DEBATE WITH CULTURE

Appreciative and empathetic communication is crucial for any organization to function effectively.

The way we say things has a great impact on our work effectiveness, team #collaboration, project progress and - at some point - on company performance. Why is that so?

Whenever we communicate, we send out signals that others receive and interpret. Most of the time we try to think about what we want to say and try to pick the right words and an appropriate tone. We want to be professional in our #communication style. And we want to ensure that we achieve our goals by getting our peers and stakeholders on board.

But are we always successful at that?

All of us have been in a situation where things we said led to a major conflict. Or we received a communication that upset us in a way that got us triggered - leading to a reaction that we might have regretted afterwards.

Communication can also easily derail when we share our opinions virtually. In a virtual setup, we feel a certain level of distance – a false sense of safety. This setup can easily seduce us not to think twice about how we react to a situation and what damage we are causing on the other end.

All these reactions are human and can happen to each of us. Good news is that there are measures that we can take to reduce the frequency of these situations.

At SAP we want to ensure that we have a culture where:

1.     We can have different opinions.

2.     We can openly debate over topics that we are passionate about.

3.     We do this in an intelligent, empathetic and appreciative way.

Based on this overarching vision, we are calling for a new internal movement: Debate #Culture. It is a movement for constructive and professional dispute over topics that are important for SAP. As part of this movement, we are focusing on 3 major goals:

#EmotionalIntelligence and Nonviolent Communication are foundational skills for a debate culture.  

Emotional Intelligence is the ability to monitor one's own and others' emotions, to discriminate among them, and to use the information to guide one's thinking and actions (Salovey & Mayer, 1990).

Therefore, if we want to have a healthy #debate culture, in which we can communicate and act with empathy and compassion, we need to foster the relevant Emotional Intelligence skills in the organization.

These are:

1.     Self-Awareness: Recognizing your own feelings as they occur and continuously observing them.

2.     Self-Management: Handling emotions so that you calm yourself, overcome fears, anger and shake off irritability.

3.     Motivating oneself: Emotional self-control as the basis of success. Including attention, self-motivation and creativity.

4.     #Empathy: Perceiving and considering the feelings of others and recognizing hidden social signals.

5.     Handling relationships: Social competence and dealing with the emotions of our fellow human beings. Including core communication skills.

• Emotional Intelligence is a learnable skill that has various positive effects on peoples work lives. It helps in achieving career success and increases job satisfaction. On team level, it positively impacts teamwork, the ability to manage conflicts and people’s coaching skills. On organizational level, emotional intelligence positively influences employees’ commitment, work performance, innovation and much more.

Additionally, it is key to ensure that in all debates – despite saying what we need to say – we are not hurting each other. There is a perfect model for that called Nonviolent Communication by Marshall B. Rosenberg. Nonviolent Communication follows four communication steps:

1.     Observations: Saying what you observe without judgement.

2.     Feelings: Expressing how the observed action makes you feel.

3.     Needs: Expressing your needs that are hiding behind your feelings.

4.     Requests: Requesting a concrete action from the other party (without an expectation that it will be followed).

• Nonviolent Communication helps in clearly stating ones needs without attacking the other party. This skill is especially useful in dealing with conflicts and successfully leading difficult conversations. Applying the four steps ensures that the communication happens in an appreciative and empathetic way. Nonviolent Communication is not an innate trait but a learnable ability that can be developed with training and practice.

Last but not least, by developing new debate formats, we want to provide a framework in which we can argue and have a constructive dispute. Regardless of the organizational level on which the discussion is happening.

With Debate Culture, we will get discussing and debating to the next level at SAP. We are super excited to kick off the program in 2020. Stay tuned for more infos and first best practices!