The Principle of Subsidiarity

When everything becomes a crisis, nothing really is

In many organisations, the word crisis gets used far too early and inaccurately (is it really a crisis?) - sometimes as soon as something feels uncomfortable or unfamiliar. The result is that routine operational issues are pulled into structures designed for genuinely exceptional situations.

Ironically, this often makes things worse.

Decision-making slows down.
Autonomy is stripped away from the people closest to the issue.
Noise increases, clarity decreases, and well-intended escalation becomes a barrier rather than a support.

This is where the principle of subsidiarity enters the room.

Subsidiarity, in plain English

Subsidiarity is the idea that decisions should be made as close as possible to the point of impact - escalating only when the scale, risk, or complexity of an issue exceeds local authority or capability.

Put simply:

• if a team can safely manage an issue, let them

• if they can’t, then escalate

• escalation is a tool, not a reflex
  
  

Good escalation is deliberate.
Bad escalation is panic dressed up as process.

A nod to IT folk (who live this every day)

This tension shows up particularly clearly in IT and digital teams.

Many of the issues that trigger alarm bells elsewhere are, for them, business as usual: incidents are diagnosed, triaged, mitigated, and resolved routinely. That’s what operational capability looks like.

But when a wider organisational crisis management response swings into gear, IT teams can find themselves swept into escalation — even when the situation is still well within their normal capability.

In those moments, escalation bypasses the very people best placed to resolve the issue. Instead of fixing the problem, they’re suddenly reporting upwards.  

That doesn’t make the organisation more resilient.
It makes it noisier.

Why over-escalation erodes resilience

Treating every disruption as a crisis has real consequences:

• Decision bottlenecks emerge at senior levels

• Local ownership and confidence are undermined

• Trust between teams is weakened

• True crises become harder to distinguish when they really occur
  
  

Over time, people learn that escalation is safer than judgement - and resilience quietly drains away.

This is the dark side of “being prepared”: when process replaces thinking, and ceremony replaces capability.

Escalation as support, not theatre

Effective resilience isn’t about avoiding escalation altogether. It’s about using it well.

Crisis management exists for situations that genuinely require:

• cross-organisational coordination

• senior authority

• reputational, legal, or strategic decision-making

• sustained uncertainty at scale
  
  

Invoking it too early doesn’t make an organisation safer.
Knowing when not to invoke it often does.

The real test of maturity

Mature organisations don’t measure resilience by how quickly they invoke crisis management.

They demonstrate it by knowing when an issue can be managed operationally - and when it genuinely requires formal escalation, coordination, and senior decision-making. 

Because not everything needs an ambulance.
Sometimes, a plaster - applied by the right people, at the right time - is exactly what’s needed.