Horizontal and vertical escalations

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A horizontal escalation is one that crosses between silos within an organisation.

So, when a negotiator (Operations) has to get a credit point approved by a credit officer (Credit), or a legal point approved by the legal eagles (Office of the General Counsel), she must transgress her own hermeneutical boundaries and seek the say-so of someone subject to the laws and imperatives of a different realm whose ultimate control may not be common with her own until it is a long way further up the organisation: possibly not until the CEO himself (or — likely story, but still — herself).

To be contrasted, obviously enough, with a vertical escalation, where one seeks the approval, judgment, sign-off or general air-cover of ones own line manager.

Vertical escalations respect the formal order of the organisation, and are generally efficient: escalator and escalatee have the same basic set of competencies, and the same theory of the game. Generally your own line manager is readily available for you to speak to, interested in your problems and dispositionally inclined to give the guidance you need — that is, primarily, what a line manager is there for — so unless the escalator is uncommonly odious or doltish, she will have a sound grasp of the details of the issue, a fair opinion about what the correct judgment should be and a fair relationship with her own manager, whom she should know well enough to be able to present the case in a way that generates a sensible, fast, and un-laboured outcome.

Thus — and recognising that this is theory, not practice, and organisations are generally run far less competently than you might possibly believe — vertical escalations are generally efficient, effective, and fast.

See also

• Waste
• Escalation
• Silo
• Fourth law of worker entropy