One senior executive’s warning about escalating conflicts to upper management

Raymond Chen

One of my friends was contemplating ways that they deal with others who disagree with them at work and wish to escalate a decision to upper management.

I was reminded of one senior executive who explained, “If two of you can’t resolve an issue and escalate it to me, then you both have failed. You are two experts on the subject, asking for a final decision from somebody who knows nothing about it.”

“The one thing I can say with near-certainty is that both of you are going to be equally unhappy with me making the final decision.”