Rule 11 of 33 · Chapter II — How Decisions Get Made
Escalate early, without drama
Why this rule exists
Escalating has a bad reputation it doesn't deserve, because people confuse it with tattling or admitting failure, so they sit on a blocker until it's a crisis. But raising your hand early, when a decision is stuck, a dependency is slipping, or two people can't align, is exactly what a healthy team wants, because a problem surfaced at week one is cheap and the same problem surfaced at week four is expensive. Escalation isn't going over someone's head; it's pulling in the person who can actually break the tie or unblock the resource, and doing it before the delay compounds. The teams that ship reliably aren't the ones that never get stuck, they're the ones that get unstuck fast because nobody's ego is tied up in pretending they weren't stuck. Waiting to escalate to avoid looking incapable is how small blockers become missed deadlines that make everyone look worse.
In practice
When you've been blocked for more than a day, or a decision is deadlocked, or you can see a deadline slipping, say so, to the person who can help. Frame it as information, not accusation: here's the blocker, here's what I've tried, here's what I need. Do it early enough that there's still room to fix it, not after the outcome is already baked. If two of you are stuck disagreeing, pull in a third rather than grinding, and treat that as normal, not as either of you failing. As the person escalated to, respond fast and without making it a thing, because how you react the first time determines whether people ever escalate to you again. Reward the early flag, never punish it.
When it doesn't apply
Escalate the blocker, not every minor bump you could resolve yourself with ten minutes of effort; part of the skill is calibrating what genuinely needs another person. And escalation isn't a way to dodge a decision that's rightfully yours to make.