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.”
Part 2 — It’s the Design Review Process, Stupid
As an industrial designer, I tend to see development as a sequence of iterations. sketches → idea → prototype → test → objection → review → revision → next iteration That is not so different from an assembly line. Manufacturing takes inputs through a series of stages, checks for defects, corrects problems and tries to prevent bad work moving further downstream. Design does something similar, except the thing moving through the system is often an idea. And ideas can carry defects too.
It’s the Economics, Stupid
I think we may have finally arrived at one of the simplest arguments for SpatzAI. Consider what happens when someone's behaviour is questionable or unfair . fair/unfair behaviour → fair/unfair objection → fair/unfair acknowledgement or challenge → fair/unfair team + AI review → fair/unfair HR review → fair/unfair legal review → fair/unfair High Court decision. Notice something? Moving up the hierarchy doesn't guarantee fairness. The person behaving might be wrong. The person objecting might be wrong. The team and AI's decision might be wrong. HR might be wrong. A lawyer, judge or even a High Court can get things wrong. What escalation gives us isn't necessarily greater truth. It gives us another opportunity for review, usually with greater authority, formality, time and cost.
What Deming Did for Production, SpatzAI Wants to Do for Difficult Workplace Conversations
TEN STEPS ON THE ROAD TO EFFICIENT (Seth Godin's Linkedin Post) "Frederick Taylor taught Henry Ford how to do mass production. Deming brought quality, systems understanding and respect for the worker. And operations research brought insight. If you have a repeated production process, the method for improving it is almost always the same, regardless of what you and your team produce:" Below is a summary of his 10 points and how the SpatzAI concept compares with them:
How do Employees Know When to Involve their Manager or HR?
How do employees know when they should involve their manager or HR, instead of working issues out between themselves?. First, let's get a few definitions and ground rules down so that we are singing from the same hymn book. The framework I am using separates disagreements from conflicts:
It’s the Review Process, Stupid
I have been thinking about what sits underneath the SpatzAI process. Previously, I arrived at: “It’s the uncertainty, stupid.” People often hesitate to challenge workplace behaviour because they are uncertain about what will happen next. Then: “It’s the process, stupid.” Reduce the uncertainty by giving everyone an agreed, predictable process. But I think there is another layer beneath both: It’s the review process, stupid.
Fail-Prevention vs Fail-Safe
This is a short story about two very different approaches to designing the first generation of commercial jet aircraft. The British de Havilland Comet was the world’s first commercial jet airliner. Its four engines were buried inside the wing roots, close to the fuselage. It was an elegant aerodynamic solution: embedding the engines reduced drag and produced a remarkably clean aircraft.....
To Escalate Early or De-escalate Later?
One thing has struck me recently. Most conflict-resolution experts talk about de-escalating workplace conflict. That makes sense because, by the time managers or HR become involved, the issue has usually developed into a serious workplace conflict. Emotions are high, positions are entrenched, relationships have deteriorated, and the priority is understandably to calm things down. But what if the problem of conflict resolution is being approached from the wrong direction?
Workplace Disagreements, Objections, Complaints and Conflict Conflation
Workplace disagreement, objection, and complaint are three distinct, open or unresolved interactions. Yet they are often conflated under the broad label of "workplace conflict". We think this confusion makes ordinary disagreement feel dangerous, makes the person disagreeing appear difficult, and leaves minor concerns about behaviour unnecessarily complicated and confusing to address and resolve.
Object123 