Objections Before Complaints: Get It Wrong and Maybe We’re Screwed

We encourage people to speak up at work. But what happens when the person they’re speaking to responds unfairly?

Imagine you raise a concern about a faulty screw during a team meeting. Your manager dismisses you rudely or simply ignores your concerns.

The screw may or may not be faulty. That’s one issue. Your manager’s behaviour is another.

So, you complain anonymously about her to HR. But consider what happens next.

Your manager discovers through HR that someone has complained anonymously about her behavior. She suspects you. Or worse, she wrongly suspects another colleague.

Now a minor incident has generated suspicion, resentment and distrust.

Even if HR resolves the complaint, everyone still has to work together. How effectively will they collaborate after?

For minor behavioural issues, an anonymous complaint to HR can be like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. In small teams, circumstances often make the complainant identifiable, or worse, incorrectly identifiable.

I think we’re confusing two fundamentally different processes: objections and complaints.

Generally an objection is addressed directly to the person whose behaviour concerns us, and usually in real-time.

A complaint generally involves a third party such as HR or a manager, potentially triggering an investigation and formal consequences.

Why jump to the second before attempting the first?

This is what I’m attempting to systemise through SpatzAI: a standard, reciprocal and proportionate objection procedure that everyone agrees to follow, regardless of rank.

• Start with a simple verbal caution.
• The recipient can acknowledge, challenge or ignore the initial caution.
• If acknowledged they move on.
• If the caution is challenged or ignored, the issuer of the caution can choose to Resolve or Escalate.
• Formal escalation takes place through the Spatz chat app, with three levels: Caution → Object → Stop, potentially culminating in Team & AI Review process.

But here’s another important consideration.

What if someone bypasses this process and complains about you to HR before they object to you about your behaviour?

You can Spatz them too!

If Jim believes Sue has unfairly complained about him to HR, he can caution her about that behaviour. Sue can acknowledge, challenge or ignore his caution. Jim can then choose to Resolve or Escalate through the same agreed procedure.

If Jim escalates to the Spatz Team + AI Review, the reviewers can examine the fairness of Sue’s conduct in complaining behind his back and determine whether Jim’s objection is justified.

And accountability doesn’t stop with the complainant or the accused. Even the conduct of team reviewers and the AI’s assessments can be challenged for any unfairness using Spatz. No one gets a free pass simply because they’re sitting in judgment.

SpatzAI doesn’t seek to eliminate complaints. It seeks to make them less necessary through early, proportionate objections.

Because resolving a grievance is not the same as preserving a working relationship.

And if we get the order wrong, we may end up screwing the very teams we’re trying to protect.