People; How to Be a Great Boss, Gino Wickman and Rene Boer
GWC
GWC stands for gets it, wants it, and has the capacity to do it, the three-question test for whether somebody belongs in a particular seat.
02People Analyzer
The People Analyzer is a grid that rates each person against the company's core values with a plus, a minus or something in between.
03Core Values
Core values are the three to seven behaviors a company actually hires, fires and promotes on, written in words people already use at work.
04Accountability Chart
The Accountability Chart is a picture of the seats a company needs and the three to five things each seat owns, drawn before anybody's name goes in a box.
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