Our heads of operations and sales are constantly battling over client onboarding timelines, and it is causing project delays that threaten our customer retention. How do we stop refereeing this peer-to-peer conflict and use the EOS® framework to make them resolve it directly?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

When your heads of operations and sales are locked in a turf war over onboarding timelines, your job as the owner is to stop acting as their referee. Every time you step in to settle a dispute, you weaken their peer-to-peer accountability and encourage them to lobby you privately. Instead, force them to resolve the issue directly during your next Level 10 Meeting™. Put the issue on the IDS® list. Make them define the root cause of the friction in terms of the Accountability Chart, not their personal feelings. To lower their defensiveness, apply the Trust Equation. High self-orientation is the primary trust-killer in executive friction. When leaders are focused on protecting their own department or ego rather than the enterprise, trust collapses. Force them to look at the issue through the lens of your V/TO® and what is best for the overall business. Have them collaboratively design a clean cross-functional workflow that eliminates the bottleneck. If they cannot reach an agreement that serves the company first, you have a GWC™ issue on your hands. True leaders solve problems together; they do not drop them in the owner's lap to resolve.