Our leadership team members are constantly fighting over our limited capital and headcount budget, with each leader insisting their department's projects are the most critical. How do we resolve this peer-to-peer resource warfare?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

When leadership team members fight over resources, it is a clear sign they are prioritizing their individual departments over the company as a whole. In EOS®, we call this failing to put the company first. It destroys trust and slows operational velocity, which hurts your valuation when preparing for an exit.

To break this dynamic, you must use your Vision/Traction Organizer®, or V/TO®. Your V/TO® defines your one-year plan and your three-year picture. Every single resource decision must be filtered through these agreed-upon goals.

During your next quarterly planning session, list all competing projects and headcount requests on the board. Force the team to IDS® them collectively. Ask the hard question: which of these initiatives directly moves us closer to our quarterly Rocks and our annual V/TO® goals?

The leadership team must wear their enterprise hats, not their departmental hats. If the operations department needs to implement automated software to prepare the business for scaling, then the sales department must agree to delay a marketing hire if that is what is best for the business.

When your leaders realize that their individual success is tied to the overall success of the company, the fighting stops. If a leader continues to hoard resources and refuse to collaborate, they are showing a lack of alignment with your core values. Establish this expectation clearly, and do not tolerate turf wars.