Sales sees momentum. Delivery has an open issue nobody upstream knows about. Finance sees a partnership contributing less than the account plan claims. None of these views is wrong, exactly, each function is describing what it can see from where it sits. The problem is that nobody has ever put the three descriptions next to each other.

This tends to run quietly for a long time, because each function is internally consistent. Sales keeps reporting the relationship positively because nothing sales-facing has changed. Delivery keeps managing its issue without escalating because it hasn't yet become a crisis. It's only when someone finally asks all three functions the same question in the same room that the gaps between the answers become obvious, and by then, they're usually harder to close than they would have been six months earlier.

The organisation isn't dysfunctional for this to happen. It's what naturally occurs when different parts of the business manage the same relationship without a shared, current view of what's actually true.

Signs this is happening

• Different functions would describe this partnership's health differently if asked separately, today
• An issue known to one team has not been raised with the others managing the same relationship
• The partner has received conflicting priorities or messages from different parts of your organisation
• No one currently owns reconciling these different internal views into one position

This condition rarely appears alone. It's frequently paired with drifted strategy, since a partnership nobody's revisited is usually a partnership nobody's aligned around either.

What it points to

This reflects a Structural gap, internal stakeholders holding independently reasonable but conflicting views. The Internal Alignment Review tests how far those views actually align, and where they diverge in ways creating friction or conflicting decisions.

Not sure this is exactly your situation?