Private equity is very good at escalation. Less good at knowing when escalation has become the problem.

That is why The Untouchables works so well as a PE meme.

The whole scene is about raising the stakes.

Someone moves.

You move harder.

Someone pushes.

You push further.

Someone brings a knife.

You bring the industrial logic, the leverage model, the synergy case, three consultants and a 94-page value creation plan nobody in the business asked for.

The investor presentation version has strategy, operational excellence, commercial acceleration, digital transformation, procurement savings, pricing initiatives, AI, and a very serious looking partner pointing at a waterfall chart.

The real version is often much simpler.

The company misses plan, so the pressure goes up.

The pressure goes up, so the CFO starts managing the spreadsheet instead of the business.

The CEO starts defending last month instead of building next year.

The operating team starts producing more meetings than decisions.

The board pack gets thicker.

The business gets slower.

And eventually someone calls all of that “cadence,” because apparently Stockholm syndrome needed a consulting term.

Escalation has its place. Sometimes a business needs urgency. Sometimes the cosy founder-era habits need to be dragged outside and shot in the car park.

But escalation is not an operating system.

If every problem requires more pressure, more leverage, more consultants, more add-ons, more reporting and more “alignment,” there may be a tiny possibility that the value creation plan was mostly theatre.

The best operators do not just escalate.

They simplify.

They find the few numbers that matter.

They fix the plumbing.

They make ownership painfully clear.

They stop confusing activity with progress.

The Midtown way is funny because everyone recognises it.

It is also funny because it is uncomfortably close to half the board meetings in private equity.