How To Deal With Incompetence And Escalate People Effectively

Make sure you are not the problem with a self-assessment template, learn how to quickly escalate endless conflict situations.

For the sake of this post, let's assume that you have tried to resolve conflict on your own and it not worked. You have invested extra time to talk to the person empathetically and applied good communication techniques. Unfortunately, their personality is rather victimizing and bullying, so they are unwilling to change.

What you’ll find in this guide:

• Why you need to address conflict immediately?

• First, make sure you are not the problem

• Your conflict resolution self-assessment

• How to escalate people effectively

• How to know when the conflict has been resolved?

• Final thoughts

Why you need to address conflict immediately?

Nobody likes conflict. I've never heard anyone say "I love conflict", but sometimes, unfortunately, people get used to it more than they should. 🙅🏻

💡 Conflict by nature is inefficient, entailing debate and complexity that can consume significant time. You don’t want conflict to slow down development progress. 

Letting conflicts spill over can actually harm the success of your product. For example, agreeing on a simple task can slow down the engineering team and subsequently prevent the product management team from making crucial changes to the product, slowing down the progress of the entire team.

Also, conflict can lead to a situation where dominant individuals control the debate, causing other team members to retreat and stop contributing. The worst part is that unaddressed conflict can cause resentment, leading team members to stop sharing information and reducing their interactions.

This is particularly damaging in remote or cross-functional teams where regular interaction is key to coordination. Timely conflict resolution ensures that communication remains open, which is essential for the team's ability to meet targets.

I wrote an article about how team morale contributes to product success. 👇

How To Evaluate And Elevate Your Team Morale To Meet Objectives

First, make sure you are not the problem

Whenever I encounter one of these situations I try to clarify: is it a ”ME” problem or not?

To make sure that I am not the problem, I try to identify what is going on and focus only on the facts and results of the product team. Observation and patience will be your best allies here. Some situations may be obvious to seniors, but others may hard to identify for less experienced professionals.

So the key here is to try to be patient and identify patterns in team dynamics and problems. Of course, this requires a deep dive into your actions, team interactions, activities and the general environment.

🚩 You may start reading red flags on day one, but instead of rushing in and escalating, keep these key points in mind:

• 🧐 Start with self-reflection and assessment of your own behavior and communication style

  • 📣 What communication framework are you using?

  • 👤 What is your leadership style?

• 🗣️ Solicit honest feedback from colleagues, subordinates, and superiors

• 🔍 Review outcomes and performance to identify recurring issues, example:

  • 🔄 Are there recurrent issues that can be traced back to decisions or actions you've taken?

  • ✅ Are your expectations clearly communicated and realistic?

• 🌪️ Understand how your actions impact team dynamics

• 🧩 Identify patterns and triggers of office drama within the team, for example:

  • 🔎 Are there specific triggers or patterns that can be identified?

  • 📅 Is it during certain types of projects, with particular team members, or at specific times?

• 📊 Gather objective data to pinpoint misalignments and issues

• 🔄 Conduct a team retrospective to discuss what's working and what isn't

• 👀 Consider seeking external insights, a perspective from other points of view can help you read signals differently.

But hey, I created a condensed list of questions to help you out with this! 💎

Your Conflict Resolution Self-assessment

To start assessing your leadership style and how you deal with difficult situations, I have compiled a list of sample questions for product managers to guide you in this discovery of yours.

This is a list that I have refined over time, learning from each experience. It has helped me to become more discerning in identifying toxic patterns and realising what needs to be done.

I suggest you answer this by:

✔︎ Be completely honest with yourself.

✔︎ Do not lie or alter answers just to support your point of view.

✔︎ Spend enough time answering each question.

✔︎ Base everything on facts and situations and think objectively.

Answering these questions involves examining whether instructions are clear and understood, checking whether expectations are realistic, and ensuring that there is empathy and respect in the way they are communicated.

💡 A person contributing to conflict may find they are often vague, dismissive, or overly critical in their communications.

Your focus during this assessment should be on identifying specific behaviors and actions linked to the patterns of issues within the team dynamic. The aim is not to assign blame but to understand contributing factors and their sources. This process involves a high level of self-awareness and honesty.

Once you have honestly answered these questions and verified you are not causing the problem, then you are free to proceed with the next step. 🔜

How to escalate people effectively

Raising concerns about an underperforming colleague requires a delicate balance between professionalism, assertiveness and sensitivity. Especially if their attitude does not help either, as it can intensify the situation and make it more difficult! 🛑

To give you more clarity and context of what I’ve been addressing since 3 months now. In my most recent product team, there’s an individual who is:

• 💀 Undermining the product team, consequently:

  • Ruining team’s productivity

  • Creating distrust with leadership

  • Encouraging anti-agile patterns, lack of values

• 💀 Not fulfilling its role.

• 💀 Protective and reactive to positive change.

• 💀 Hiding behind others' backs and processes.

• 💀 Reacting negatively to feedback, and blaming others.

If you notice, none of this is based on bias. Although these results may sound "hard" or "heavy", you have to be sure that your focus is on the product and the team working together as a giant mechanism in which each engine works and brings value to the product.

💡 Be sure that your focus is on the product and the team working together as a giant mechanism in which each engine works and brings value to the product.

If the product development is in decline because of an individual, something has to be done. Here’s my suggestion of what you can do:

1. 📝 Document specific instances of underperformance and toxic behavior with dates, outcomes, and steps taken to resolve them. Like a detective trying to solve a case.

2. 🗣️ Speak to your supervisor privately about the documented instances affecting the team's work.

3. 🔝 Escalate it to the next level of management if your direct manager is unable to address the issue.

4. 🚪 Utilize Human Resources help for formal performance review or mediation if necessary.

5. 💡 Provide solutions when escalating the issue, not just problems.

6. 🤐 Stay professional and avoid discussing concerns with uninvolved colleagues. In particular, avoid gossip and don’t compromise this person’s reputation.

7. 💪 Prepare for resistance when escalating an issue and provide additional evidence if required.

8. 🪞 Reflect on adjusting your personal approach to mitigate the impact of your colleague's underperformance.

9. 🤝 Seek support from colleagues, mentors, or professionals for emotional and practical advice.

10. 🫡 Respect the process and allow management and HR to handle the issue according to company policies.

The following escalation flowchart may help you to quickly identify how to proceed:

Escalation flowchart for Resolving Conflict at Work.

*Disclaimer: this is how I address situations but I’m sure the method will vary per conflict type and company policies.

How to know when the conflict has been resolved?

When a conflict is resolved in the workplace, it means that the disputing parties have reached a mutual understanding, agreement, or solution that addresses the issue at hand. Now, this solution may be positive or not for everyone, it depends on the perspective.

Resolution can lead to a variety of outcomes, some possibilities are:

• 👋 The individual might decide to leave or be fired: If this person is unwilling to change or the situation doesn't improve, departure might be the best solution for everyone.

• 📚 Could compromise and improve: They could recognize your role in the conflict, agree to make changes and work to improve your performance.

  • 💀 To be honest, this situation happens less often than the first, and one of the main reasons is that sometimes EGO gets in the way.

  • 💫 It takes a lot of training, of course, but when the person has the right attitude and willingness, it is very satisfying to see them thrive.

• 🏛️ Changes in policies or structure: The conflict could reveal deeper issues, leading to changes in the workplace that might involve adjusting team structures or communication policies.

Final Thoughts

Remember, the goal of escalation is not just to highlight a problem but to find a way to improve the situation for everyone involved. Maintaining a professional, constructive, and solutions-oriented approach will help ensure that your concerns are taken seriously.

In my experience, complaints don't help. As a leader, your line manager has no time for these situations, and will be more interested in knowing "what you have done" to solve it. That is why I strongly suggest that you start escalating after you have tried to address the conflict on your own.

💡 Remember, your main objective is the success of the product.
Punishing others won’t help at all.

I like Gibson’s point because in reality, sometimes it is enough to let others know that they are acting ineffectively in order to redirect them towards the common goal.

Lastly, never forger to trust in the process. Conflict is nothing new to HR, they have also experienced it in other products or teams. Trust their processes and don't rush it or you may appear desperate and things could turn against you.

As a good refresher, here is a guide on how to identify and deal with toxic leadership.

And here’s another one I recommend so much on how to seek for common ground and use “Radical Candor.”