Commercial Consistency is NOT Anti-Sales

Years ago, I led the implementation of a CPQ system at a global market research company. We had problems with pricing consistency, discounting governance, product definition, and contract discipline.

For months we worked with the executive team to design the system—documenting pricing rules, approval thresholds, and contract requirements.

When the system was finally ready to launch, the CEO pulled me aside and said:

"Carter, this is all great. Just promise me this won’t slow our teams down… make it harder for them to sell… or slow projects getting into field."

That moment stuck with me.

Because the whole point of the system was to introduce discipline.

One of the new rules was that no project could go into field without a signed contract.
Another was that deep discounts required executive approval.

So yes—sometimes it would slow things down.

And that was by design.

Commercial systems aren’t meant to remove all friction.
They’re meant to introduce the right friction.

What I learned from that experience is that alignment on the objective has to be repeated constantly.

Because when organizations start introducing structure, fear naturally appears.

And if leadership starts prioritizing speed over discipline again, the system you built will slowly dissolve back into the chaos it was meant to solve.