2d03 - Successful organizations need managers!
12/15/16 • 17 min
Do we need managers? Dirk believes so, Sebastian doubts it...
Picture credit: CC0, Pixabay, link.
Episode Transcript
Sebastian – Hello everyone! Welcome to our latest edition of 2debate.net, our podcast of debates. I am Sebastian, my co-host here is Dirk. Hi Dirk!
Dirk – Hey Sebastian, how are you doing over there in Europe?
Sebastian – I’m doing fantastic, I hear that you just arrived in the US so you’re completely jetlagged, aren’t you?
Dirk – No, it’s a good time for me right now. All my body feels like being in the middle of the day, it’s dark outside so I’m ready for you.
Sebastian – Okay, let’s get this started then. Today, we will debate on the following motion: “successful organisations need managers”. But before we get into the debate, let’s explain how it will run. There will be three parts of this debate. Each side will have two minutes to deliver a speech presenting their arguments in favour or against the motion. Then, each side will have another three minutes to respond to the other side’s initial speech and possibly add further arguments to defend their case. And finally, we’ll have one minute each for closing remarks. So before this recording, we have decided with the flip of the coin who will be in favor or against the motion. So, Dirk, if i’m not mistaken, you will be in favor of the motion which is “successful organizations need managers” and I will be against that motion. Now let’s flip the coin to see who will start with their speech. Dirk, you’re heads, I’m tails. I’m going to flip the coin right now and it’s tails so for once I am going to start with two minutes of arguments against the motion, the motion being again: “successful organizations need manages”.
Dirk – All right I got the clock running, no not running, ready for you! Just tell me when you’re ready to start.
Sebastian – OK, let’s get started. Let me ask you that question: you in the audience and you to you Dirk. How many good managers have you had in your career? Really? Come on, how many? Right, okay, you know the answer: not that many, wass your organization successful regardless? Yeah pretty much so, right? Overall, you know, the profits are rolling in and, plus or minus the economic crisis, things are working out fine. So do you really need managers? I’m not so sure. Secondly: how do you define “success”? We say successful organizations. Is it profits, as I said or implied maybe, or is it employee morale. You could actually look into different angles, it’s not necessarily just about profits, in this case we should define what success means. Finally, or maybe not finally but another argument is, do we need managers or leaders? Do you need people who are going to drive and be able to coordinate and inspire fellow employees and colleagues? Or do you need people who are just bureaucratic, hierarchical blockers against things moving along? Additionally, if you look at some of the results that have happened over the past decades, and I was surprised when I was preparing for this debate how numerous examples of self-management i.e. without a formal manager actually have been successful across industries, whether it’s the car industry with Volvo with Fedex where they have reduced the number of defects, they’ve cut service errors by as much as ninety percent at Volvo in a plant in 1987 with pure self- management. The latest example is Zappos, this company which was acquired by Amazon, which has introduced “holacracy”, which is this completely flat structure, which does not mean not having some structure. it’s just that leadership in this case is contextual: it’s not tied to a person, it is tied to a role. You become a leader, you organize this unit. There are my arguments against the motion. Your turn, Dirk.
Dirk – Thank you, Sebastian! Those are truly strong arguments but they count only one way. And so I’m arguing for managers. I have three points that I think make a strong case. Number one: managers are a fairly new thing. We introduce them in when organization sizes achieved a certain level and Peter Drucker – he’s a famous thinker of management theory – said that the main contribution of management and the reason why managers have been introduced to the workforce was that they help people learn and adapt faster. So before managers were introduced to organizations, organizations were doing mainly one thing in a structured way. And they can do that self-servicing, they can do that self-organizing. But if you are in a modern environment where learning and adapting and moving fast in these two things is a key factor for your ...
Do we need managers? Dirk believes so, Sebastian doubts it...
Picture credit: CC0, Pixabay, link.
Episode Transcript
Sebastian – Hello everyone! Welcome to our latest edition of 2debate.net, our podcast of debates. I am Sebastian, my co-host here is Dirk. Hi Dirk!
Dirk – Hey Sebastian, how are you doing over there in Europe?
Sebastian – I’m doing fantastic, I hear that you just arrived in the US so you’re completely jetlagged, aren’t you?
Dirk – No, it’s a good time for me right now. All my body feels like being in the middle of the day, it’s dark outside so I’m ready for you.
Sebastian – Okay, let’s get this started then. Today, we will debate on the following motion: “successful organisations need managers”. But before we get into the debate, let’s explain how it will run. There will be three parts of this debate. Each side will have two minutes to deliver a speech presenting their arguments in favour or against the motion. Then, each side will have another three minutes to respond to the other side’s initial speech and possibly add further arguments to defend their case. And finally, we’ll have one minute each for closing remarks. So before this recording, we have decided with the flip of the coin who will be in favor or against the motion. So, Dirk, if i’m not mistaken, you will be in favor of the motion which is “successful organizations need managers” and I will be against that motion. Now let’s flip the coin to see who will start with their speech. Dirk, you’re heads, I’m tails. I’m going to flip the coin right now and it’s tails so for once I am going to start with two minutes of arguments against the motion, the motion being again: “successful organizations need manages”.
Dirk – All right I got the clock running, no not running, ready for you! Just tell me when you’re ready to start.
Sebastian – OK, let’s get started. Let me ask you that question: you in the audience and you to you Dirk. How many good managers have you had in your career? Really? Come on, how many? Right, okay, you know the answer: not that many, wass your organization successful regardless? Yeah pretty much so, right? Overall, you know, the profits are rolling in and, plus or minus the economic crisis, things are working out fine. So do you really need managers? I’m not so sure. Secondly: how do you define “success”? We say successful organizations. Is it profits, as I said or implied maybe, or is it employee morale. You could actually look into different angles, it’s not necessarily just about profits, in this case we should define what success means. Finally, or maybe not finally but another argument is, do we need managers or leaders? Do you need people who are going to drive and be able to coordinate and inspire fellow employees and colleagues? Or do you need people who are just bureaucratic, hierarchical blockers against things moving along? Additionally, if you look at some of the results that have happened over the past decades, and I was surprised when I was preparing for this debate how numerous examples of self-management i.e. without a formal manager actually have been successful across industries, whether it’s the car industry with Volvo with Fedex where they have reduced the number of defects, they’ve cut service errors by as much as ninety percent at Volvo in a plant in 1987 with pure self- management. The latest example is Zappos, this company which was acquired by Amazon, which has introduced “holacracy”, which is this completely flat structure, which does not mean not having some structure. it’s just that leadership in this case is contextual: it’s not tied to a person, it is tied to a role. You become a leader, you organize this unit. There are my arguments against the motion. Your turn, Dirk.
Dirk – Thank you, Sebastian! Those are truly strong arguments but they count only one way. And so I’m arguing for managers. I have three points that I think make a strong case. Number one: managers are a fairly new thing. We introduce them in when organization sizes achieved a certain level and Peter Drucker – he’s a famous thinker of management theory – said that the main contribution of management and the reason why managers have been introduced to the workforce was that they help people learn and adapt faster. So before managers were introduced to organizations, organizations were doing mainly one thing in a structured way. And they can do that self-servicing, they can do that self-organizing. But if you are in a modern environment where learning and adapting and moving fast in these two things is a key factor for your ...
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2d02 - Everyone should be able to move freely between countries!
According to the universal declaration of human rights it is a human right to leave your country and to return to it. Does that automatically mean that we should have no restrictions at all? Dirk argues against this idea and Sebastian makes a case for it.
Picture credit: By Jonathan McIntosh – Own work, CC BY 2.5, link.
Episode Transcript
Sebastian – Hello everyone and welcome to our latest edition of 2debate.net, our podcast of debates. I’m Sebastian and my co-host is Dirk. Hi Dirk, I think you’re now the US at the moment and it’s six o’clock in the morning. How are you?
Dirk – I’m doing well, I am wide awake, jetlagged thanks you’re my friend here. How are you doing?
Sebastian – I’m doing fantastically great, I’m happy that at least you have the jet lag on your side because otherwise you are too strong with your arguments for the debate so at least I have this going for me and today we’ll debate on the following question: everyone should have the right to move freely between countries. So before we get into the details of that debate, let’s explain how it will run. First of all, each side will have two minutes to deliver a speech presenting their arguments in favour or against the motion. Then we’ll have three minutes each to respond to the other side’s initial speech and possibly add further arguments to defend our case. And finally, we’ll have one minute each to give closing remarks. Now, in preparation for this podcast, we flipped a coin to decide who from Dirk and myself will advocate for or against the motion. Dirk will be against the motion, and I will be in favour of it. Again the motion is: everyone should have the right to move freely between countries. So Dirk, why don’t we flip a coin now to decide who’s going to start?
Dirk – Alright, let’s do that!
Sebastian – So are you heads and I’m tails and if it’s heads or tails, the person will start the debate.
Dirk – Sounds perfect.
Sebastian – So I’m going to flip a coin here... and it’s heads so you have the pleasure to get started with the debate so whenever you’re ready, you have two minutes with your speech.
Dirk – OK, everyone should have the right to move freely between countries. Doesn’t that sound amazing? I will show with four argument essentially that this may not be the perfect idea to follow through. And the first one is that actually nations are built out of being selective in who is inside and outside. Nations live by the fact that people have common rules, that people feel like being part of a group and that they are together as one people. And by the letting anyone in and out, you kind of dissolve that idea of having nation states and with that you lose many of the things that actually make states successful like people working towards common goals as a society. The second argument is security: if you allow anyone to move freely, people are sometimes dangerous and if everyone moves freely, you have a hard time really controlling that and recent events in Germany, in France, in Spain, all over the world really have shown that over and over again. The third argument is cost. If people move into countries, you have to have a system that helps them finding work, finding a place to stay, and help them if they get sick, all these things and most of these systems depend on a certain amount of money being flown into the system before taking something out. And last, not least, actually states depend on selecting who is in terms of capabilities and skill set and things they can contribute. That are my four arguments, I think they make it very clear that are having everyone moving freely between countries is actually not such a good idea. So now it’s your time: two minutes for the motion.
Sebastian – Two minutes for me, okay. Everyone has the right to leave any country and to return to his country. Where is that coming from, where’s that quote from? It’s from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, article 13. I repeat: “everyone has the right to leave any country and to return to his country”. So as far as I know, most countries in the world apart maybe from North Korea and a bunch of these places I don’t even know, have all signed this treaty, this declaration. So if I just stand by that principle, well the case is closed: Everyone should have the right. It’s not in practice for a bunch of reasons which I think amount to racism mainly and communitarianism if I can use this new word and I can get into more details about this aspect. But before I get into these arguments and I’ll respond to your arguments in my second part o...
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2d04 - There should be limits for freedom of speech
Sometimes people say things that indeed make you wonder: Should there be limits to freedom of speech? Sounds like the making of a debate, and Sebastian and Dirk had it...
Image source: Newtown graffiti, CC, LinkEpisode Transcript
Sebastian – Hello everyone and welcome to our latest edition of www.2debate.net, our podcast of debates. I am Sebastian and my co-host here is Dirk. Hello Dirk!
Dirk – Hi Sebastian and you’re looking excited, you like our topic today?
Sebastian – I am very excited because I am very well prepared to debate today on the following motion: “there should be limits for freedom of speech”. Are we ready to get started? I am ready. I will be against the motion, I will be defending the fact that there should be no limits for freedom of speech, whereas Dirk will be in favour of the motion. Everything is actually a complete flip of the coin including who starts to debate first, not only who was for or against, but also who is starting so I was selected with Dirk’s flip of the coin to start.
Sebastian – Alright, so I’m going to ask you a question, Dirk, that I hope you’ll be able to answer when it is your turn, your two minutes or three minutes: how would you define the red line? How will you define where freedom of speech starts and where it stops? I think everyone is bound to have different opinions on that, and obviously the more autocratic you are as a regime or as a person, the further high up in terms of censorship you will be. So my point here is it’s actually almost impossible to define that red line and therefore we should just have no limits because otherwise everyone will have a different limit. Secondly, hate speech, because I assume this is going to come up very quickly in our conversation, hate speech: I actually would rather hear it, rather than silence it because it will always prevail, it will always exist, and the best way to combat it is to hear all the arguments. In fact, most likely the arguments are very absurd or inept or idiotic but let’s hear them out, let them be in the public realm so that we can actually attack them with sound arguments. And thirdly let’s open our minds. Let’s open minds to contradictory opinions by having this open-mindedness, we’re maybe going to explore different ways of, in the case I was just mentioning about hate speech, about educating people because if we see people keep coming back with the same kind of argument about whatever, let’s say immigration has disastrous effects on the economy, we can demonstrate or we can maybe launch studies which will show that it is actually the reverse, that immigration overall has a positive impact on the economy just to make a reference to our latest debate. So here are my three arguments: first of all, there can be no definition of the red line for freedom of speech. Secondly, we should hear the hate speech to be able to combat it. And thirdly, let’s open our minds to different opinions.
Dirk – So now it’s for me to have my two minutes on my side of the debate, which is I am for limits. Starting the clock now. And starting with an answer to Sebastian’s question. Sebastian asked “where to draw the line? What is actually the limit of freedom of speech if you have any limit at all?” And so I need to start by saying that our free systems and liberties clearly depend on having that line drawn fairly late in the game. So the more freedom, the more liberty of speech we have, the better it is, the better for our discussion processes, the better to make about opinions, the better to deal with things like hate speech as you mentioned. However, if we discuss freedom of speech and the total freedom of speech, we tend to forget that there are limits to pretty much any human right. Freedom of speech is actually guaranteed by the Human Rights Convention but it’s lower in the hierarchy of rights than for instance the freedom of harm or the freedom of movement. So there are natural limits when it comes to harming other people. And the argument can be made that sometimes speaking up is very similar to harming people. For instance, if you ask somebody else to murder someone, you could argue it’s just your freedom of speech and acting, it clearly would be illegal in most countries on this planet, and rightly so. Asking people for murder or promotion of sexual assault or hate speech of certain kind is a danger that can result in very physical results. So there is a limit that we should enforce to avoid these. And it’s a very old argument to make. As far as in this eighteen-hundreds, we had thinkers writing and discussing these limits. For instance, John Stuart Mill suggested to...
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