Performance
By Wendy Heckelman, Ph.D., Tianna Tye, MAIOP, and Sheryl Unger, MILR
You built the account teams. So why
aren’t they working? Across life sciences organizations, sales, market access, medical and patient support are now all present at the account. The structure reflects how the market has evolved.
Organized customers expect coordinated, account-based engagement across functions. But most organizations still train, plan and execute by function while expecting enterprise-level coordination.
“Decision-makers within an IDN or large medical group don’t see your organization as multiple functions. They see one company. When ways of working and learning are designed by function, the result is fragmented execution, even when individual skills are strong.”
The result is predictable: fragmented execution, inconsistent engagement and missed opportunities across key accounts.
This is not just a capability gap. It is an enterprise alignment problem.
Learning and development (L&D) plays a critical role, but capability building only works when leadership defines and reinforces how account teams are expected to operate.
Walk into many commercial organizations today and you will find a familiar pattern: Reimbursement specialists focused on access barriers, sales representatives managing physician relationships, medical science liaisons pursuing scientific dialogue, local market access teams navigating system-level contracting and nurse educators supporting patient adherence.
Each role is present at the account. Each function has its own training. Each team is performing well within its lane. Decision-makers within an integrated delivery network (IDN) or large medical group do not experience your organization in lanes. They experience one company.
When ways of working are not aligned across functions, even strong individual performance translates into fragmented account execution. Insights do not travel. Priorities are not coordinated. Opportunities are pursued in parallel rather than as a team.
L&D often reinforces this fragmentation. Learning is designed, delivered and measured by function, while the field is expected to operate as an integrated account team.
Building an enterprise account management mindset is not about giving every function the same training or the same objectives. It is about aligning the organization around a shared model of how account teams operate, then building capability, reinforcement and accountability around that model.
Three areas organizations must address:
Define role-agnostic account management behaviors first. Most organizations start with function-specific skills. Leading organizations define what effective account management looks like across roles. When these expectations are clear, teams share a common language for execution. When they are not, each function operates differently and coordination breaks down.
Anchor learning in the account planning process. Not every role owns the account plan, but every role shapes and executes against it. When learning is anchored in the account planning process, the teams align on priorities and operate more cohesively. When it remains role-based, account plans become documents owned by a few rather than tools used by the team.
Treat collaboration, coordination, and communication (the 3C’s) as operational requirements. The 3C’s are often treated as soft skills. In account management, they are execution requirements. Coordination determines whether the right actions happen at the right time. Collaboration determines whether insights translate into action. Communication determines whether the team operates with shared awareness.
When the 3C’s are not built into how teams operate, insights stall, actions are misaligned and teams lose shared visibility.
Organizations that embed these requirements into learning, coaching and field expectations make account management durable. Those that are isolated in training see them fade under pressure.
One of the most common failure points we see is not in L&D design. It is in leadership alignment. If cross-functional coordination is optional at the leadership level, it becomes optional in the field. If priorities are set functionally, teams will execute functionally, regardless of how the training is designed.
Building an enterprise account management mindset requires senior leaders across commercial and medical functions to align on what compliant, coordinated execution looks like, signal that it matters and model it consistently.
Without that alignment, L&D is left trying to drive behavior change inside a system that is working against it.
“No account management strategy succeeds without first-line managers who can coach cross-functional execution. Managers are where the operating model becomes real.”
Even with leadership alignment, account capability does not take hold without first-line managers.
Managers make account management a priority by ensuring plans translate into action, reinforcing coordination and coaching their teams to operate effectively within the broader account.
When managers are not equipped to coach at the account level, teams revert to functional execution. When they do, behavior shifts stick.
Join the authors at the LTEN2026 annual conference, where they’ll be presenting a workshop, “Stop Training in Silos: Elevating Enterprise Account Management Capability.”
You can join other learning leaders as they explore how L&D can elevate from role-based training to align leaders, capabilities and execution across commercial, access, patient services and medical functions.
L&D has a critical role to play, but it cannot start with content alone.
The highest-leverage starting point is defining, with senior leadership, what coordinated account execution looks like across roles. Not as a generic competency model, but as a clear articulation of how teams are expected to operate together.
From there, L&D can:
Build shared capability anchored in a common account management framework.
Align learning to the account planning process.
Equip managers to reinforce it.
Embed collaboration, coordination and communication into how teams are coached and evaluated.
When capability building is aligned to a clear enterprise model and reinforced through leadership and management, it drives real behavior change. When it is not, it becomes another well-designed program that struggles to sustain impact.
Most organizations have built the structure. The differentiator now is whether they can align how their teams actually operate within it.
Those that treat account management as an enterprise capability, owned by leadership, reinforced by managers and enabled by L&D, will execute more consistently and compete more effectively.
Those that continue to operate function by function will find themselves outpaced by organizations that have learned how to act as one.
Wendy Heckelman, Ph.D., is president and founder of WLH Consulting and Learning Solutions. Email her at wendy@wlhconsulting.com or connect through linkedin.com/in/wendy-l-heckelman-phd.
Tianna Tye, MAIOP, is a consultant for WLH Consulting & Learning Solutions. Email her at tianna@wlhconsulting.com or connect through linkedin.com/in/tiannatye.
Sheryl Unger, MILR, is an organizational development consultant for WLH Consulting and Learning Solutions. Email her at sheryl@wlhconsulting.com or connect through linkedin.com/in/sheryl-unger-b7a5385.
