I read a post today that contained this line: “That gap between what an organisation knows and WHAT IT IS PREPARED TO DO can tell us a great deal about its culture.” I think the intended meaning of prepared was fairly clear. The organisation knows there is a behavioural problem, but it is not sufficiently willing to confront it. Fair point. But I read another meaning into the same word.
How Do You Build a GREAT Team?
We spend a lot of time talking about how to build great managers. Train them to give better feedback. Teach them how to have difficult conversations. Improve their communication skills. All useful, and right in the middle of most management consultants’ target market. But I think there is another side to the equation that gets much less attention: What does it take to be a great team member? Jim Collins wrote:. “A culture of discipline is not a principle of business; it is a principle of greatness.”
I Just Scored 100% for Psychological Safety
I accidentally ran a small experiment on a psychological safety survey. The first time I completed it, I misunderstood the response scale and selected “Strongly Disagree” for every question thinking it was agree. My result: 20% Then I realised my mistake and did it again, selecting “Strongly Agree” for every question. My result: 100%. Apparently, in the space of a few minutes, I had transformed from a workplace disaster into a model of psychological safety.
SpatzAI Pre-grievance Intervention
We think that a pre-grievance intervention is what should happen before there is a grievance. Think of SpatzAI as a workplace smoke-alarm system. You don’t wait until the building is burning before deciding what to do.
How to Control Rogue AI, Straight form the Horses Mouth
I asked my trained AI to answer this question: "If you were charged with reducing the hazards of an AI going rogue what 5 steps would you take to ensure this behavior was addressed and resolved." Maybe the answer
Pre-Grievance Intervention: A New Workplace Category
Organisations usually have processes for workplace grievances, bullying, harassment and misconduct. But there is a much bigger space that comes before all of those; the everyday behaviours that irritate, undermine, embarrass or disrespect someone, but may not yet justify involving a manager, HR or a formal process I think this deserves its own category:
A Journey to Address Dogma
Here, I am going to say it. I believe dogma is one of the great curses holding back human progress — in science, business, organisations, and increasingly, AI. And ironically, I think dogma often arrives wearing the badge of expertise. The more knowledgeable we become, the easier it is to confuse “this is what I currently believe” with “this is how things are.” Three thinkers have strongly influenced my thinking here.
Conflating Conflict: Why My Copilot Fell Into the Trap
For years, much of the conflict‑resolution field has leaned on an outdated paradigm: treating disagreement as conflict and tension as friction. My Copilot AI fell into that trap. It's training data, like the dominant literature, blurred these distinctions. It seemed neat to collapse everything into one continuum of “trouble.” But neatness comes at a cost.
Beware of the Dogma!
I don't want to be dogmatic about this, but one of AI’s biggest productivity problems, in my view is hiding in plain sight. Dogma. Not dogma in the religious or ideological sense. I mean the tendency to state a provisional interpretation as if it were settled, then continue building on it until someone objects strongly enough to force a correction. The first thing I taught the AI that I am using is to preface its statements with "I think..." or "In my opinion..." However it still has this dogmatic tendency, especially when discussion contentious issues. I see this regularly in conversations with the AI.
Escalator Pitch – Caution or Escalate
Sue gives a presentation in a team meeting. Her supervisor, Jim, responds: “Babe, that’ll NEVER work!. What the hell were you thinking?!” Sue now has to decide whether to respond, react, ignore it, complain later, or escalate to HR. Most teams have no agreed process for handling that small moment fairly and in real time. If Sue, Jim and the team had already agreed to use SpatzAI, Sue could simply verbally caution him: “Caution.”
