Escalation management: Tips for making faster, better decisions

When decisions stall due to disagreements or conflicts, teams or even the business itself pays the price.

The process of passing an issue up to a higher level of authority, expertise or management, when it cannot be resolved at the current level, is known as an escalation. We have seen disagreements and conflicts in our corresponding organizations and we’re sure you have, too. These disagreements can be between individual contributors on the ground or between C-suite leaders reporting to the CEO; escalation applies to all levels and roles within any organization.

Disagreements can be about strategic decisions, investments or on an execution detail. Sometimes we have seen it be resolved constructively, while in other cases conflict results in a significant amount of back and forth, delaying decision and execution. A culture of frequent unmanaged workplace conflicts can also have a significant human cost, where it harms employees’ physical and mental well-being and degrades culture and productivity. These effects can cause higher turnover and lower overall performance.

When peers cannot agree on a resolution, escalation is an effective mechanism for managing that situation. And when done right, it results in a faster, more effective resolution to complex issues, strengthening the business and relationships within. Let’s discuss reasons that we have seen for delayed escalations and some ideas on when and how to escalate effectively. We’ve also included some thoughts for the leaders, helping make the decisions and resolve the escalations.

Why are escalations ignored/delayed in common workplace settings?

In our experience, we have seen several reasons why escalations are perceived as negative by tech professionals like engineers, managers, product/program managers, etc.:

• Sign of failure: Professionals often see escalations to their manager or senior leaders as an admission of their personal or team failure. They worry that leaders will view them (or the team) as not independent in making and executing decisions.
• Lack of accountability: Professionals worry that their leadership sees escalations as a failure to accept responsibility to resolve workplace disagreements and conflicts.
• Belief that the issue isn’t serious enough: Many employees dismiss their conflicts or concerns by thinking, “It’s not that big of a deal.” This might be more of a protective mechanism to avoid discomfort, rather than a real reason to avoid escalations.
• Damage to working relationships: Escalating a direct conflict with a coworker (or a superior) can be seen as irreparable damage to the relationship between the involved members. We have seen this particularly widespread when the involved employees work closely on a frequent basis.
• Fear of retaliation: Professionals worry about the reprisal they may need to endure from a manager or a colleague. Moreover, we have often seen people cite concerns of being labeled as “difficult to work with.”

Escalations should be seen as a tool for collaborative problem-solving and continuous improvement. To eliminate concerns, it is critical for leaders to instill a culture of trust and transparency and focus on solutions. They should actively identify any elements of perceived failure and empower employees to tackle problems confidently. Based on our experience, we recommend leaders maintain a culture of escalation as leadership hygiene, not a fire alarm.

When to escalate?

Tech professionals struggle to decide when to escalate. Escalating issues too quickly may deter problem-solving and bypass solutions that could have eliminated the need for escalation in the first place. Meanwhile, escalating too late could lead to business impact associated with delayed decisions. Similarly, various factors (like audience required, available solutions, etc.) can lead to prolonged discussions and confusion as to the right time to escalate.

Professionals at all levels should consider a few key elements to decide when to escalate. First, they should do their due diligence and make all attempts to resolve the issue themselves before escalating. We have seen that simply writing down the available options along with their cost, customer or business impact and pros/cons is effective at identifying viable options; helping resolve issues without escalations in some cases. If the people involved cannot directly come to an agreement after this documentation step, they should turn to escalation.

Next, involved members should look to time-box the step to determine the solutions (investigation step covered above). Prolonged discussions can lead to unnecessary back-and-forth and delays. Tech professionals and leaders should promptly identify and interrupt such analysis-paralysis situations and escalate to leaders promptly.

To whom and how to escalate?

To whom to escalate is a relatively straightforward question. If the involved members report to the same manager, that manager should be their primary point of escalation. The manager then decides if additional involvement is needed, depending on the nature of the conflict. For instance, we have seen managers loop in org-level senior/staff engineers to disambiguate and resolve an architectural design debate. On the flip side, disagreements at the C-suite level may need the involvement of the CEO.

For scenarios where professionals report to different managers, we have seen joint escalations work well. Involvement of managers (of the same level) on both sides of the aisle generally helps avoid the issue of in-group bias. If the escalation is unilateral to a leader of one of the involved parties, they may be biased to resolve in favor of the people from their group. Joint escalations also force the involved parties to present facts that are framed with an unbiased context. Different groups and sub-organizations will frequently have conflicting opinions and priorities; we’ve seen firsthand that joint escalation provides a balanced mechanism to resolve these conflicts without causing damage to working relationships.

In our experience, the best way to escalate to leaders is by presenting a brief document (say, a 1-pager) with the problem context, customer impact, business impact and options considered, along with their pros and cons. This is essentially an extension of what the involved parties would have done in determining whether (and when) to escalate (see “When to escalate?” section). Additionally, it should include a clear summary of the disagreement between the involved parties and particulars on which they want leaders’ guidance.

Considerations for recipients of escalation (leaders)

We’ve looked at when, to whom and how to escalate; however, the role of leaders resolving the escalation (making the decision) is also critical. We have found these to be great opportunities to help the team be more self-reliant. It has also helped us, as leaders, scale by growing and mentoring other leaders in the organization. Below are some of the considerations that have helped us in our escalation engagements with the team.

Insist on data-oriented discussions

Escalations can get emotional. Each side wants to win the argument, rather than arrive at the best possible solution for the business. For leaders who inspect the situation, we recommend that they be aware of this fact and look for concrete business and customer impact data to make decisions. Wherever such data is not available, you can provide feedback/coaching to the team and request a follow-up. Decisions made with limited business context may backfire in the future, so it is prudent for leaders to ensure their decisions are grounded in business facts.

Provide directional guidance to involved professionals/leaders

In many cases, escalations may occur because there is no precedent or guidance available to make the decision. We recommend leaders identify such gaps and provide concrete direction to teams. For instance, in the case of a debate in our organization, the teams (and their managers) had a clear understanding of their own priorities, but they did not have a clear view of the org-level priorities. In that case, all we needed to do was to educate the managers on the absolute org-wide priorities. Not only did it resolve the current conflict, but it also helped them avoid such conflicts in their subsequent discussions.

Establish tenets

Another inspection point that comes up frequently is when teams within the same or partner organizations do not have a clear decision framework. We’ve experimented with various options and finally adopted “tenets” to guide our decision framework. The tenets could be org-level, architecture-level, etc., but they usually prove to be a good decision framework for professionals. They also provide clear guidance for escalation, where the teams may decide only to escalate in situations that break one or more tenets.

Escalation is an opportunity for coaching

We have seen escalations to be an excellent opportunity to observe employees and provide direct feedback on their actions, ability to solve problems and their conduct while in an escalation. The goal for the manager is to help their employee mature in their role and develop an ability to wear different hats or see from others’ perspectives. Too often, people determine their positions prematurely and look for data confirming their beliefs (confirmation bias). It is important to teach teams that, ultimately, customers and business matter the most and they should objectively look at the available data to resolve a conflict or make a decision.

Use escalations as an indicator for org health

We have used type and frequency of escalations as an indicator of the health of our organization. While not the only indicator, it paints a picture of the culture in the team and their ability to partner effectively with each other. Frequent escalations, particularly on the same or similar topics, may highlight the need for a change or additional coaching.

Flip the dialogue on escalation

Escalation is a crucial mechanism to ensure the right decisions are being made at the right time and at the right level. Handled well, escalations don’t signal failure; they help create the trust and velocity that modern IT organizations need. The goal is not to push problems upward, but to enable timely decisions so that the team works on business priorities.

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