I’ve spent over 40 years investigating a question: What is conversation for?
And yesterday, while discussing SpatzAI with ChatGPT, we stumbled upon another rather amusing possibility.
Have I accidentally invented a Gossip Management System?
Think about it.
Sue thinks her manager, Jim, has given her an unreasonable workload.
What does she do?
She tells Mary, who tells John, who tells someone else.
Before long, half the team knows Sue has a problem with Jim.
Except Jim!
Sound familiar?
Of course, not all gossip is harmful, and discussing concerns with colleagues can be useful. But much of what we call workplace gossip involves people expressing objections to someone other than the person concerned.
Most organisations have institutionalised complaining, but barely institutionalised objecting.
And most don’t know the difference between the two.
(A complaint is usually after the fact in indirect and an objection is usually in real-time and direct.)
That’s where SpatzAI comes in.
SpatzAI — Objection Management System (OMS)
Purpose: Helping Teams Object Well.
Principle: Accountability Before Authority.
Scope: All team members, including managers and executives, have equal procedural rights within the Objection Management System, regardless of rank.
Rather than gossiping about Jim, Sue can object to his request by using a mild verbal caution with him directly.
If the matter remains unresolved, she can escalate through SpatzAI’s agreed 3-step chat app procedure to an eventual Peer + AI Review, when required.
Her peers examine the objection and its circumstances.
And here’s where we think things get particularly interesting.
If the problem originates from production pressures imposed on Jim, he can take those review findings of the team to his own manager.
If his manager ignore them, then Jim can escalate eventually to his peer group of fellow line managers.
And so on, up the organisational chain.
Meanwhile, Sue and her peers can track the progress, much like tracking a parcel or watching their Uber arrive.
Accountability travels up. Transparency flows down.
So perhaps SpatzAI isn’t really a Gossip Management System.
It’s a system designed to address the objections that might otherwise become gossip.
Gossip circulates. Objections escalate. SpatzAI tracks.
Spatz you later!
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