Escalation is OK (if done right)

Pushing for clarity is our job as product managers.

Photo by Daniel von Appen on Unsplash

This blog post was initially published on Medium, and is republished here for easier reference.

In Product Management we talk a lot about the need for alignment. Alignment is important because it helps to build trust, avoid waste and trigger decisions.
Contrary to common belief, alignment does NOT mean that everybody always agrees. Instead, alignment means creating clarity, even in dissent.
In dissent one may need to escalate and trigger decisions higher up in order to reach clarity through escalation. Often we shy away from this, because it is emotionally inconvenient.
In this post I look into why escalation is not only necessary but also totally OK if you approach it the right way.

Why alignment matters

First, a few words on why alignment is so important in Product Management:
Alignment is necessary to build trust with your stakeholders, your peers and your team. If people understand what you aim to do and why, and if you reach a shared understanding of how you will know if you’re successful it will be much easier for them to trust you. And without this trust you will not be granted the autonomy you need for your team and for your own work. 
If you want autonomy don’t claim it but make sure you are well aligned!

Alignment can also help to avoid waste from misunderstandings. My favorite visualization for the waste that can result from missing alignment is Henrik Knibergs picture of two teams building a solution to get across the river with dry feet.

Henrik Kniberg: https://blog.crisp.se/2016/05/30/henrikkniberg/misalignment

While both solutions make sense and could reach the expected result they don’t add up. As a result one team’s effort is wasted and the “time to market” (or in this case: time until the water can be crossed) is much longer than necessary.

Lastly, when you actively seek alignment you need to make your standpoint, your assumptions and your expectations explicit — and you need to find ways to help your counterparts make their perspective transparent as well. Alignment frameworks like Auftragsklärung, which we at XING communicate to all Product Managers, can help to trigger the right conversations.

By forcing yourself to get explicit about why and what you aim to do, and by adding other perspectives to the mix, you will also have a sharper view on pending decisions and can either take those decisions or trigger the necessary decision process. In the above example a clear decision whether to build a bridge or dig a tunnel would have helped to avoid waste.
The earlier you identify decision needs and get the decisions made the better it is for the clarity of everybody involved. If you sense uncertainties and miss clarity they often are an indication for pending decisions. And pending decisions are a risk and can easily slow you down.

Decisions can require escalation

When it comes to decision needs there are decisions you are entitled to take and just need to take. If that’s the case: What are you waiting for? Decide and make sure that everyone who needs to know is clear about the decision. If you are working in a larger organization and/or an asynchronous setup you may want to introduce a decision log so that people know where to find the “single source of truth”.

But there may also be decisions which you simply cannot take. A typical example for this setup is when inside a larger organization two product managers who pursue conflicting goals try to come to a decision, but simply can’t because any decision will compromise one party’s goals more than what they feel they can “let go” themselves. 
In such cases there’s no way the two Product Managers can come to a decision and as a result they will also not reach alignment on the path forward.

The worst thing that can happen in such a situation is that instead of escalating the two Product Managers postpone the decision. 
“Let’s continue our discussion next week…”

And you know what will happen next week? Nothing!

Please note: While I argue against postponing the decision it may very well make sense to sleep on it, in particular if the discussion turned emotional, and then actively and jointly decide whether to escalate or not. An emotionally loaded escalation won’t help your clarification effort.

Why do people avoid escalation?

Why are people so hesitant to escalate decisions they simply cannot decide to higher ups who can decide from a broader perspective?
I think there are three main reasons for this:
- Escalation is seen as a sign of weakness
- Escalation is seen as taking the easy way out
- Escalation is confused with personal conflict among colleagues

Escalation is seen as a sign of weakness
I feel that this is where the typical personality of Product Managers is the root cause of the problem because most good PMs I know are opinionated people who are happy to make decisions many times, every day. They are comfortable lateral leaders and as such feel they can handle things themselves. And indeed they can. But there will simply be decisions they cannot take because they go beyond what they can decide.

In such cases escalation is not a sign of weakness, but a healthy, self-conscious sign of understanding context, and understanding your own role and its boundaries. A sign of strength and a sign that you understand that your job is to to push for clarity which is not the same as being in charge of every decision.

Escalation is seen as taking the easy way out
Escalation may also be perceived as a way of letting others decide for yourself instead of spending energy to clarify your point in a discussion. Escalation seems like the easy way out.

And indeed it is possible to approach escalation like this and just pass the decision to somebody else. But this also means that you are taking yourself out responsibility and out of influence for whatever happens next. But if you as product person take responsibility for driving clarification you will need to play an active role in the escalation process to make sure (only) the right things get decided by somebody else, but you stay in charge.

Escalation is confused with personal conflict among colleagues
Luckily in most modern tech companies casual and friendly is the common way of interacting among peers. In such an atmosphere it can feel difficult and overly conflicting to trigger an escalation if you cannot come to a clear decision with a colleague.
But if done right it’s totally OK to escalate a decision need for the sake of clarity for everyone and it really has nothing to do with your personal relationship to your colleague. If both of you are doing a good job and you just happen to have conflicting goals there simply is no way you’ll be able to come to a mutual decision. Pushing for your perspective does not mean you are not respecting your colleague’s perspective.

How to escalate gracefully

If you see escalation not primarily for the conflict of perspectives it shows, but focus on its contribution to clarity it becomes more easy to pursue with escalation.
With some colleagues at XING we found that the following steps can help the clarifying power of escalation without damaging collegial relationships:

1. Be honest to yourselves as soon as you notice that you won’t be able to come to a mutual decision. Don’t postpone the decision, but escalate! 
   If necessary take your time to sleep on it and let emotions cool down, but don’t be shy to escalate. Pushing for clarity is your job.

2. But don’t escalate behind your colleague’s back. Instead: Agree that you can’t agree and pursue an escalation together. 
   Once you understand that this matter needs to be escalated for the sake of clarity, communicate this to your colleague and get their opinion on it — you both need to agree that it needs to be escalated and then approach the escalation together. Ideally try to arrange for a joint meeting with both of you and the necessary decision maker(s) to make everybody feel part of the escalation process (even if the result is not the decision they hoped for).
   This way, the escalation is not about your interpersonal relationship, but about your joint pursue of clarity.

3. Before you approach your superiors, take your time to get to a clear, shared understanding of your decision need and the relevant facts. Because only if you do that you can be clear about what’s unclear!
   Even if it seems obvious to you what the core decision need is make sure that the two of you have the same understanding. This way you can already practice how to state the decision need in a clear way. 
   Because when you approach your superiors it’s in everybody’s interest that you actively focus the escalation on the real decision need. Of course you need to give enough context, but it’s not your superiors’ job to disentangle your own confusion or dig for the core question in a lengthy, unfocused narration of various, somewhat complicated matters. 
   Together with your colleague you can and you should take the time to present the decision need in a clear way, including relevant facts — and you will see that this enables your superiors to provide you with the clarity you need to move forward.

4. Lastly: As soon as you have the decision you needed to move on take back responsibility from your superiors.
   It is best to frame this accordingly when you approach your superiors by clearly stating that you have a disagreement and need their help. You need a clarifying decision so that you can proceed. If presented this way it is clear to your superiors that you are actively driving this. You are in charge and you want to remain in charge.

I have made the experience that when you follow this approach escalation loses much of its negative connotation and really helps you to achieve more clarity during alignment.

Initially it may take some practice and of course it is also possible that the decision made during the escalation is not your preferred option. But at least you have a decision which enables you and your team to progress.

Because as a product manager, your job is not to be always right or push your opinion onto others, but to help increase the clarity for those working with you.

Many thanks to Lennard Maronde, Sebastian Bossung & Petra Wille for your valuable feedback & input!