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MANAGING-UP5 MIN READ

Escalate With Options, Not Alarm

Build an escalation that names the decision, options, tradeoffs, and recommendation.

Do not hand your boss a problem pile when what they need is a decision frame. Escalation is not the act of moving a problem upward. In strong managing-up practice, escalation means moving the right decision to the person with the right authority, at the right time, with enough structure to act. The problem is often not that employees escalate too much; it is that they escalate raw. A raw escalation makes the boss do triage, diagnosis, option generation, and decision-making under time pressure. A structured escalation brings the decision frame and shows that you have already done the thinking…

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