# Escalation-Health Diagnostic

**Use:** assess whether a delivery team can surface and act on concerns early. This is a Strategica tool, not a whistleblowing policy or a replacement for legal, HR, safety, security, safeguarding, regulatory, or formal grievance processes.

| Control question | Evidence to inspect | Failure signal | Improvement action and owner |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Can people name at least one safe, accessible route to raise a delivery concern, uncertainty, dissent, or error? | Team onboarding, meeting norms, route map, anonymous/confidential route where appropriate | Concerns appear only after an incident or through informal rumours |  |
| Do leaders actively invite challenge before material decisions and distinguish evidence, advice, constraints, and approvals? | Decision packs, meeting minutes, pre-mortems, dissent records | Silence is interpreted as agreement |  |
| Are concerns assessed proportionately without requiring the person raising them to prove the whole case? | Triage criteria, case/issue logs, escalation records | “Bring proof” blocks early investigation |  |
| Does the concern reach someone with authority to decide, fund, investigate, or escalate? | Delegation map, response records, decision log | The concern circulates without a decision owner |  |
| Do leaders respond promptly: acknowledge, clarify, protect, assess, decide/route, and communicate what can be shared? | Response standards, feedback records, staff pulse/interviews | People report that speaking up makes no difference |  |
| Are retaliation, humiliation, or reputational penalty monitored and addressed? | HR/ethics routes, exit data, anonymous reporting, manager review | Concerns stop after a visible negative response |  |
| Are outcomes and lessons fed into risks, assumptions, controls, decisions, and training? | Risk/issue/decision logs, retrospectives, change records | The same concern recurs with no systemic change |  |

## Discussion prompts

1. What concern would a junior or external contributor hesitate to raise here?
2. What happens in the first 24 hours after a credible concern is raised?
3. Which concerns need immediate action, independent review, confidential handling, or a formal route?
4. What feedback can be provided even when an investigation cannot share details?
5. How will the team know that raising concerns is safe **and** that evidence and accountability still matter?