10 Things From Good Arguments That Will Make You a Better Trainer
I recently finished Good Arguments by Bo Seo. It is a book about debate, but I kept finding ideas that apply directly to training and facilitation.
Here are 10 that stood out to me.
1. Be clear about what people are actually discussing.
Seo separates disagreements into facts, judgments, and prescriptions.
That distinction matters in a training room. Participants can sound like they disagree when they are actually arguing about different things.
One person may be disputing the facts. Another may agree with the facts but disagree about what they mean. Someone else may agree with both but disagree about what should be done.
A good facilitator figures out which conversation is actually happening.
2. Make people finish the sentence with “because.”
One of the simplest tools in the book is also one of the most useful.
Take a conclusion and add because.
“We should do X because…”
Then do it again.
“That is true because…”
Now participants have to expose the reasoning underneath the answer instead of giving you a conclusion and moving on.
That makes for much better discussion and much better debriefing.
3. Every important idea has to pass two tests.
Seo describes two burdens an argument has to carry: truth and importance.
In training terms:
Is this true?
And:
Why should the learner care?
Trainers spend plenty of time on the first question and not nearly enough on the second.
You can have perfectly accurate content that still fails because participants do not see why it matters to their work.
4. Ask four questions: What? Why? When? Who cares?
Seo uses a wonderfully simple set of questions:
What? Why? When? Who cares?
That is almost a lesson-design checklist.
What is the point?
Why is it true?
When does it show up in the real world?
Why should the participant care?
If you cannot answer those four questions, the material probably is not ready for the classroom.
5. Stop interrupting people before you understand their point.
Seo makes a strong case against jumping into an argument before the other person has finished developing it.
Trainers do this too.
A participant starts answering, we think we know where the answer is going, and we jump in to correct, clarify, or rescue them.
Sometimes we are responding to an argument they were never making.
Let them finish. Ask another question. Make sure you understand their reasoning before you respond to it.
6. Do not just tell people what is wrong. Give them something better.
One idea I especially liked is that rebuttal cannot end with destruction.
If you knock down someone’s argument, you still need a better answer.
The same applies to feedback.
“This is wrong” is rarely useful by itself.
Show the learner what better looks like. Give them another approach. Let them try again.
Good feedback creates a path forward.
7. Use concrete language.
Seo warns against abstraction, buried conclusions, excessive qualification, and unnecessary repetition.
Trainers should pay attention to all four.
We often make simple ideas harder by dressing them up in professional language.
Say what you mean.
Give people the point early.
Use examples they can picture.
Then stop talking when the point has landed.
8. Tell people how you came to believe what you are teaching.
One of Seo’s suggestions for persuasive communication is to reveal the journey behind your conclusion.
That is powerful in training.
Instead of saying, “Here is the correct way to do this,” explain what changed your thinking.
Tell them about the mistake you made.
Tell them what you used to believe.
Tell them what happened that caused you to reconsider it.
People often connect with the journey before they accept the conclusion.
9. Make participants argue the other side.
Seo describes a debate exercise called a Side Switch. Before the debate, participants temporarily adopt the opposing position and develop its strongest arguments.
That would make a terrific training activity.
Before participants defend a decision, strategy, policy, or recommendation, make them build the strongest case against it.
It forces them to examine assumptions and understand how a reasonable person could reach a different conclusion.
That produces better thinkers, not just better talkers.
10. When discussion breaks down, name what is happening.
One technique in the book is essentially to stop the conversation and identify the behavior that is preventing productive disagreement.
Facilitators need to be willing to do the same thing.
“We are starting to talk past each other.”
“We have moved away from the original question.”
“We are debating three different issues at once.”
Naming what is happening can reset the room without attacking the people involved.
That is one of the differences between merely allowing discussion and actually facilitating it.
Good Arguments is ostensibly a book about debate, but much of it is really about thinking, listening, persuasion, and helping people work through disagreement.
Which sounds an awful lot like facilitation to me.
