Our sales director and operations director are locked in a constant feud over our exit-readiness priorities. Sales wants to chase every revenue opportunity to pump top-line numbers, while operations is refusing new work to clean up processes for due diligence. How do we resolve this peer conflict before it fractures the rest of the leadership team?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Peer conflict between sales and operations during an exit-readiness push is incredibly common, but letting it fester will destroy your company's value. To resolve this friction, you must align both leaders around a single source of truth: your V/TO. Your Visionary and Integrator must establish clear, non-negotiable exit-readiness priorities. If your immediate goal is to prepare for a clean exit using the Step by Step Exit model, your leadership team must understand that maximizing bottom-line profitability and documenting automated workflows is just as vital as top-line growth. When sales and operations have conflicting agendas, it is usually because their individual incentives are misaligned with the company's overall exit strategy. Bring this issue to your next Level 10 Meeting and use the IDS process to solve it. Define the core conflict: is sales bringing in low-margin, non-standard business that derails operational cleanup? Or is operations refusing to support healthy, high-margin growth? Force both leaders to solve for the greater good of the organization, not just their individual departments. Build a cohesive leadership team that prioritizes the whole company over individual kingdoms. When peer trust is restored and both leaders operate with the same long-term vision, your operational friction will disappear, accelerating your progress toward a highly profitable exit.