"I avoid escalations as much as possible, but I have encountered problems that were impossible for me to solve. One year, I was managing a high-value campaign for the holidays. We only had five business days to turn marketing collateral around -- a minute-long promotional video. Our video editor submitted the first version, but the brief was clearly not followed; it was just way off. It took an entire workday to get this version, so I asked the editor if the edits could be made by the end of the next day. I reviewed the brief thoroughly with the editor.

The next day, the video editor turned in the second version, and it was still not up to par. At this point, I made the call to escalate because we were two workdays out from the deadline, and we were not getting any closer. Thankfully, I got the go-ahead to outsource to a more experienced freelance video editor. We forwarded the brief, and they were able to make the necessary changes. We had some minor adjustments to make, but we made the deadline by a hair."