Organizations Are Supposed to be Organized

Organizations are supposed to be organized, but when it comes to helping teams resolve their minor spats, the best advice we’re still getting (even from Harvard Business Review) is for managers to intervene. Here’s what they recommend managers do:

• Normalize disagreement. Say out loud that conflict is expected.
  — What happens when it gets out of hand?
• Name the tension, not the person. Keep the focus on the issue, not the individual.
  — What happens when they name the person not the tension?
• Create shared language. Keep a list of recurring tensions so issues can be spotted early.
  — What happens when it’s not shared by someone?
• Stay calm when things get tense. The manager’s reaction sets the tone.
  — What happens when the manager doesn’t stay calm?

That’s it in a nutshell. After a century of industrial systems, the information age, and now the AI era, this is all we’ve come up with to “organize” workplace micro-conflicts? Really?

Just imagine if managers had to step into every team spat. Some research says they already spend about 25% of their time doing exactly that, and another 25% dealing with their own disputes with team members. That’s half their working life spent on conflict. Maybe instead of mediating others, managers should first learn to manage themselves.

Dr. Hendrie Weisinger put it neatly:

“Rule of effective org functioning — push conflict down to the people who are involved. Two kids complain to their parents about which movie to watch? Parent says: ‘Work it out yourselves — or we stay home.’”

I agreed. But once we accept that principle, the real question becomes how? How do we organiize for addressing and resolving micro-conflicts.

That’s where my concept, SpatzAI.com, comes in. In short: a team member starts with a verbal caution. If that doesn’t work, they use a three-step chat app process, and if it’s still unresolved, it escalates to a team and AI review platform — all based on the simple sports principle, “Play the ball, not the man.” Think of it like a referee system: a whistle, a yellow or red card, and, if needed, a VAR-style review. Fair play, built in.

Dr. Weisinger also said:

“The best intervention is to teach people the skills to work out conflict.”

Exactly. That’s why SpatzAI not only teaches those skills but structures them, with a shared team charter, a thin 12-page playbook, and a real-time AI referee that learns from every interaction. Within twenty minutes of onboarding, participating team members are ready to “play ball.”

This, to me, is the beginning of true organizational organization, where teams handle their own micro-conflicts in real-time. Over the next 20 years, as billions of such interactions are recorded and refined, the AI that emerges from this process could well become the bee’s knees of rational decision-making.