I’ve bumped into a common tension point within a company – the battle between Human Resources and Sales.  My observations (and participation) of this feud is that it comes down to a fundamental difference in perspective between the two departments.

Human resources has the strongest internal focus of any department.  Their world exists within the walls of the company and then spend most of their time examining, building, adjusting, etc. that world.  Clearly this is an important aspect of building corporate culture.  A weak HR department has a significant negative impact on the entire company.  I have worked in those environments and they are tortuous at times.

Sales as the strongest external focus of any department.  Sales has to operate in the marketplace, in the prospect’s world, to be successful.  Hence, sales often has the least internal focus or awareness of any department.  My career has been molded in this environment so I am predisposed to this area.

An overly aggressive sales department can become feral towards the internal culture.  This disconnect is a difficult path to navigate in that the sales department slowly realizes that other departments contribute to their success (finance, ops/production, etc.).  A feral sales department can sow dissention throughout an entire company.

Yet, the natural tension that can occur between HR and Sales is often due to the external focus of the sales department.

Comments(0)