Our head of sales and head of operations have intense personal animosity toward each other, creating tribal warfare between their departments. How do we resolve this peer feud before it fractures the entire leadership team?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

When your head of sales and head of operations treat each other as enemies, their departmental teams take cues from them and begin sabotaging cross-functional handoffs. Sales blames operations for poor delivery, operations blames sales for bringing in bad clients, and client satisfaction collapses. This dynamic destroys enterprise value and makes a clean exit impossible.

You must address this friction directly using the EOS tools. First, bring both executives into a room with the Integrator and put the elephant on the table. Do not referee personal grievances. Re-anchor them to the Vision/Traction Organizer (V/TO) and the core focus of the business. Remind them that their primary team is the leadership team, not their departmental silos. Their first loyalty belongs to the company as a whole.

Second, map the operational handoff between sales and operations using your Core Processes. Disagreements often masquerade as personality conflicts when the real culprit is an undefined, broken process. Clarify the exact qualification criteria for closed deals and what information operations requires before accepting a project. If both leaders agree to the process, ambiguity disappears.

Third, demand a public truce and observable alignment. In your weekly Level 10 Meeting, identify any passive-aggressive snipes immediately and force them into the IDS portion of the agenda. If they cannot resolve their personal differences, commit to the greater good of the company, and treat each other with professional respect, one or both of them must be replaced. A leadership team cannot function when key seats are occupied by warring factions.