Ethical Debate at Work: I

In a more everyday way of speaking, I'd replace "Ethical Debate" in the title of this essay with "Fighting Fair," but the word fighting has baggage. To fight, literally, is to "participate in a violent struggle using weapons or physical blows." In most workplaces, such exchanges are hopefully rare. We often use the term fight to mean debate; to argue — sometimes vehemently — for our respective positions. Weaponry doesn't usually enter the picture.

So when we talk about "fighting fair," we're referring to debating in a style that respects some rules. There aren't many rules, and they're usually unwritten, but one hopes they include things like "no lying," and "no name-calling."

Most people would agree that some behaviors that do occur in workplace debates are toxic: raising voices, stalking out of rooms, slamming doors, abruptly hanging up phones, using all caps in email, and so on. When these things happen, apologies or regrets frequently follow. And so we usually refrain from these actions.

There are other unspoken rules of debate — guidelines, actually — that are less widely recognized, but no less important for organizational health and personal wellbeing. Although some might hold that abiding by these less-widely-recognized guidelines is inadvisable, I've found that groups that do abide by them are happier and achieve higher levels of performance. Here's Part I of a set of suggestions for more ethical debate within your organization.

Share information helpful to your debate partner

Concealing or withholding information that would strengthen your debate partner's position can lead to joint decisions that — while favorable to you — are more likely to be unfavorable for the organization.

If you know something that would strengthen your debate partner's position, offer it. To manage the small risk of seeming condescending, ask permission first: "Hmm, I see what you mean. I think I can make your argument a little stronger. Interested?" If you can't respond effectively when your debate partner has all the facts, your own position might not be as "right" as you believe.

Avoid rhetorical fallacies

Rhetorical fallacies are distracting or logically erroneous verbal artifices that often escape our notice. If you know something that would
strengthen your debate partner's
position, offer itPeople tend not to recognize them as illegitimate forms of argument. Some rhetorical fallacies are actually difficult to understand even when their explanations are carefully laid out. An example: "I don't know why we should listen to Chris on this; look at what happened the last time we took her advice." That's an example of an ad hominem attack. It criticizes the person, instead of the person's argument. For more, see Rhetorical Fallacies.

Rhetorical fallacies usually provide advantages to their users, if you count as an advantage "winning" an argument on specious grounds. But in doing so, rhetorical fallacies can cause some or all parties to a debate to come to incorrect conclusions that lead to catastrophically expensive mistakes.

We'll continue next time with a look at some of the more toxic tactics people use.  Next in this series  Top    Next Issue

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When we steer the discussion away from issues to attack the credibility, motives, or character of our debate partners, we often resort to a technique known as the ad hominem attack. It's unfair, it's unethical, and it leads to bad, expensive decisions that we'll probably regret.

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See also Effective Communication at Work and Conflict Management for more related articles.

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Planning teams, like all teams, are vulnerable to several patterns of interaction that can lead to counter-productive results. Two of these relevant to planners are a cognitive bias called the IKEA Effect, and a systemic bias against realistic estimates of cost and schedule. Available here and by RSS on October 7.

And on October 14: Power Mobbing at Work

Mobbing is a form of group bullying of an individual — the target. Power mobbing occurs when a politically powerful person orchestrates the mobbing. It's a form of bullying that is especially harmful to the target and the organization. Available here and by RSS on October 14.

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