01/18/2019

Daily Buzz: Tricks for a Healthy Debate

Argumentative debates aren’t conducive to reaching your goals

In any organization, a constant stream of ideas is healthy. What’s not so healthy is the way they are often debated: in disrespectful, toxic arguments that pit team members against one another.

“We get sucked into trying to ‘win’—so we look good or don’t make the group we represent look bad—which leads us to ignore logic and evidence that go against our original beliefs. And so we fight without making much progress,” says Shane Snow on Harvard Business Review. “We can change this dynamic, moving toward more effective discourse (exchanging diverse ideas) and debate (arguing honestly for and against the merits of those ideas), by training people to adopt the right habits.”

Those include:
Remembering that we’re all on the same team. Leaders should emphasize that employees are working together to achieve one shared goal. Snow suggests starting the conversation with phrases such as, “There is no ‘winner.’ The team wins if we make progress.”

Please select this link to read the complete article from Associations Now.