Why Your Team Keeps Misfiring (and What to Do About It)

Your Sales team is frustrated with CS.

CS says Product isn’t listening.

Product says Sales never told them what the customer wanted.

Meanwhile, the customer’s halfway out the door.

Sound familiar?

This kind of cross-functional breakdown isn’t about lazy teams or bad intent. It’s about systems that don’t support the kind of communication fast-moving startups need to stay aligned (and sane).

When a startup is growing fast, it’s easy to assume everyone’s on the same page. Everyone’s in Slack. Everyone’s working hard, but speed without clarity turns into confusion. That confusion breaks trust from the employees and eventually leaks down to the customers.

The breakdown usually starts small: a deal handed off with missing context, a product shipped without key feedback, a customer issue that bounces between teams because no one’s sure who owns it. It doesn’t feel like a crisis. It feels like a shrug, a delay, or an “I thought someone else was handling it.” Until it snowballs.

The cost isn’t just internal. While your team is ping-ponging in Slack, your customer’s waiting. Wondering why they’re getting conflicting answers. Wondering whether you’re actually ready to support them. Eventually, they stop wondering and start looking elsewhere.

So how do you fix it?

Start small. Pick one moment where communication clearly broke down and trace it backwards. What actually happened (not what the written SOP says should’ve happened). Who knew what, and when? Where did it fall apart?

Once you see the gap, name it. Was it a missing owner? An outdated doc? A process no one trusted enough to follow? Accountability is key. Not blaming, but just recognizing where the breakdown was and learning from it.

Then build one simple bridge. Maybe it’s a shared tracker. Maybe it’s a better kickoff ritual. Maybe it’s just making sure two key people actually talk before a handoff. Don’t overcomplicate it. The goal isn’t perfect coordination (this is startup world, we are all tripping all the time)…it’s clarity people can count on.

I made a checklist that I’ve found very helpful to guide my founder meetings. If you’re interested message me and I’ll hook you up no strings attached