Maria Alvarez on unifying a fractured revenue org
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Maria Alvarez joins Paul to tell the story of rebuilding a fractured revenue organization around a single source of truth, and the political and technical work that unification actually required.
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Show notes
When Maria Alvarez inherited a revenue org running on a dozen conflicting spreadsheets, the fix was never just technical. She joins Paul to walk through the multi-year effort to build one source of truth and the trust it took to get everyone to adopt it.
Timestamps
Quotable
“Everyone kept their own spreadsheet because they didn't trust anyone else's.”
— Maria Alvarez
“You have to make the shared truth more valuable than the story they were telling.”
— Maria Alvarez
Full transcript
Paul: You inherited an org where every team had its own version of the numbers. Where do you even start with something that fractured?
Maria: You start by admitting it's not a data problem, it's a trust problem. Everyone kept their own spreadsheet because they didn't trust anyone else's. The technology was almost secondary.
Paul: So how do you rebuild that trust?
Maria: Slowly, and by being right in public. We picked one number, made it undeniably accurate, and let people check it against their own. Once they saw it hold up, they started letting go of the shadow spreadsheets.
Paul: And the political side?
Maria: That's the real work. A single source of truth means someone loses the ability to spin their own version. You have to make the shared truth more valuable to them than the story they were telling.
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