Why Teams Drift Apart (Even When They Start Strong)
Imagine a group of explorers setting out together on a journey. At the start, they move as one, but as time passes, entropy sets in. Some take different paths, others slow down, and before long, the group fragments—not because they weren’t skilled, but because they lacked alignment on their destination and priorities.
But even if they were perfectly aligned—committed to the same destination—they still might not make it. If they don’t have the right survival skills, navigation tools, or coordinated teamwork, they’ll struggle to execute, and their alignment will deteriorate under stress.
This explorer dynamic mirrors what happens in revenue teams.
- A revenue team without alignment—where marketing, sales, and customer success operate with different priorities—will drift apart over time.
- A revenue team without integration—where these teams aren’t equipped with the right tools, processes, and communication—won’t execute effectively, causing alignment to break down.
Both integration and alignment must be managed together, or the revenue team will struggle to drive revenue growth consistently.
Integration & Alignment: Systems Thinking
Revenue teams aren’t just collections of departments—they are interconnected systems.
In systems thinking, no system operates in isolation—each function influences and is influenced by others. If marketing, sales, and customer success are not structured properly (integration) and coordinated effectively (alignment), the entire revenue team suffers.
How Integration and Alignment Interact
Integration strengthens alignment → When teams share systems, processes, and communication channels, they naturally stay better aligned.
Alignment sustains integration → When teams stay synchronized on goals and priorities, they reinforce the value of shared systems and processes.
However, focusing on only one will cause the other to break down:
- A well-structured but misaligned revenue team (strong integration, weak alignment) leads to silos and inefficiencies.
- A highly aligned but fragmented revenue team (strong alignment, weak integration) leads to execution failures and bottlenecks.
The Two Systems That Keep Revenue Teams Effective
1. Integration Ensures Structural Cohesion
A revenue team functions best when marketing, sales, and customer success are structurally connected through:
Shared tools → CRM, revenue dashboards, automation platforms, and RevOps team collaboration.
Defined workflows → Clear lead handoffs, deal tracking, sales strategy execution, and onboarding processes.
Consistent communication channels → Cross-functional meetings, shared reporting, and real-time collaboration platforms.
A well-defined sales process → Ensuring smooth transitions from lead generation to closing deals and customer retention.
When integration is strong, the revenue operations team, sales team, and customer success can function as a unified revenue engine, rather than disconnected departments.
2. Alignment Ensures Directional Consistency
Even the most well-structured team can fail if priorities, goals, and execution aren’t synchronized. Alignment ensures that:
- Marketing, sales, and customer success work toward the same revenue growth strategy.
- Team members share a common understanding of revenue strategies, customer expectations, markets and customers, and business objectives.
- Incentives and KPIs are aligned to support the overall revenue goals rather than individual departmental success.
- Leadership ensures alignment across departments to maximize efficiency in revenue generation.
When alignment is strong, every function contributes to revenue generation in a coordinated way, avoiding conflicting priorities and wasted effort.
What Happens When Integration & Alignment Break Down?
Scenario 1: A Fully Integrated, But Misaligned Revenue Team
Your revenue team is well-structured: marketing, sales, and customer success share tools, meet regularly, and follow a defined process. But they’re not on the same page:
- Marketing focuses on lead volume, while sales wants higher-quality leads.
- Sales prioritizes quick wins, leaving customer success to deal with short-term, unhappy customers.
- Customer success focuses on retention and growth, but fails to inform and support marketing and sales, leading to missed expansion opportunities and disconnected messaging.
Result: The team is connected but not coordinated, leading to revenue leakage and inefficiencies.
Scenario 2: A Highly Aligned, But Unintegrated Revenue Team
Your revenue team has clear goals and strong buy-in. However, execution falls apart due to poor integration:
- Marketing doesn’t share data with sales, leading to inconsistent targeting.
- Sales and customer success lack a smooth handoff, creating onboarding delays.
- Customer feedback isn’t incorporated into marketing, so messaging remains misaligned.
Result: The team agrees on direction but lacks execution capability, causing friction and bottlenecks.
Leaders Must Design and Maintain Both Systems
If alignment weakens, integration decays. Without shared priorities, the system gradually falls apart—teams start focusing on their own departmental goals rather than the broader revenue strategy. Silos form, miscommunication increases, and execution slows. The longer this persists, the harder it becomes to restore cohesion.
If integration weakens, alignment loses power. Without shared tools, workflows, and structured communication, alignment becomes empty rhetoric—a set of shared ideas with no operational framework to support them. Even teams with the best intentions will struggle to execute if they lack the infrastructure to collaborate effectively.
Both systems require constant reinforcement. Leaders cannot assume that once alignment and integration are established, they will sustain themselves. They must proactively monitor and refine these systems, ensuring that cross-functional collaboration remains strong and that execution aligns with strategy.
This is where a Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) or a fractional chief revenue officer plays a critical role. Whether full-time or fractional, a CRO provides the oversight needed to maintain balance, ensuring that the revenue team not only shares a vision but also has the tools and processes in place to achieve it.
Would you like to refine any part of this further?
How to Strengthen Both Systems in a Revenue Team
For Integration:
Establish shared systems → CRMs, analytics, RevOps dashboards, and revenue operations team collaboration.
Define clear handoff processes → Seamless transitions between marketing, sales, and CS.
Implement consistent communication channels → Weekly revenue syncs, cross-functional updates.
Ensure a structured sales process → From lead qualification to closing deals and customer retention.
For Alignment
Set shared revenue goals and KPIs → Ensure all teams contribute to revenue generation, not just individual targets.
Hold regular strategy syncs → Keep marketing, sales, and CS aligned on evolving revenue strategies.
Align compensation and incentives → Reward team members for overall revenue impact, not just isolated success.
Consider whether to hire a fractional CRO to bring sales leadership experiencewithout the full-time CRO commitment of a full-time executive.
Final Thought: Leaders Must Actively Manage Both Systems
Too often, companies focus on integration but neglect alignment—or vice versa.
- A revenue team without integration is chaotic.
- A revenue team without alignment is inefficient.
- A revenue team with both is unstoppable.
Fractional CROs and sales leadership must continuously refine these systems to keep marketing, sales, and customer success working as one.
Where does your revenue team struggle more—integration or alignment?
