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This week’s backstory is about escalation strategies in 2 parts:
What Prompted this Article?
“If you don’t request an investment before we sell the product, then we will escalate!” This statement prompted the article.
Frank and Martin are two senior program managers who hold a weekly executive review in which they escalate any obstacle to their high-visibility project. I was their next target for the weekly escalation.
Frank and Martin are masters at escalation. I learned a lot from this conflict.
I learned the 3 steps to a graceful escalation from Frank and Martin:
Build relationships before escalation is needed
Deal with facts and keep emotions away
Prepare a recommendation and a default response
Frank and Martin followed these steps. We all had strong relationships cross-functionally. We worked together on preparing the facts. They recommended that my platform product team invest in the facilities. Their default is for their product team to invest. In the end, they paid for the investment.
After the escalation, we continued to work together with no further issues.
What Happened After this Article?
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