Your Team is Losing. Stop Blaming the Players and Fix the Playbook.

Alright, let's look at the game tape from last quarter. The numbers are on the board, and they’re not good. I hear the chatter in the hallways. Sales says marketing is just kicking the ball out of bounds. Marketing says sales can't hit an open goal. And the product team is wondering why nobody is running the plays they designed.

Your Team is Losing. Stop Blaming the Players and Fix the Playbook.

This finger-pointing? It's a losing strategy.

The problem isn't your players. You hired talented people. The problem is that your departments are playing like three different teams wearing the same jersey. As the coach—the leader—it's your job to fix it.

Why Your Team is Losing (And It's Not a Lack of Talent)

When your revenue-critical teams are not aligned, your business is making unforced errors that cost you dearly. Research suggests this kind of internal misalignment can drain up to 10% of a company's annual revenue. Here’s how:

• You're Wasting Energy. Think of your marketing budget spent on campaigns that generate leads the sales team ignores. That’s like your midfield making dozens of hopeful passes to nowhere. It looks busy on the stats sheet, but it doesn't create a single real opportunity to score.

  
  

• Your Fans (Your Customers) Are Confused. When a customer hears one message from marketing and another from a salesperson, it erodes trust. It’s like watching a team where no one seems to know the game plan. It’s confusing and makes you lose faith in their ability to win.

  
  

• Your Best Players Are Thinking About a Transfer. A constant culture of blame is exhausting. Good people don't stick around to be scapegoats. They’ll leave for a team that has a better culture and a clear strategy, leaving you with the high cost of rebuilding.

  
  

The Coach's Playbook: 3 Plays to Get Your Team Winning

Ending the blame game requires a deliberate, leader-led strategy. It requires a better playbook. Here are three plays that winning teams run.

Play #1: Give Everyone the Same Scoreboard.

Your team can't win if they're all looking at different scores. Marketing can't just be celebrating ‘leads’ while sales is failing to hit ‘revenue’. Your first job as coach is to create one scoreboard that matters: profitable revenue growth. When you align their goals and incentives, they start playing for the same team. Look at Adobe. When they shifted to a subscription model, they stopped measuring just the initial sale. They made everyone—product, marketing, sales—responsible for customer lifetime value. They gave the entire organisation the same scoreboard, and it transformed their business.

Play #2: Run 'No-Blame' Film Sessions.

After a big win or a tough loss, don't hunt for a single player to blame. Get your captains from sales, marketing, and product in a room to review the 'game tape'. What worked? What didn't? Was it a brilliant marketing assist? A game-changing product feature? A breakdown in the sales process? When you analyse the play, not the player, you build a culture of collective learning, not individual fear.

Play #3: Design Coordinated Plays.

Great teams execute beautiful, coordinated plays where everyone knows their role. Your go-to-market strategy should be the same. Your marketing content should be the perfect pass that sets up the salesperson for an easy shot on goal. Your product launches should be a full-team press, with everyone from engineering to support knowing their role. This is how you stop running into each other and start creating real momentum.

Ready to Start Your Training Camp?

Implementing this playbook requires new skills and a shared framework that everyone can get behind. It’s a change that needs to be coached, not just commanded.

This is precisely why the Sales Supercharger course from ClickAcademy Asia was created. Think of it as the ultimate coaching clinic for your commercial leaders. It’s a practical, hands-on training camp designed to give them the tools to end the blame game for good. You won't just listen to lectures; you'll work on building the very assets you need—from a collaborative market intelligence report to a unified lead qualification framework—that you can implement immediately.

Your competitors are a team. To beat them, you need to be a better team. The blame game is what losing teams do. Winning leaders take responsibility.

They look at the strategy, they fix the playbook, and they get their talented players working together.

Stop shouting from the sidelines. Be the coach who builds a championship-winning system.

Take Your Team from Chaos to Championship

Don’t let finger-pointing drain your revenue and morale. The Sales Supercharger course at ClickAcademy Asia gives your leaders the proven playbook to align sales, marketing, and product—and turn them into a single, unstoppable team.

With practical frameworks, real-world exercises, and up to 70% SkillsFuture funding, there’s no better time to start.

Be the coach your business needs. Enroll now and start winning. https://www.clickacademyasia.com/course/cross-functional-collaboration