A colleague and I had an interesting discussion today about the impacts of escalation versus working together in a collaborative way to achieve resolution of outstanding issues.

In the context of this post, escalation refers to raising an issue to a higher level of authority for resolution.  Basically when someone bypasses you to try to achieve what they want.

For Example

You may be requested to provide a service outside of your preview or capability and so politely refuse.  The recipient of your answer decides to  take their dissatisfaction to a person of higher authority, that is, to escalate above you.

An interesting twist on this example is when you feel constrained and unable to respond in a way concurrent with your values and/or assessment of the situation.  You might suggest they take the request to a someone with more decision making power and latitude.

Handling Escalation

As the recipient of an escalation you are often between a rock and a hard place.  Your authority may enable you to overide and basically denigrate those at a lower level in the organization, judging their needs to be lesser than those of the escalator.

Or you can provide the escalator with a refusal, potentially damaging the organizational reputation by creating a perception of inadequate responsiveness.

Doing theDance

Of course these are just to ends of the spectrum and you can perform a dance trying to achieve an outcome that will satisfy all, the requestor, the receivers of the original request, yourself and organizational guidelines.

Never easy.  Personally, I dislike escalations and those that propagate them as a matter of principle (regardless of my role).