Learn the art of escalation to build lasting work relationships

Escalations are standard way to find resolution between teams but 99% of them go down the path of conflict from the get go.

Timelines, design choices, language, framework, priority are all points of contention in software development. This is especially true when two people with different reporting hierarchy are working together but have alternate views on how to proceed further.

Here is common scenario, one of them writes a borderline frustrated email to their manager about how they want things to proceed and request for help.

You did not escalate, you just complained.

Escalations are always a joint ‘request for guidance’

If you want to successfully escalate, the mindset of escalation has to be bought back from complaining to a request for guidance.

Escalations should be transparent to both parties. Each person should call out their preference, pros and cons of all proposed options. In doing so both parties have to work together closely and truly build the empathy for each other’s proposals.

It is also important to call out the names of the decision maker. Doing this removes the emotions associated with the outcome.

If such a process is followed, your relationship with the other team will continue to flourish even if the decision to pursue did not align with their proposal.