If a workplace problem is so common that we call it a “classic..”, why haven’t we developed a standard solution?
I recently exchanged comments with Erika on LinkedIn about psychological safety, accountability and the everyday messiness of workplace relationships.
Erika argued that psychological safety shouldn’t mean avoiding difficult conversations. She emphasised the importance of trust, maturity and people learning to talk directly with one another rather than about one another.
I largely agree.
But I introduced a simple example.
Jim and Sue are in a team meeting. Jim dismisses Sue’s suggestion with a condescending remark. Sue challenges his behaviour. Jim dismisses her concern.
What happens next?
Erika described this as a “classic workplace dilemma.”
That word classic caught my attention.
If it’s classic, surely that means it’s familiar, recurring and widely recognised by the experts.
And if it’s recurring, why are we still relying primarily on individual maturity, interpersonal skills and improvised conversations to resolve it?
We don’t expect employees to invent their own procedures every time a familiar safety or quality-control issue arises.
We develop standard procedures.
Why should everyday classic behavioural issues be different?
Erika maintained that:
“Formal reporting has its place for serious misconduct. But for the daily, messy human interactions, real safety lives in our capacity to talk with each other, not about each other.”
There’s no denying that. But I was surprised that she appeared to frame the alternatives as either formal incident reporting or a more laissez-faire approach, relying on interpersonal trust, maturity and people’s ability to work things out for themselves.
Surely there’s a third option: an agreed, standardised process that allows people to address minor objectionable behaviour directly, in real time, without immediately involving management or HR.
A process that doesn’t avoid difficult conversations but helps prevent them from becoming unnecessarily messy.
Erika also suggested that culture is a living, breathing entity, not an engineering problem.
I don’t necessarily agree with that distinction.
Engineering doesn’t have to replace human relationships. It can provide a framework that helps them function more reliably.
That’s precisely what I’ve spent years developing with Spatz™.
A proposed standardised process for addressing minor objectionable behaviour early, proportionately and directly.
Example:
Sue gives Jim a caution.
Jim has an opportunity to acknowledge Sue’s caution, and they move on, or challenge or ignore it.
If unresolved, the issue can be documented and escalated using the Spatz™ 3-step chat app using the agreed staged prompts, and if still unresolved it eventually involves their team + AI review when necessary.
Resolve or Escalate. Repeat.
The objective isn’t to avoid difficult conversations. It’s to avoid unnecessary messiness within those conversations, without avoiding the behavioral issue itself.
And importantly, documentation doesn’t automatically mean formal reporting, nor does escalation automatically mean involving management or HR.
It simply means providing a controlled environment that encourages fair challenges, proportionate responses and early resolution, while generating useful data to measure behavioural patterns, accountability and time-to-resolution.
The objective isn’t to avoid difficult conversations, but to provide a standard process for resolving them fairly, before the small stuff becomes the big stuff.
The process is designed to help people talk with each other, not about each other or avoid each other.
Of course, Spatz still needs to demonstrate its effectiveness through workplace pilots.
But Erika’s description helped crystallise my argument.
If we can recognise a classic workplace problem, perhaps it’s time we stopped expecting everyone to improvise a solution.
After all, there’s nothing particularly novel about the problem.
Perhaps what’s needed is a standard solution.
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