Our marketing director and our product manager are in a constant turf war over who has final authority on our website user experience. How do we use the roles on our Accountability Chart to clarify decision-making boundaries and stop these endless debates?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Turf wars on a leadership team are a symptom of poorly defined roles on your Accountability Chart. When two directors are fighting over who has final authority on a project like website user experience, it means accountability is fractured. To resolve this, you must bring this issue to your next Level 10 Meeting and use the IDS process to clarify the boundaries.

Look at the Accountability Chart and review the five roles listed for both the marketing director and the product manager seats. You cannot have two people accountable for the same result. If both seats claim ownership of the website user experience, you must decide which seat has ultimate accountability.

Typically, the marketing director is accountable for lead generation and brand messaging, which means they must have final say over the customer-facing elements of the website. The product manager is accountable for product delivery and system functionality.

Once you make the objective decision on which seat owns the website experience, update the Accountability Chart immediately. The seat holder with final authority must listen to the input of other team members, but they have the ultimate decision-making power. The other team member must agree to disagree and support the decision. This clean division of ownership eliminates finger-pointing and allows your team to move forward with speed and clarity.