THE OPERATING CODE  |  011

ESCALATION HAS A PURPOSE

Escalation does not always mean going to upper management.

It means recognizing when a problem has reached the limit of the person or group currently working it and bringing in the next level of knowledge, resources, authority, or support.

That can happen several times before an issue ever reaches senior leadership.

A crew may run into a problem and work through everything they know to try. At some point, the foreman may say, “We’re out of ideas. Call the superintendent.”

That is escalation.

The superintendent may work the problem with them. He may have seen it before. He may know something the crew doesn’t. He may be able to resolve it immediately.

If he can’t, that doesn’t necessarily mean the next call needs to be the project manager.

Call another superintendent. Call another foreman. Call somebody who has dealt with that equipment, customer, process, or type of problem before.

Use the knowledge already available in the organization.

If I have five experienced people who might know the answer, why would I ignore four of them just because the organizational chart says the problem belongs to one person?

But eventually you can reach a dead end.

Now the superintendent should be able to call the PM and say, “Here’s the problem. Here’s what we’ve tried. I’ve talked to John, Tom, Bob, Bill, and Mary. We’re out of ideas.”

That’s a very different conversation than simply saying, “We have a problem.”

KNOW WHY YOU’RE ESCALATING

Not every escalation happens for the same reason.

Sometimes you escalate because you have exhausted the knowledge and resources available at your level.

Sometimes you need another set of eyes.

Sometimes you need someone with different experience.

Sometimes you need additional manpower, equipment, material, technical support, or organizational resources.

Sometimes you need authority you don’t have.

And sometimes the issue is serious enough that leadership needs to know immediately.

A significant safety issue, customer exposure, contractual problem, major schedule impact, financial risk, or quality failure should not work its way slowly through every possible level while people try to solve it quietly.

Severity changes the escalation path.

Good judgment means understanding the difference between a problem that deserves another attempt at your level and one that needs to move immediately.

MORE THAN ONE ESCALATION PATH

Not every escalation follows our internal chain of command.

Customers have escalation processes too.

In telecom, for example, a field technician may encounter a particular alarm or condition at a cellular site. The customer’s procedure may require that issue to be escalated through their technical organization.

That doesn’t necessarily mean the situation is severe.

It may simply mean the technician has reached the limit of what that position is authorized or expected to troubleshoot. The customer’s process says where the problem goes next.

The same thing can happen with engineering, vendors, subcontractors, manufacturers, safety organizations, quality groups, or other technical resources.

That means there can be several escalation paths operating at the same time.

The field team may be escalating internally through operations while a technician is escalating technically through the customer’s process. A PM may be working a commercial issue while the superintendent is still working the field solution.

Those paths should support each other, not create confusion.

Knowing who owns which escalation matters.

DON’T START THE INVESTIGATION OVER

When an issue eventually reaches me, I don’t want to start at the beginning unless there is a reason to.

Tell me what happened.

What have you tried?

Who have you talked to?

What did they tell you?

What have we ruled out?

What is the current impact?

What options are left?

And what do you need from me?

“I can’t get the subcontractor to perform” isn’t enough.

“The material is late” isn’t enough.

“We can’t figure it out” isn’t enough.

Those are descriptions of the problem. They don’t tell me what work has already gone into solving it.

If the subcontractor isn’t performing, why? Are they understaffed? Missing hours? Poorly supervised? Do they lack the knowledge? Did they oversell their capability? What has already been discussed with them?

If material is late, when was it expected? When did we learn it wouldn’t arrive? Why is it late? What’s the revised delivery date? Can we resequence the work? Can we source it somewhere else?

If it’s a technical problem, what have we checked? Who else has looked at it? What have we eliminated?

That history matters because escalation should move the problem forward, not repeatedly send everybody back to the starting line.

THE NEXT LEVEL SHOULD ADD SOMETHING

If the superintendent and PM have the authority, resources, and knowledge to solve an issue, I should let them do their jobs.

They don’t need me inserting myself simply because I’m higher in the organization.

But if they’ve reached their limit, my involvement should add something they don’t currently have.

Maybe that’s another idea.

Maybe I’ve seen the problem before.

Maybe I know somebody they haven’t called.

Maybe they need coaching.

Maybe they need a decision.

Maybe they need resources moved from somewhere else in the organization.

Maybe the issue requires senior subcontractor involvement, commercial authority, engineering support, or executive customer involvement.

The point is not that I personally have to know the answer.

The point is that when the problem reaches my level, I need to help move it somewhere it could not go before.

And if I don’t know the answer either, then I escalate.

A title doesn’t make somebody the end of the escalation chain.

EXECUTIVE CUSTOMER INVOLVEMENT

Executive customer involvement should not begin the first time something goes wrong.

Those relationships should already exist.

Some customers want regular communication. Others are busy and don’t want another person calling them unless there is a reason. Part of managing the relationship is knowing the difference.

When an issue does require executive customer involvement, I need to understand what the superintendent and PM have already communicated and what the customer’s own escalation process requires.

If I contact the customer, I want facts and a plan.

What happened?

What is the actual impact?

What are we doing about it?

What can we recover?

Who owns the corrective action?

When will the customer hear from us again?

If the failure belongs to us, own it. Apologize when appropriate. Don’t bury the customer under internal explanations about why our organization couldn’t get something done.

The relationship built before the problem matters when the problem arrives.

Trust gives a difficult conversation somewhere to start.

ESCALATION IS NOT FAILURE

I don’t want people hiding problems because they think asking for help makes them look incapable.

There is a difference between escalating too quickly and knowing when you’ve reached a legitimate dead end.

I expect people to think.

I expect them to use the resources available to them.

I expect them to make reasonable attempts to solve the problem at their level.

But I don’t expect anyone to know everything.

There comes a point when continuing to beat on the same problem with the same people and the same ideas isn’t persistence anymore. It’s wasted time.

Bring somebody else in.

The higher I move in an organization, the less often I should personally take over someone else’s work. My field experience helps me understand the problem, but my responsibility at the operational level is different.

I need to know when to let capable people work, when to give them another perspective, when to provide resources, when to exercise authority, and when the problem needs to move somewhere else entirely.

Escalation has a purpose.

Sometimes that purpose is authority.

Sometimes it’s resources.

Sometimes it’s technical knowledge.

Sometimes it’s another set of eyes.

Sometimes it’s simply following the process required by the customer.

And sometimes it’s recognizing that the people currently working the problem have taken it as far as they can.

The purpose of escalation isn’t to add another name to the conversation.

It’s to move the problem forward.