It’s the Review Process, Stupid

I have been thinking about what sits underneath the SpatzAI process.

Previously, I arrived at the problem:

“It’s the uncertainty, stupid.”

People often hesitate to challenge workplace behaviour because they are uncertain about what will happen next.

Then I had the solution as:

“It’s the process, stupid.”

Reduce the uncertainty by giving everyone an agreed, predictable process.

But I think there is another layer the process and that is the Review:

It’s the review process, stupid.

We spend our lives viewing and reviewing.

We observe what is happening, compare it with what we expected, intended or previously experienced, respond, and then observe what happens next.

View → Review → Respond → Re-view.

Review is more than observation because review creates interaction. My response to your behaviour becomes something for you to review, just as your response becomes something for me to review.

Yet workplace “reviews” are usually something quite different.

Every quarter or year, one way by a manager reviewing the employee.

Manager → reviews → worker.

The worker may respond, but how often does the worker get to review the manager’s behaviour in the moment?

That is the distinction I am becoming interested in.

SpatzAI does not treat behavioural review as an occasional management event.

The whole process is a progressive and continual real-time review.

A team member behaves in a certain way to another team member.

The receiver views that behaviour and, if necessary, deems it cautionable.

The response is then reviewed by the receiver and also issuer.

If unresolved, the interaction moves progressively through the agreed formal Caution, Objection and eventually reaching a Stop and Team + AI Review process.

At every stage, both parties’ behaviour remains reviewable.

The member issuing the caution can be to a fellow team member or even their manager, as they are not outside the review process.

Nobody is reviewing the person. We are reviewing observable behaviour against an agreed standard (that is also up for reviewing).

Perhaps that is what a genuinely accountable workplace requires:

Not managers periodically reviewing workers.

But people continuously, proportionately and reciprocally reviewing how we behave toward one another while doing the work.

Because behaviour does not happen quarterly. Neither should its review.