Today I’m in favour!

How debating teaches employees to engage with company values

Under this title, our contribution appeared in winter 2014 in the collected volume “Continuing Education Aligned with Life Stages” published by GABAL Verlag. It explores how debating helps employees identify more strongly with their corporate culture. Our trio of authors, Sarah T. P. Andiel, Thore Wojke and myself, Marietta Gädeke, shows how companies benefit: corporate culture has become a key selling point in marketing and recruitment. Media, applicants and consumers scrutinise companies, asking whether principles are merely promised or actually implemented. New guidelines adopted by management alone are not enough; only critical engagement with corporate culture and its values leads employees to full acceptance and internalisation of the new corporate behaviour . We present an innovative method that encourages this process and greater acceptance of top-down decisions: debating. Two teams, for and against, compete in speaking to present a topic’s advantages and disadvantages to an audience. Ideal conditions for living company values:

  • Debating enhances company culture through objective exchange, creates better meetings and leads to better solutions through “permitted dissent”.
  • Debating is a tool for employee development. It builds speaking skills and productive responses to opposing opinions. Developing social skills and leadership qualities has a positive impact on company culture.

A lively debating culture benefits everyone in a company: it prompts discussion of values, involves employees, encourages them to think and creates space for constructive disagreement about company culture. As an alternative to meetings, a way to make company philosophy transparent, address current issues, develop new lines of argument or a regular employee-development event, we show you how to use debating in your business. Order our book directly from us.

About the authors:

Marietta Gädeke – www.lilit-kommunikation.de

The founder of Lilit Kommunikation is a German Debating Champion and reached the World Championship quarter-finals twice. She advises and trains entrepreneurs, politicians and Bundeswehr leaders in intercultural competence, rhetoric and PR. As Chief of Staff of the World Championships in Berlin and Chennai, she led more than 200 staff from over 10 countries for three years, shaping the culture of these major events. Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs named her a role-model entrepreneur in 2014.

Sarah T. P. Andiel – debate-consult.de

A rhetoric graduate and BDVT-certified trainer, she advises companies on rhetoric, business etiquette and customer service. She learned debating at Streitkultur e.V., Germany’s oldest debating club. She still volunteers for debating, including as tournament director of the 2013 World Championships and as a master trainer.

Thore Wojke – debate-consult.de

The debating trainer and “master of jokes” has competed successfully for over 10 years. Regarded as one of Germany’s most experienced debaters, he has entered countless competitions and was tournament director of the 2013 World Championships. He lectures on rhetoric and argumentation at several universities and is part of the DebateConsult team.