I was running my Wednesday afternoon soft skills class and needed a new topic. I’d already done structured troubleshooting. I’d done the communication formality ladder, when to text, when to email, when to call, when to show up. I’d done the LEGO exercise. I was looking for something fresh, something that would sharpen the team’s presentation and communication skills.
These were people I sent on site to represent the company, project managers, engineers, technicians,working autonomously in front of clients for weeks or months at a time. They needed to be able to think on their feet, articulate a position, and carry the company message. I figured a mock debate would be a good exercise.
So I got on Google and searched for debate topics.
Oops.
Turns out most debate topics aren’t things you discuss at work. Sex, politics, religion, Roe v. Wade, absolutely not. My clever idea to “just pick a topic” was turning into a problem that needed solving all by itself. Outside of cats versus dogs, I couldn’t find anything that felt right for a professional setting.
I landed on the Electoral College versus the popular vote. Technically a little political, but it’s a civics class topic, every one of us was taught this in grade school. You might have an opinion, you might not. Either way, you can argue it without anyone calling HR.
The Debate
I split the team the same way I always did, project managers, senior engineers, junior staff, and technicians mixed evenly on both sides. Put them at two podiums. Gave them some time to prep. 30 minutes. One side argues for the Electoral College, the other argues against. Go.
For the record: I’ve never done high school debate. But I’ve watched enough courtroom TV to know the general format. It worked well enough.
The debate went fine. People made their points. Some were better speakers than others. The teams had fun with it. Everything was going swimmingly.
Then I said: “OK, next part of the class. Switch sides.”
The Moment
What happened next is one of the most memorable things in my career.
One of my project managers, the person I trusted to represent the company on site, to carry the company message, to work autonomously on multi-month client engagements, flat out could not do it.
They could not argue the other side. Not because they didn’t understand the opposing position. Because they didn’t believe it, and it was impossible for them to say something they personally disagreed with. They couldn’t separate what they thought from what they were being asked to present.
This was supposed to be a basic communication exercise. Instead, it accidentally revealed a problem I’d been fighting with for almost two years.
The Two-Year Mystery
I’d struggled with this employee’s performance in client-facing situations and could never put my finger on what was wrong. They were smart. They were technically capable. They knew the product. But something was always slightly off in how they handled direction, especially when the company’s position didn’t perfectly align with their own instincts.
Now I understood. When this person received direction, they processed it through their own lens first. If they agreed with it, they executed beautifully. If they didn’t, something got lost in translation, not deliberately, not maliciously, but consistently.
That didn’t make them a bad employee. It didn’t mean anything was wrong with them. But it changed the way I interacted with them from that day forward. I knew that when I gave direction that might not match their instinct, I needed to spend more time on the why, not because they were being difficult, but because that’s how they processed information.
The Closer
I didn’t design that exercise to diagnose a management problem. I designed it because I needed a Wednesday afternoon topic and thought a debate would be fun.
But that’s the thing about building a culture of learning on your team. When you create space for people to practice skills outside the pressure of a live project, sometimes you discover things you weren’t looking for. The LEGO exercise showed me how my team communicated. The debate showed me how one person couldn’t.
You don’t really know your team until you’ve seen them try something they’re not comfortable with. And you can’t manage what you don’t understand. A $40 box of LEGOs taught me how my team writes emails. A free debate topic taught me why one of my best people kept filtering my direction through their own lens.
The most useful management tools I’ve ever found cost less than a dinner for two. The insights were priceless.