I was a debater in high school and in college. Through that experience, I came to value how debate can help us better understand our point of view and more importantly, change it. Whenever my coworkers at past jobs learned about my history with debate, it was inevitable in an upcoming meeting I’d hear something along the lines of “Jason, you just like to debate everything.” Of course I do! Critical thinking and active listening is how we challenge our ideas to better understand and improve them, or change them entirely when warranted.
I’ve found debate is often referred to with derision, something to be avoided. When you dig into that point of view more, it comes down to a misunderstanding about the definition of debate. If you view debate as verbal conflict between two people that often resembles Monty Python’s Argument Clinic sketch (“Yes I did!”, “No you didn’t!”), it’s completely logical to assign a negative value to debate.
Debate is more properly thought of as a way to evaluate and challenge ideas in the interest of creating better ideas which are often a fusion of different points of view.
Engineers and Debate
Debate is a logical contest of ideas and software engineering is an inherently logical exercise. The same characteristics that make a great programmer also make a great debater. You don’t write good code by only thinking about the happy path. You have to think about everything that could go wrong and how your code handles those scenarios. That’s quite similar to the exercise of thinking through the arguments for a position, then the arguments against it, then the answers to those arguments.
Team may choose to, on one end, loosely integrate debates of important topics without much structure or they might adopt a more formal set of rules for debates where debates are scheduled so everyone, including decision makers, can observe and provide feedback.
Debate is not personal
How you frame a debate is important. Debates are about ideas, not people. It’s a game that people engage in to explore multiple sides of an argument to better understand them all so they can make better decisions.
When I was debating in school, I found myself struggling to form my own opinions because I had been trained to think through all the arguments for my position and all the arguments against it. In competitive debate, you are randomly assigned to a position that might be very different from your personal opinion.
By approaching debate from the perspective that it’s a chance to test your ideas in the interest of improving them rather than tearing them down, the debate becomes less personal. It’s about the ideas and arguments.
A great way to avoid being personally attached to your argument is to pick the opposite side of it and debate someone from that perspective. You’ll get further support for your argument by better understand the arguments against it, you’ll be able to pre-empt those arguments in future discussion, or you might wind up discovering a major flaw in your original argument. It’s far easier to change minds about
Leaders: You have to be willing to change your mind
If leaders wish to foster a culture of debate in engineering teams, their most important responsibility is to be willing to change their minds. Asking your team to improve their ability to change their minds as they find better ideas shines a big spotlight on leadership who refuses to change their minds when better arguments are discovered and presented.
I attended a Middle School Public Debate Program training session for teachers many years ago and ran an Elementary school debate club in Brooklyn years ago. What I learned and proved in my own classroom experience was that it’s very easy to get kids interested in debate. You simply ask them “Has there ever been something you wanted and your parents said no? Would you like to learn how to make your point better so they might say yes?” Immediately, every kid in the room was tuned in.
As leaders, encouraging debate and being willing to change your mind as a result inspires everyone on your team to feel like they have a voice in decisions. You’re actively investing in building up a skill set to be challenged.
Speaking from firsthand experience from my time at Salesforce.org, my team made far better architectural decisions because we had both a team of brilliant and passionate people and actively encouraged debates. My team changed my mind countless times and as that happened, we had more debates, and more changed minds on both ends.
Give it a try!
When we tried introducing debate as a half day session at a team offsite years ago, everyone had a lot of fun with the “Table Tennis Debate” format which encourages active listening and argumentation by all participants in a fun and quick exercise. Full details available at Tennis Debates Instructions provided by the Middle School Public Debate League.
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