Are You Struggling to Find the Right Hire - Or Building the Wrong Role?

Why finding the right person isn’t the problem - building the right role is

I had a conversation recently with the founder of a change and growth agency for purpose-led businesses - six years in, doing meaningful work, and ready to bring on more support. He’d drafted a role he wanted to put out to find help, but something about it didn’t sit right with me.

The role was asking one person to hold three different priorities at once. I didn’t expect him to see what I did, so we unpacked it together.

The assumption most founders make is that the right hire is a versatile one. Someone who can flex. Someone who can hold a lot. The logic makes sense on paper: you need more done, so you find someone capable of doing more.

But versatility isn’t the same as clarity. And stacking priorities isn’t the same as increasing capacity.

What was actually going on

When we mapped out what the role was actually asking for, it wasn't "someone who can handle a lot" - it was three genuinely different priorities, each with its own rhythm and its own demands. One needed steady, consistent delivery. One needed relationship-building that couldn't be rushed. One needed to flex around whatever was most urgent that week.

The question I asked him was: could one person realistically hold all three?

Maybe, on a very quiet week. But which of those would slip the moment things got busy? Which would he have to chase? Which would always feel slightly behind?

The reframe I offered him was simple: one role, one goal.

Not because people aren’t capable of more. But because clarity of ownership is what lets someone actually perform.

When someone knows exactly what they’re accountable for - the singular thing that success is measured against - they can build a rhythm, make decisions, and protect the work that matters. When that’s murky, they spend their energy prioritising rather than delivering. That’s a hidden second job. And it’s exhausting.

The bit founders don’t always see

This is a pattern I see consistently in founder-led businesses at the point of real growth. The team is small, the capacity is tight, and the instinct is to load roles broadly to get more coverage. It feels efficient. It is not.

The problem isn’t the people. It’s the architecture.

Most strong deliverers are specialists. They do one thing exceptionally well because that’s where they’ve built their skill, their confidence, their systems. Ask them to hold three priorities and you’re not getting three-thirds of their best work - you’re getting fractured attention across all of it, with the hidden labour of managing the friction between them.

Where I learned this (through my own experimentation)

This isn’t just something I see in client conversations - I’ve lived it myself.

At Second Voice, I once had an experienced team member juggling two pressing priorities at once. He was good at his job. But stretched across both, neither got the focus it needed - he was always reacting, never quite ahead of either one.

So we redesigned it. He went part-time, focused on just one of those responsibilities - the one he was genuinely excellent at. We brought in someone else, also part-time, to take the second piece. And the difference was striking. Two experienced people, each holding one clear goal instead of two competing ones, started flying. Not because they'd suddenly become more capable - they'd always been capable - but because for the first time, they had the headspace to actually be good at the thing they were hired to do.

That's the bit that stuck with me. It's rarely a capability problem. It's a design problem.

Because here’s the truth

Clarity of ownership beats versatility every time. Not because versatility isn't valuable - it is. But versatility without structure becomes the founder problem all over again, just in someone else's role.

And one role, one goal doesn't have to mean one person, five days a week - most founders have more flexibility in how they design roles than they realise.

One thing to take away

If you're looking at a role right now - whether you're about to hire or just sensing something isn't working - I wouldn't jump straight to finding a better person.

What's the one goal? Not the list of responsibilities. The single thing that, if it went well consistently, would tell you the role is working?