The Escalation Ladder

Where an issue goes when the body that holds it cannot resolve it — one rung up, sparingly.

The default is local. An issue is named, given an owner and a date, talked through, and solved by the body whose work it is (Issue, Subsidiarity). Only when that body genuinely cannot resolve it does the issue travel: to the stewardship body of the Supercell it belongs to, and, if it must, one rung further (Stewardship body, Guidance).

Two disciplines keep the ladder from becoming a chain of command. It is climbed sparingly, because attention at a higher scale is scarce and every escalation spends some of it. And it carries an issue rather than a person: what goes up is a question the body could not answer, not a complaint about who answered it wrong (Zero Blame Environment, Proportionality).

What comes back down is also bounded. A higher body offers direction, and at times a decision, only where its wider view genuinely serves; it pushes decisions back out as far as they will go and no farther, and it stays out of as much as it can (Subsidiarity, Consent-Based Decision-Making, The Return). Sovereignty is not suspended by escalation: the body that raised the issue keeps its own agency throughout (Sovereignty At Every Scale, Agency, not ownership).

Beside the ladder stands the other motion, which is not escalation at all: anyone at any level may say stop, and it takes effect at once (Whistleblower Protection, Stop).

Also called: — Stands on: Issue · Subsidiarity · Supercell · Stewardship body Opens onto: Mend a Tension · Wise Eldership · Guidance · Conflict Transformation · Stop · The Return In play: beyond the table Sources: Identifying And Solving Issues (draft, the sparing-use discipline) · The LIØNSBERG Playbook, Operations — Play — Identify and Solve the Issue, Play — Engage Conflict (draft) · Pass The Flame, ch. VII (the ladder to the stewardship council of the next body) · The LIØNSBERG Operating System §15–§16 (draft) · lionsberg.wiki: Identifying And Solving Issues Open: Named in several places, articulated in none; Pass The Flame describes it in the older first and second degree group vocabulary.