The Lost Art of Debate?

I love a good debate. I mean a proper, logical argument with rules. With a winner and a loser. I’ve heard a lot lately bemoaning the loss of the art of debate and persuasion. When I was in school, we had a debating team. It was actually called “forensics.” Not the crime-solving stuff, although it is related. Actually, the term hails back to the Greeks, who held debating contests. They felt proper training in the art of argument was essential to democracy.

Then there’s Facebook. Nobody is persuaded. Nobody changes his mind. Why? I think there are a lot of reasons. Here are a few:

1.  There are no ground rules. Participants in a proper debate agree to follow certain basic rules like no personal attacks, time limits, etc.
2. It’s not face-to-face. A basic rule of law is that you have the right to face your accuser. Unless you can look your adversary in the eye, the discussion can degenerate into a tie-for-tat exercise that generates more heat than light.
3. The medium is inadequate. Arguing in short bursts separated by gaps of time and other activity never resolves anything.
4. It’s easy to escape. You can quit anytime. An argument you walk away is an argument lost.
5. Most positions involve regurgitating other people’s positions. It usually amounts to “preaching to the choir.”

We should just leave Facebook for what it does well: sharing family photos and events, jokes, music. Keep the politics off. Instead, hone your debating skills. Sharpen your logic and critical thinking skills. And get to a coffee shop or a bar and have a good argument!

Your Call Is Important To Us...?

I was on hold today, for what seemed like an eternity. What is the reason for the general decrease in the quality of phone customer service queues? Population increase? Cost savings? Complete lack of empathy? All of the above?

I’ll leave it to the business and psychology experts to take up that debate. In fact, much has been and continues to be written on the subject. What I have been pondering is the communication aspect of the whole process. I daresay that most of us would rather speak to a human than a machine. And most of us probably have a problem that is more complicated than those menu choices – even at the fourth level down. It’s not all about time and impatience – although those are more pressing than ever in our culture today.

No, we need confirmation and understanding. Resolution and closure. None of that is very satisfying – if it is even possible – with recordings and voice capture. All of this presupposes at least two things: 1) that the human on the other end is competent, and 2) that he or she has the authority to help you, not read through a script until you reach an impasse and then pass you along to the next person. Those are two huge hurdles.

So much lip service is spent these days on “excellent customer service,” but it has become an endangered species. A few organizations pride themselves on connecting you to a live person straight away. But you are usually paying for that through special fees. Some offer calls back if the queue is too long. But the bottom line is the bottom line. Trained humans are expensive. Online chat is one solution offered by many. But it’s pretty clear that this usually allows the agents to multi-task with several chats at once – what else could cause those long pauses? At least it is a form of human-to-human interaction.

My problem is that I am a complainer from way back. And I’m always sure that my issue is much more complex than the average. I have this foolish notion that, if I can just get to a real person, my logic and persuasive argument will win the day. What a pipe dream!

It will be interesting to see if this problem gets addressed through further technology, or if we will just become accustomed to it, like we have so many other things. Remember the boiling frog?

Try Losing Your Phone

I lost my phone the other day. It was a revealing event. I realized how dependent I had gotten on that little device. My thoughts even turned to the subject of idolatry! Should something be allowed to take such a central place in one’s life?

Much has been, and continues to be written on the subject of our cell phones and the impact they have on our lives and our society. We really are carrying out a huge social experiment, the outcome of which may be dire, indeed.

Renny Gleeson, a technology and culture pundit from Portland, Oregon, speaks of a “culture of availability,” and a conflicting obligation to be available. One of the memes he showed in a recent TED Talk had a man, apparently standing in his child’s daycare center, texting amidst the bustle. The caption: “What’s happening here, now, isn’t as important to me as what could be happening anywhere else.” Gleeson’s plea: “Let’s make technologies that make people more human, and not less.”

Sherry Turkle, a prof at MIT, takes an even more depressing view. She talks of the new skill of maintaining eye contact while texting, people texting at funerals – in short, being “Alone Together” (the title of her book). She points out that conversation takes place in real time, and we can’t control what we want to say. In online communication, we can “re-touch” our words, making ourselves sound better. This “flight from conversation” compromises our capacity for self-reflection. Ironically, we connect to avoid feeling alone; we need to be alone in order to really connect.

She does sound an optimistic note, however. She says we are early in our love affair with technology. We need to consider how we build it, how we use it. Start thinking of solitude as a good thing. Set aside places and times when conversation is sacrosanct.

Try losing your phone sometime. It can be very instructive!

Tribal Knowledge

I have worked at several places where much knowledge was “tribal knowledge.” In the Six Sigma discipline, it is defined as knowledge that is known by some but not documented. In many instances, it is essential to production of a quality product. Some people see this as “job security.” Others say, half joking, “What happens if I get hit by a beer truck?”

Sometimes tribal knowledge is incorrect. Sometimes it contradicts the actions of other departments or management. Most often, however, it involves stuff that one or more people do regularly, but have never committed to writing.

In a 2013 article in Training magazine, “Unlocking Tribal Knowledge to Transform Your Organization,” Alfedo Zangara discusses the problem. “To date, tapping into this knowledge has been difficult and costly. But the desire to make it easier to access and organize this information for broader benefit is inspiring fresh thinking.” He goes on to outline his framework for correcting the issue in an organization.

Solutions? There are plenty of consultants who make a living helping companies get this information out of people’s heads and into writing, training programs, knowledge bases, and so on. Zangara’s method is just one of many these days.

Whatever approach is chosen, it comes down to hard work – work that doesn’t relate directly to the organization’s day-to-day activities. It is what Steven Covey would call a “Quadrant 2” activity: something that is important but not urgent. It also requires change, something we all know is difficult for us humans.

In these days of hypersensitivity to risk, tribal knowledge could be one of the biggest risks facing your organization. Better start doing something about it!