As an HR leader, I learned to brace myself whenever a manager started a call with “I didn’t know who else to call.”

By the time an issue reached me, it had usually bounced through two or three people who were each trying to help. A customer complaint about an employee might sit with a branch manager who was not sure whether it was an HR matter, a compliance matter, or something the regional manager should handle. Everyone acted in good faith, and the delay still made the situation worse.

Escalations tend to go wrong when nobody has decided ahead of time who owns which kind of problem, what information should travel with it, and how quickly it needs to move. In the moment, people guess, and the customer feels every handoff.

An escalation map settles those questions while everyone is calm and not under the pressure to immediately solve the problem. It shows the front line which issues they can resolve on the spot, which ones go to a supervisor, and which ones need a specialist such as legal, compliance, or a senior leader, along with how fast each one needs a response.

AI is a good partner for the first draft. Give it your common customer issues, your team roles, and the decisions each role can make, and it can organize them into levels, suggest triggers for moving an issue up, and point out gaps where nobody clearly owns the next step. It can also stress-test the map by asking what happens at 6:00 p.m. on a Friday when the usual contact has gone home.

While I can map out the process, you set the authority levels. Who can issue a refund, approve an exception, or speak to the media depends on your policies, your risk tolerance, and the people you trust, so AI should organize those decisions without making them for you.

Today’s AIQ Brief helps you build the map before the phone rings with the next issue.

Let's go raise your AIQ.

If you have been reading AIQ with Paul for a while, today's Master Prompt will look a little different. Starting this week, every prompt is written as an AIQ Brief, the same format I now teach in the AIQ Advantage™ program.

The older prompts opened by giving AI a role and then spelled out every step. Today's AI tools plan their own steps well, so the most useful thing you can give them is what only you know, such as your situation, your standards, and the facts that cannot change. A brief covers what any capable new partner would need to know before starting the work.

You will also notice the prompts are shorter. Much of the old length went into telling AI how to work, and the brief spends those words on your situation instead.

Fill in the brackets the same way you always have, and give the Check section extra attention, since it tells you what to confirm before you use the result.

The Master Prompt is just the beginning of what you are missing as a free, non-subscriber.

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Oh, and you will be able to see this and all of the previous Daily Prompts here on the website!