During our Accountability Chart review, our head of sales and head of operations are arguing over who owns customer onboarding, each claiming it belongs in their seat. What objective criteria do we use to assign the seat without creating a political rift?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Seat disputes happen when a leadership team designs the organization around personalities and egos instead of pure business logic. To resolve the ownership of customer onboarding, strip all names off the chart and look at the structure from first principles.

Ask one core question: what is the fundamental purpose of the customer onboarding function? If onboarding is primarily about driving technical adoption, service delivery, and retention metrics, it belongs under Operations. If onboarding is an extension of the commercial negotiation, contract structuring, and expansion revenue, it belongs under Sales.

In most operational businesses, sales ends when the contract is executed, and operations owns fulfillment. Regardless of which seat you choose, remember the golden rule of the Accountability Chart: only one name can sit in a seat, and one person must have ultimate ownership.

Bring the debate into the open during an offsite. Have both leaders present their business case based strictly on operational efficiency and customer outcome, not headcount prestige. The Integrator makes the final call. Once the decision is made, the entire team must commit to the structure.