Every Day Matters

Becca’s “not for a lack of trying” could be interpreted as cross-functional finger pointing if retold badly.

How I should have worded my question to Becca: “What is the plan for AI setup timing for future pilot clients?” or “Who owns that step?”

Even if you are objectively correct, your manager’s concern may be political: she may want to control how feedback lands cross-functionally so Sales does not look like it is criticizing CS or Onboarding.

So: not necessarily toast, but you should act like this is a credibility repair moment. Own the pattern, do not relitigate the facts, and make a concrete behavior change immediately.

She is asking you to route risk in a way that preserves trust. In cross-functional work, being right is only half the job. The other half is making the truth easy for other people to accept.

Dad recommends to never puts any constructive feedback in writing. He says it’s so easy to forward to others.

He would hate having to bite his tongue, but knew he had to.

Dad says no one likes constructive criticism.

Dad says if it was a good call, maybe I’m being nit-picky.

Krystin doesn’t want to cause waves internally because she’s the VP of Sales now. She wants to look good with other departments.

She doesn’t want any negative feedback about any of her teammates (can reflect negatively on her).

If Krystin brings this up to me, I should say: “You’re right to call that out. I was focused on the pilot outcome, but I understand the broader pattern you’ve flagged: even when my intent is constructive, it can land as me correcting another team or creating tension. I need to be more disciplined about routing process feedback through you. For future cross-functional calls, I’ll keep my comments to immediate execution needs and bring any broader observations to you separately.”

Also, be careful with the internal narrative you’re carrying. Calling the onboarding lead’s misunderstanding a “rookie mistake,” even privately, may leak into your tone. A safer framing is:

“There was ambiguity around platform capability and ownership.”

Small company= Director & Senior Director of Sales job titles

1. Drew