What is GWC? How to Tell If Your People Are in the Right Seats

The Short Version:
GWC is a tool for checking whether someone's in the right seat. It asks three questions about every person and every role: do they get it, do they want it, and do they have the capacity to do it? Get it means they understand the role naturally, not just the task list. Want it means the actual work motivates them, not the title or the pay. Capacity means they've got the time, skills, and energy to do the job at the level it needs. If the answer to any one of the three is no, that person is likely in the wrong seat. You can score your whole team using the GWC scorecard below. Just know that GWC answers the seat question only. Whether somebody's the right person for your company is a separate question, and your core values will help you answer that one.

Do you have someone on your team who works hard, means well, and still isn't getting the results the job needs?

And have you gone back and forth wondering whether the problem is the person, the role, or something you never set up properly in the first place?

There's a tool that answers that in three questions. It's called GWC, and it takes about five minutes per person once you know what you're looking for.

Below we'll walk through what each part of GWC means, how to score your team using a scorecard you can copy straight out of this article, and what to do when somebody comes up short on one of the three.

What Does GWC Stand For?

GWC stands for Get it, Want it, and Capacity to do it. It comes from Gino Wickman's book Traction, and it's one of the core tools in EOS, the Entrepreneurial Operating System. We use it with our own team at Whirks.

For every person in every seat, you ask three questions:

1. Get It: Do they understand what the role is actually for?

2. Want It: Do they want to do this job, with everything that comes with it?

3. Capacity to Do It: Do they have the time, skills, and energy the role demands?

If the answer to any one of the three is no, that person's in the wrong seat. A wrong-seat person and a bad employee are two different problems, and treating them like the same problem is how good people end up getting managed out of a company that should have moved them instead.

Does GWC Tell You If Someone Is the Right Person for Your Company?

No, and that distinction matters. GWC only tells you whether somebody fits a seat. It says nothing about whether they belong at your company at all. That's a separate question, and your core values answer it. Somebody can score a clean yes on all three and still be wrong for your business if they don't share what you stand for.

We use Patrick Lencioni's hungry, humble, and people-smart standard for the person question and GWC for the seat question. Running both keeps you from firing somebody who was only ever in the wrong chair, and from hanging onto somebody who fits the chair but not the company.

Get It: Does the Person Actually Understand the Role?

Getting it means more than knowing the task list. It means grasping what the role is for and how it fits into everything else. EOS calls this one aptitude, the natural ability to see how the position works.

The clearest red flag is repetition. When you find yourself explaining the same expectation for the fourth time, you're usually looking at a role the person never developed a feel for.

This comes up constantly in growing companies, where roles shift faster than anybody writes them down. Somebody who was excellent in one seat can land in a new one and not get it at all. It's the most common cost of promoting on past performance instead of readiness.

What a “Get It” problem looked like at Whirks

A few years back we rolled out a new service line, and I hired somebody I liked a lot. What I never did was define the role. I knew I wanted the service to exist, and I couldn't tell that person what winning in the job would look like, because I hadn't decided yet.

If I had scored them on GWC that first year, I probably would have had to score them as a no on Get It according to the scorecard. But that would've been unfair because I would've been measuring my homework instead of theirs. They were patient enough to stick around while we sorted it out. Now, I write the role down before I hire for it. That story and four others like it are in 5 hiring mistakes we've made.

So the first question to ask about any Get It gap is whether the role was ever defined in the first place.

What it looks like when somebody gets it:

• They understand the big picture and the day-to-day at the same time

• They don't need reminders about what the job requires

• They make judgment calls that line up with where the company's headed, without checking first

What you can do about it:

• Put the role in writing. Responsibilities, outcomes, and what success looks like

• Ask them to explain the role back to you in their own words

• Revisit it when the role changes, which in a growing business is often

One caution. Leaders mix up Get It and Capacity more than any other pair, and EOS has a good piece on the difference. Get It is about whether they understand the role. Capacity is about whether they've got room to do it.

Want It: Does the Person Actually Want the Job?

Want It comes down to motivation for the work itself, separate from the title, the raise, or the corner office that came with it.

People take roles for reasons that have nothing to do with wanting the job. Sometimes, it's about a bump in pay, a better title, or the feeling that saying no would look bad. None of that survives contact with the actual responsibilities.

You'll see it most often when somebody moves into leadership. Plenty of people like the idea of running a team. Far fewer want the parts that come with it: holding people accountable, making calls that upset somebody, and having the conversations nobody wants to have. When somebody doesn't want those, it wears on them and on you.

What it looks like when somebody wants it:

• They bring energy to the work, not just to the title

• They look for ways to do it better without being asked

• They ask about growth and take on more when it's offered

What you can do about it:

• Describe the whole job before somebody takes it, including the parts that aren't fun

• Ask directly whether they want the responsibilities, not just the role

• Give people a real way to say no without it counting against them

Capacity: Does the Person Have the Time, Skills, and Energy?

Capacity covers time, skills, knowledge, and energy. Can this person do this job at the level the job needs?

In small businesses, this is usually the one that breaks first because people are wearing three hats. Somebody gets it, wants it, and still can't deliver because there aren't enough hours in the week and nobody ever took anything off their plate.

From a distance, a capacity gap looks like a performance problem, and it usually gets treated like one. Coaching rarely closes it. What closes it is taking work away or adding support.

What it looks like when somebody has capacity:

• They have the skills and experience the role calls for

• They have enough hours and focus to do the work without running on fumes

• They have the tools and support the job requires

What you can do about it:

• Look at everything on their plate, not just this role

• Take something off before you add something on

• Separate a training gap from a time gap, because they need opposite responses

How Do You Score Your Team on GWC?

List every person, list the seat they're in, and answer the three questions. The tool only works if you're willing to write down what you already suspect.

Use these definitions so you're scoring the same thing every time:

Then, build your scorecard. One row per person. Here’s an example of what it might look like for a few different industries.

These examples show three columns with three ways a seat goes wrong. Marcus has a capacity gap you created. Denise has a Get It gap you created. Alicia has a Want It gap that no amount of process will fix.

What If You Can't Answer Yes or No?

You'll notice a maybe in the example above. Strictly speaking, EOS doesn't allow it. The rule is yes or no on each of the three, and any no means wrong seat.

That's the right standard, and it's where you want to land. But maybe is the honest answer a lot of the time, especially the first time you run this. Use it if you need it, then put a date on every maybe. A maybe that's still a maybe six months from now is probably a no you haven't said out loud yet.

GWC isn't a one-time exercise either. Roles change, workloads change, and people change. Fold it into the conversations you're already having with your team rather than making it a separate event.

What Should You Do When Someone Is Missing One Part of GWC?

Which part is missing tells you what to do next.

That transition conversation is uncomfortable and it's still the kinder option, because leaving somebody in a seat they can't win in isn't doing them any favors. We've written about how to handle those conversations before, and most of what makes them necessary traces back to how the seat was defined on day one.

What doesn't work is waiting. A GWC gap doesn't close on its own. It turns into missed deadlines, into resentment from the people picking up the slack, and eventually into someone quitting, usually not the person you were worried about.

Getting the Right People in the Right Seats

If you read through the three questions and someone specific came to mind, you probably already knew it. GWC just gave you the words for it.

Wrong-seat problems don't look like wrong-seat problems while they're happening. They look like somebody not trying hard enough, or a manager not managing well enough, or a stretch of bad luck. Naming which of the three is missing turns a vague frustration into a decision you can actually make.

At Whirks, we handle payroll, HR, and benefits for small businesses in Memphis and across the U.S., and we run GWC on our own team. We're not going to tell you which conversations to have. But we will tell you that the ones you're avoiding are usually the ones worth having first, and we've put together what we've learned about hiring for the right seat from the start.

The scorecard above is the whole exercise. One row per person, three columns, and a date beside anything you couldn't answer cleanly.

Frequently Asked Questions About GWC and Finding the Right People for the Right Seats

What does GWC stand for?

Get it, Want it, and Capacity to do it. It's a tool from Gino Wickman's Traction and part of the EOS toolbox, used to check whether somebody's in the right seat.

Is GWC the same thing as a performance review?

No. A performance review measures how somebody's doing in their role. GWC asks whether the role is right for them at all. Somebody can be underperforming in a seat they shouldn't be in, and no amount of review will fix that.

What if somebody scores a maybe?

EOS says maybe isn't an option, and they have a point. Treat it as an open item with a deadline rather than a resting place. If it's still a maybe in 90 days, it's a no.

Can somebody develop GWC over time?

Capacity, yes. Skills grow, workloads change, and support helps. Get It and Want It are much closer to fixed. You can clarify a role that was never defined, but you can't hand someone an aptitude or a motivation they don't have.

Should I use GWC on myself?

Yes, and that's the place to start if you own the business. Wickman applies the same three questions to leaders, and the owner's seat is the one no one else is going to evaluate for you.