Healthy Discussions > Debate
Senior Application Developer and Full Stack Engineer at Thoughtworks with almost a decade of experience working primarily as a Backend & DevOps Engineer. I've worked on Ruby & C# projects and am currently working on a Python one. I am an AWS Certified Solutions Architect and an Oracle Certified Cloud Infrastructure Architect at an Associate level. I also have reasonable experience working on GCP, primarily with Google Kubernetes Engine.
I'm also an aspiring public speaker who likes to give talks on soft skills and tech.
I also write blogs on various psychological aspects of work primarily to improve teamwork & interpersonal skills.
During a dev team discussion:
Junior Developer: What do you folks think about this solution?
Senior Developer: I think the client would throw rocks at us if we implemented it
Junior Developer: Ok (feeling insulted and vengeful)
Nowadays there is a good amount of visibility on how a discussion should not become a debate. Ideas and solutions cannot be validated in a debate as the participants wouldn't be open to suggestions. Instead they would be looking to win.
But how do you create a culture of having healthy discussions between the team regardless of seniority?
You make everyone feel valued.
If a teammate's suggestion feels incorrect, instead of striking their idea down (like the above exchange), try to understand why they suggested it. Maybe they didn't understand the problem or a constraint. They may even be aware of a constraint that you didn't know of.
Making sure every teammate feels respected and safe to contribute is the best way to ensure a fruitful discussion and in extension a great team culture.
Ignoring this would lead to teammates either not participating or thinking that they have to belittle others' ideas to win.
If you've experienced this, let's discuss.
