It Shouldn’t Be This Hard: The Truth About Right People, Right Seats (SOLO Episode)

Suzie shares a personal lesson about placing good people in the wrong roles and introduces a practical five-part Job Fit model and the REV process for turning chronic workplace friction into clarity, accountability, and momentum.

TOP 3 TAKEAWAYS

• 1. A good person can still be in the wrong seat.

Commitment, loyalty, kindness, and effort do not automatically equal job fit. Someone can care deeply and still lack the experience, motivation, natural strengths, judgment, or personal skills that the role requires.

• 2. Job fit includes five distinct areas.

Suzie’s car analogy provides a practical way to examine the whole fit between a person and a role:

       Roads Traveled and Future Plans: Background, experience, track record, and where the person wants to go.

       Where They Are Parked: The culture, pace, standards, leadership, and working environment.

       How They Drive: DISC behaviors and preferred communication style.

       Gas in the Tank: Motivators and what naturally gives the person energy.

       Under the Hood: Personal skills, acumen, judgment, accountability, resiliency, self-management, and other capabilities.

Assessments provide valuable information about three of these areas, but experience and culture must also be evaluated through conversations, work samples, references, expectations, and actual evidence.

• 3. Use REV before deciding someone is in the wrong seat.

When work feels harder than it should, leaders can use the REV process:

       R — Remove Obstacles: Determine whether unclear processes, inadequate tools, insufficient training, conflicting priorities, or leadership actions are interfering with performance.

       E — Establish Expectations: Clearly define the most important priorities, what success looks like, what must change, and how progress will be evaluated.

       V — Verify Fit: Observe whether the person takes ownership, adjusts, improves, and creates momentum—or whether the same problems continue.

KEY QUOTES

• “The issue isn’t that this person is a bad person. The issue is that this person was a good person in the wrong seat.”
• “When fit is right, work creates momentum. When fit is wrong, work creates friction.”
• “Leaders confuse commitment with fit.”
• “If you feel relieved when someone is not involved, that is data.”
• “Healthy challenge builds strength. Chronic friction drains energy.”
• “Vagueness is not kind. Clarity is kind.”
• “Accountability is not unkind. Expectations are not unkind. Honest conversations are not unkind.”
• “The goal is not to judge people. The goal is to help people succeed in the right seat.”
• “When the right person finds the right seat, work does not become effortless—but it does create momentum.”

 

PRACTICAL APPLICATION

Think about one employee, contractor, vendor, leader, role, or working relationship that is currently creating more friction than momentum.

Ask yourself:

• 1.      What am I tolerating that is creating friction?

Where am I compensating, reminding repeatedly, lowering expectations, or avoiding a necessary conversation?

• 2.      Have I removed obstacles and clearly established expectations?

Have I provided the tools, information, priorities, authority, training, and definition of success the person needs?

• 3.      What is the evidence telling me?

Is the person improving, taking ownership, following through, and adjusting—or are we continuing to have the same conversation?

Then review all five areas of fit:

1.        Roads traveled and future plans
2.        Culture and working environment
3.        Communication and behavioral style
4.        Motivators
5.        Personal skills and acumen

The objective is not to label or criticize the person. It is to determine whether development, clearer leadership, a redesigned role, or a different seat would create a healthier outcome.

ABOUT THE HOST

Suzie Price is the founder of Priceless Professional Development and host of the Wake Up Eager Podcast. For more than two decades, she has helped leaders use assessments, practical hiring systems, and development tools to create high-commitment, low-drama workplaces where people are better matched to the work they do.

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