Some 19 years ago, my brother Steve and I tried what we considered an interesting experiment. We agreed that if one of us got angry, the other could hold the offender and their behavior to account, and he would need to give an acceptable apology for his misbehavior. Shortly after, Steve got angry, and I held him to account. It took him nearly two days to give me an apology that I was willing to accept. In that way, he had to work out (through my resistance):

• What he had done
• Why he had done it and
• What he would do next time

Steve’s offering of his acceptable apology changed him and his behavior, he he told me later. Soon after, we went into the car rental and insurance business together and we’ve had a chance to test this idea and many others regarding conflict resolution in teams, and allowing me to develop our intervention toolkit for micro-conflicts. SpatzAI is my latest iteration and yet to be thoroughly tested.