Manager’s Toolkit: Take & Teach
Escalation for high-velocity decision making Manager Learning Hub | Global Learning
and Development
Planning and
Toolkit Overview Session Plan – Sample Email - Sample Why Escalation When to Escalate How to Escalate
Communication
Contents
Toolkit Overview: Escalation for High-Velocity Decision Making 2
Outcomes2
Methodology2
Pre-work2
Materials2
Duration of session 2
Facilitator Tips 2
Follow-ups2
Session Plan – Sample 3
Ice Breaker Activity (5 mins) 3
Activity 1: Discuss why escalation and tackle misconceptions (25 mins) 3
Activity 2: Discuss when to escalate (30 mins) 3
Activity 3: Discuss how to escalate (30 mins) 3
Email to Participants - Sample 4
Why Escalation 5
When to Escalate 6
How to Escalate 9
Prevent Escalation by Planning and Communication 11
Summary11
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Manager’s Toolkit: Take & Teach
Escalation for high-velocity decision making Manager Learning Hub | Global Learning
and Development
Planning and
Toolkit Overview Session Plan – Sample Email - Sample Why Escalation When to Escalate How to Escalate
Cmmunication
Toolkit Overview: Escalation for High-Velocity Decision Making
This toolkit provides you with all the information needed to lead a session on fast and friendly escalation for
high-velocity decision making.
Disagreements and conflicts among teams often arise due to misaligned goals and competing priorities. In these
situations, you could easily spend weeks or even months on debate and negotiation without any results. It is
often more effective to use escalation to resolve conflicts in the spirit of high-velocity decision making.
Outcomes — In-person session: Post-it notes (sticky notes),
whiteboard, projector screen and cable, pens, marker
At the end of the session your team will be able to:
pens.
1. Recognize the importance of fast and friendly
— Virtual session: Prepare a collaborative online
escalation
whiteboard tool to track ideas or feedback. Examples
2. Decide the timing for escalation could be Quip, Board or others.
3. Apply best practices for effective escalation
Duration of session
Methodology
90 minutes (not including pre-work)
Group activity and leader-led discussion
Facilitator Tips
Pre-work
1. This session is designed to be a collaborative exercise
To prepare and get familiar with why, when and how
to improve your team’s ability to use escalation for
to escalate:
high-velocity decision making. In the introduction,
1. Work through the eLearning course – briefly set context and encourage all team members to
Escalation for high-velocity decision making contribute. Make sure each team member’s ideas and
(45 mins). You will also send a link to this course concerns are heard.
to participants as a session pre-work. 2. Manage time effectively for each activity. Keep focus
2. Review Session plan -- Sample, adjust on the topic. Capture comments, topics, and questions
activities and duration to your team-specific that are not related to the agenda for later.
needs.
Follow-ups
3. Use and customize the Email sample to send
1. Share the documents created from this session with
out invite to participants.
your team.
4. Collect and prepare materials listed below for
2. Keep track of the escalations made on your team:
conducting an in-person or virtual session.
when and how the escalation was made and what the
Materials outcome was.
Share the following handouts included in this toolkit 3. Reflect on each escalation: What can be done
for each participant: differently next time so escalation is not needed?
1. Why Escalation (page 5) 4. Revisit the escalation process on a quarterly basis and
discuss what works and what needs to improve.
2. When to Escalate (page 6)
5. Adjust the escalation process, if needed.
3. How to Escalate (page 9)
6. For questions, ideas or feedback about the Toolkit:
4. Prevent Escalation by Planning and
Escalation for high-velocity decision making, please
Communication (page 11)
complete our short survey, for technical issues
submit a SIM Ticket.
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Manager’s Toolkit: Take & Teach
Escalation for high-velocity decision making Manager Learning Hub | Global Learning
and Development
Planning and
Toolkit Overview Session Plan – Sample Email - Sample Why Escalation When to Escalate How to Escalate
Communication
Session Plan – Sample
Ice Breaker Activity (5 mins)
º Ask team members to share an experience in º Discuss the timing for escalation. Add to or revise
which they made an escalation to resolve a the following signals for escalation to fit the
conflict, and how it turned out. team’s specific needs.
º Ask team members to share an experience in At risk missing a critical goal?
which they could but didn’t escalate, and how it Have been blocked for three weeks?
turned out.
Have dived deep into the issue?
Activity 1: Discuss why escalation and tackle Have exhausted all the viable options?
misconceptions (25 mins)
Have recommendations?
º Review the handout of Why Escalation. º Based on the discussion, create a list of signals
º Ask team members who shared an experience in that the team will use to determine the timing for
the icebreaking activity why did they or why did escalation.
they not escalate. Activity 3: Discuss how to escalate (30 mins)
— Create two lists: Reasons for Escalation, and
Reasons for Not Escalation. º Review the handout of How to Escalate.
º Ask other team members to add to the two lists. º Ask team members to share a successful example
of escalation and what made it successful. It
º Review the Reasons for Escalation list. Summarize doesn’t have to be their own example.
the benefits of escalation if done well.
º Ask team members to share an unsuccessful
º Review the Reasons for Not Escalation list. example of escalation, and what made it so. It
Identify misconceptions that should be doesn’t have to be their own example.
addressed.
º Discuss best practices for fast and friendly
º Role play activity: One person speaks one of the escalation. Add to or revise the following list to fit
misconceptions identified above; another person the team’s specific needs.
responds to that misconception.
Align with your manager
º Create a table for misconceptions and responses
Inform the other team of your intent to escalate
that counter the misconceptions.
Escalate the problem, not the person
Activity 2: Discuss when to escalate (30 mins)
Widen your options for problem solving
º Review the handout of When to Escalate. Prepare an escalation doc
º Ask team members to share an example of Escalate to the right level
escalating too early. It doesn’t have to be their Document the agreement
own example.
º Based on the discussion, create a list of best
º Ask team members to share an example of practices that the team will use for effective
escalating too late. It doesn’t have to be their escalation.
own example.
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Manager’s Toolkit: Take & Teach
Escalation for high-velocity decision making Manager Learning Hub | Global Learning
and Development
Planning and
Toolkit Overview Session Plan – Sample Email - Sample Why Escalation When to Escalate How to Escalate
Communication
Email to Participants - Sample
Subject Line: Escalation for high-velocity decision making
Hi All,
We will be coming together as a team to discuss when and how we use
fast and friendly escalation to achieve high-velocity decision making.
Limited resources, competing priorities, and misaligned goals often lead
to conflicts that can’t be resolved without escalation. Escalation done
well leads to faster decision making.
The session will take place on <<insert date>> and will be for a
duration of 90min. Prior to the session, please work through this
eLearning course: Escalation for high-velocity decision making, and
come prepared with questions to our team session.
I look forward to your participation in the session.
Thanks,
[Your name]
A replica of Handouts following this sectiion of the Toolkit are also available
to download as a seperate document.
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Handout
Why Escalation Manager Learning Hub | Global Learning
and Development
Why Escalation When to Escalate How to Escalate Planning and Communication
Why Escalation
Amazon operates on small teams (sometimes Reduced Decreased Productive Happy Happy
known as “two-pizza teams”) to enable speed time stress teams customers stakeholders
and innovation. However, having a lot of small
teams means that sometimes teams rely on each other to get work done, or compete for the common
resources of the company, leading to conflicts that can’t be resolved without escalation.
Escalation is the process of calling upon higher levels of leadership to resolve an issue. When two
parties are unable to agree, an escalation is necessary to resolve the issue. Escalation can help to resolve
conflicts because senior leaders have visibility into broader objectives and are able to determine the best
priority for both teams.
“Recognize true misalignment issues early and escalate them immediately. Sometimes teams have
different objectives and fundamentally different views. They are not aligned. No amount of discussion,
no number of meetings will resolve that deep misalignment. Without escalation, the default dispute
resolution mechanism for this scenario is exhaustion. Whoever has more stamina carries the decision.”
–Jeff Bezos, 2016 Letter to Shareholder
“You’ve worn me down” is an awful decision making process. It’s slow and de-energizing. Go for quick
escalation instead. If you escalate quickly and in an empathetic way, you will get to a faster decision,
unblock your team to deliver against the decision, increase your credibility within the organization, and
earn trust with your peer colleagues and your team.
Tackle common misconceptions about escalation
People often wait too long to escalate or avoid escalation all together. The following table lists a few
common misconceptions that hold people back from escalation and how to counter it with more
productive thinking.
: Misconceptions ; Productive thinking
“Escalation is a sign of failure. It “Being an owner does not mean you have to solve a problem all by
means that I can't handle my job.” yourself. In fact, one of the ways to demonstrate ownership is to escalate.”
“No amount of discussion can resolve fundamental misalignment. Escalate
“Just one more meeting and we can
if you have already made a good-faith effort to negotiate with the other
resolve this issue by ourselves.”
team, but not getting any results.”
“You escalate the problem, not the person. You escalate because you want
“My peer will look bad if I complain
to solve problems for customers and unblock your team. Also, no one gets
to their boss.”
punished at Amazon for escalation.”
“I told my manager about this issue. “Escalation is not done until the problem is solved. You are the project
I am done with my escalation. She owner, not your manager. You know more about the project than anyone
will take it from there.” else. Escalate to the right level and with both parties, not just one side.”
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Handout
When to Escalate Manager Learning Hub | Global Learning
and Development
Why
Prioritization
Escalation Guidelines When to Escalate
Prioritization FrameworksHow to Escalate ProjectPlanning
Management
and Communication
Triangle
When to Escalate
Effective escalation should happen in a timely manner. In general, you should escalate when you realize
you cannot reach a decision by working with your counterparts on the other teams, or when speed is
critical and a top-down decision is helpful to move forward. Teams could hit an impasse in decision
making for different reasons.
‟ Competing priorities. It is not uncommon that teams at Amazon have competing
priorities and conflicting interests. Misalignment is sometimes too fundamental
to be resolved by negotiation. A common situation is when your team has a hard
dependency on the other team, but the other team has different projects that they
consider higher priorities.
‟ Too many players. There are many players involved, and everyone has an opinion
about what should happen, but it is unclear who the ultimate decision maker
is. Or too many people have veto power, but they are not aligned on what they
want. The issue is unlikely to be resolved without escalation and identifying a clear
decision maker.
‟ Scope constraint. Sometimes a decision is bigger than what individual teams can
decide, such as major changes to project roadmaps or significant re-allocation
of resources. Escalation is needed once you recognize the decision is beyond the
scope of your team or the other team.
‟ Unclear ownership. Sometimes decision making is slowed down due to unclear
ownership. At Amazon it is common that multiple teams own a product or a
feature. For example, there are over 100 teams who own some aspects of the
product detail page on the Amazon website. If a usability problem on that page
needs to be fixed, it may be unclear which team owns that problem. Escalation is
often needed to clarify ownership.
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Handout
When to Escalate Manager Learning Hub | Global Learning
and Development
Why Escalation When to Escalate How to Escalate Planning and Communication
Decide the timing for escalation
After you know an escalation is needed, when do you escalate? Deciding the right timing for escalation is
not always straightforward. What follows are a few general guidelines to help you decide the timing for
escalation. But you should apply and hone your judgement on which guidelines best suit your situation.
Are you at risk missing your critical path?
Work backwards from your project roadmap, and identify the critical path for deliverables.
Working from that critical path, you should know by when you need an issue to be
unblocked. Escalate issues as soon as you recognize misalignment and well before they
become a missed deadline.
Nobody likes surprises. Avoid the situation where escalation is a total surprise. If you
anticipate that an issue may potentially cause your project status to be red, you need to do
pre-emptive communication to let senior management know that we may have an issue to
deal with, so it does not come as a surprise if it indeed happens. This is also called a pre-
escalation.
Have you been blocked for three weeks?
One unofficial rule of thumb adopted by some teams at Amazon is that you should
escalate if you have been blocked by the same issue for three weeks in a row. Generally
speaking, you spend the first week trying to figure out the problem, second week
identifying solutions and trade-offs, and the third week reaching a decision. If you don’t
have an aligned solution by the third week, you should consider involving senior leaders.
Note that this is a recommendation. You don’t want to wait that long if you clearly know
the misalignment cannot be resolved by negotiation or if you have less than 3 weeks away
from launch.
Have you dived deep into the issue?
Before you escalate, do your homework. You are expected to have a good understanding
of the issue being escalated and can answer questions about the details of the issue. If you
can’t say “yes” to the following questions, you are not ready to escalate.
Have you gathered all the facts from the stakeholders involved?
Can you articulate the issue?
Can you articulate the impact?
Do you have any data to support your argument?
Do you know what you want to get out of the escalation?
Can you articulate the decision to be made and the trade-offs and benefits to be
considered clearly?
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Handout
When to Escalate Manager Learning Hub | Global Learning
and Development
Why Escalation When to Escalate How to Escalate Planning and Communication
Have you exhausted all the viable options?
Have you really exhausted all the potential solutions that are available to you? We all like
an empty to-do list. But there is always a bigger picture at play and you need to ensure you
and your team have done all the necessary due diligence to exhaust all options available to
you. Use escalations as a means to enable high-velocity decision making, not getting things
done faster.
Do you have recommendations?
Project owners tend to have an in-depth understanding of the issue at hand. They know
more about the situation than anyone else. Leaders tend to specialize in breadth. They
have a wider visibility into what is happening across teams, can access and allocate more
resources, and are better able to connect the dots and make decisions. Breakthrough in
problem-solving often happens when sufficient depth and breadth are gauged.
Don’t just throw the issue over the wall (or in this case, upstairs) and expect leaders
to resolve that issue for you. You can demonstrate your ownership and earn trust by
developing 2-3 options based on what you have known and tried. Explain the pros and
cons and tradeoffs for each option. If you have a recommended option, explain why.
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Handout
How to Escalate Manager Learning Hub | Global Learning
and Development
Why Escalation When to Escalate How to Escalate Planning and Communication
How to Escalate
You know you need an escalation, but how should you escalate so that you can get a decision quickly without
impacting the relationship with the other team? Effective escalation is thoughtful and well planned. What
follows are a few best practices to help you escalate effectively.
Align with your manager
Make sure that you are aligned with your own manager with respect to your point of view.
Sometimes your manager may not agree with you. If so, it is important to have a discussion
with your manager. You may decide to accept the disagreement and move on (disagree and
commit), or convince your manager of your point of view (have backbone), depending on the
situation. But it is important to gain alignment with your manager prior to escalation so that
he or she can be your support.
Inform the other team of your intent to escalate
Make sure that you openly communicate with the person you are disagreeing with that you
believe it is time to escalate. The best escalations are done when they are done together by
the parties who disagree. The worst ones are when you escalate without telling the other
party you plan to do so.
“I have a sentence I like to use, which helps to eliminate some of the tension: ‘This decision is so important,
and unclear, so it is worthy of a wider discussion.’ So it is not about I disagree with you, and I am right, you
are wrong, but this is a really tough thing, and both of us come from a different angle, the decision itself is
worthy of more; both of us are passionate about it, and it is clear it is a worthwhile thing to talk about.” –
Stephanie L., VP of Amazon
Escalate the problem, not the person
Your escalation should focus on problem-solving, not finger-pointing. It is not about you
or the other person. You each represent a valid point-of-view, and the real issue is that a
decision needs to be made. State the facts without casting blame. If there is any
disagreement about the facts, clearly state what the disagreement is.
Demonstrating sincere empathy throughout the escalation process is important. Empathy is the ability to share
and understand others’ emotions. It’s easier to be empathetic towards people you agree with. When working with
someone you disagree with, it’s easy to assume the worst, and that mindset may show up in your behavior. Being
mindful and having a deep understanding of your own emotions and intentions strengthen your capacity for
empathy. Learn to recognize clues that you’re having a negative emotional reaction towards your colleague. Once
acknowledged, find a way to disconfirm any negative beliefs and to assume positive intent.
Also, make a concerted effort to understand your counterpart’s perspective and emotions. Try to understand why
this person says what he says, thinks what he thinks, and acts the way he acts. It doesn’t mean you have to adopt
or agree with it, but you do have to acknowledge it. Instead of focusing on the differences between you and your
colleague, try to find similarities and things you share in common. Despite any differences, you both want the
company to be successful.
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Handout
How to Escalate Manager Learning Hub | Global Learning
and Development
Why Escalation When to Escalate How to Escalate Planning and Communication
Widen your options for problem solving
Decision making means you choose one option from several choices. The
number and quality of choices you have determines the quality of your
decision making. Escalation will be more effective if you can present several
alternatives to help senior management extend their decision frame
beyond the obvious options and help them think “out of the box.” You
should have evaluated feasible alternative solutions before you escalate. However, sometimes an
alternative may be beyond your team’s scope, but with escalation, it is possible.
Teams get stuck often because they are limited to existing, obvious choices. Disagreement can’t be
resolved if each team insists on their own solution. The solution reached after escalation is often
different from the original proposals from both sides.
Prepare an escalation doc
Escalation at Amazon always involves a document. Documenting the issue
will force a clarity of thought that is difficult to achieve by verbally
describing a problem. The document can also be reused should subsequent
escalations be necessary. An escalation doc should address four questions:
What is the problem? What are the options?
What is the impact? What do you recommend?
Escalate to the right level
You should establish a clear path to escalation when issues arise in the
project charter when partnering with other teams. The path may include
different levels of escalation. Often the ultimate decision makers are the
project owners in each organization (e.g., directors). If a clear escalation
path is not available, escalation typically starts with the lowest-level
managers who are not already familiar with the problem. If subsequent escalations are necessary,
escalate up one level at a time. Always maintain high visibility about the escalation for those who were
in the previous unsuccessful meeting.
Document the agreement
However you get an agreement, whether you get it yourself or through an
escalation, you should write things down and share the written agreement with all
parties involved. If needed, communicate to a wider group. Include the context
discussed to aid everyone’s learning and awareness of what drove the final
outcome. If there are action items, clearly assign owners and due dates. This helps
to avoid confusion or controversy down the road. Do not skip this step.
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Handout
Prevent escalation by planning and Manager Learning Hub | Global Learning
and Development
communication
Why Escalation When to Escalate How to Escalate Planning and Communication
Prevent Escalation by Planning and Communication
Although escalation can help you resolve an impasse and get
a decision quickly, by its nature escalation is disruptive to the
normal work process, often requiring project owners to reset
roadmaps mid-stream. Some escalations can and should be
prevented by proactive planning and communication.
In project planning, prioritize projects that have dependencies on other teams. Having too many dependencies
on other teams is a common project blocker. Ask if the dependencies can be eliminated. If not, place a higher
priority to those projects, and try to get them on your partner team’s roadmap as early as possible.
Maintain ongoing and open communication with the other teams you work with, so that you are informed of
any changes in their project roadmaps and goals in a timely manner.
Learn from each escalation. After you have done an escalation, look back at the situation and reflect on what
you can do differently next time so escalation is not needed. Can the issue be avoided by better planning and
communication?
Summary
As Amazon grows even larger, and engages in more and more disparate businesses, it’s inevitable that
issues will arise and slow down decision making. Escalation is a tool for high-velocity decision making,
reducing time on unproductive disagreement and allowing teams to focus on creating better experience
for our customers.
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