In soccer, the referee does not wait until the match is over or contact the player the following week to review their fouls. They step in during play, as it happens. Sometimes it is just a quiet word. Sometimes it is a whistle or a card. And when the decision is disputed or serious, VAR - Video Assisted Referee, can help review what happened.
Maybe Fairness is the Oxygen in Teamwork
If fair teamwork is the flame that keeps organisations alive, then burnout may be what happens when that flame is starved of oxygen. Fair teamwork gives an organisation energy, warmth, movement, and shared purpose....
It Takes Two To Tango
A tricky interaction is rarely shaped by one person alone. It is co-created. One person may try to respond well, but the other person may interrupt, dismiss, retaliate, deflect, or simply refuse to engage fairly. In that case, the more reflective person ends up carrying most of the burden, while the less disciplined person remains largely unconstrained....
The SpatzChat™ App for Disciplined Dissent
I think many workplace stories about “speaking up and getting into trouble” miss a key point. The issue is not always that someone dissented, but how that dissent was delivered and how the team was set up to receive it....
Can I Interrupt While You’re Interrupting
“Can I interrupt while you're interrupting?” sounds ridiculous, but it captures something real about conversation in workplace teams. Many teams treat interruption as though it is always the same thing. In my view it is not....
Fair Play, Real-Time Fairness and the Future of Teamwork
I think the future of teamwork may belong to teams that can disagree well, not avoid disagreement. As AI takes over more routine, analytical, and repeatable work, the human advantage may lie elsewhere. Not in being faster.
The Conversation Conversation: What is Conversation For?
Some 40 years ago I asked a workmate what conversation was for. Her reply was that I was “fu*ked”. At the time we laughed, but the question never left me. It stayed with me for decades. After some 32 years, countless conversations about conversation, and hearing many different reasons for having them, I came up with a couple of answers that seemed to resonate.
Addressing Recursive Metacommunication
I think one of the more useful terms I’ve come across recently is "recursive metacommunication". It describes what happens when a discussion shifts from the idea itself to how the idea is being communicated, and then loops there. You’ve probably seen it: One person shares a view. The other reacts to the tone. The first defends their intent. The second frustratingly challenges that defense.
Objective Intelligence OQ with SpatzAI
For a long time I have been searching for what might help me become a little more objective, or at least a little less subjective. What I keep coming back to is this. Objectivity does not just come from better thinking. It also comes from better conditions for thinking together.
Fair Play in the Workplace
Q. How do we get fair play in the workplace? A. By giving team members a standard way to address objectionable behavior in real time.
Object123 