Culture Clash: Debating the Future of Work

The Welcome (15 mins)

Greet Guests Warmly: As guests arrive, make them feel welcome and excited. Offer name tags and light refreshments, creating a friendly, informal atmosphere where people feel comfortable engaging.

Optional Team Sign-Up: Upon arrival, ask participants if they would like to actively participate in the debate. Assign those interested to teams, which will be further explained in the 'Work' section.

Introduce the Event Purpose: Share the goal of the event—using debates to explore the future of work while fostering respectful conversations around workplace culture, community building, and potentially political elements like DEI and remote work. Highlight the opportunity for participants to learn from opposing views and practice public speaking in a safe, inclusive environment.

Overview of the Evening: Provide a brief rundown of the evening's structure—debate rounds, voting, and prizes—so participants know what to expect. Remind them that the focus is on respectful discourse and team building rather than “winning” the argument.

Community Principles + Purpose: Remember to state the purpose of our Culture First community and our 5 core principles. We are asking attendees to embody the principles of our community at this gathering and this gathering ties in really well with many of our principles so make sure to mention that. 

• Fostering Belonging and Acceptance - when people share, let them feel seen, valued and appreciated for just being themselves 

• Willingness to Reflect and Grow - remind attendees that creating a better world of work starts with us doing the work and being the change we want to see in the world

• Have the Courage to be Vulnerable - ask attendees to play with their edge of vulnerability and only to share what they feel comfortable with and thank vulnerability helps us to create more trust

• Put your Learning Into Action - at the end the gathering you'll create some space for people to reflect and discuss how they plan to implement their learnings into the way they live and/or work

• Connection Inside Business Outside  - a friendly reminder that in the context of this gathering attendees are there to connect first as humans and if that leads to doing work together later, that's great! Hard networking and selling isn't the primary purpose of the gathering. 

The Connection (15 mins)

Icebreaker & Group Formation: If the group is small enough, ask attendees to introduce themselves to everyone and consider using a fun, quick question like, "What’s your superpower at work?” or “What’s one change you’d like to see in the workplace of the future?” This helps participants begin thinking critically while getting comfortable with each other.

For larger groups, have people pair up or share in groups of 3-4. 

The Work - The Debate Prep (15 mins)

For those not debating: Offer simple icebreaker questions related to work culture to get people thinking critically before the debate begins, they will have 15 minutes to connect.

For those debating: 

• Divide Participants: Split into two groups: those arguing "For" and those arguing "Against" the debate topic. (For: Those who support a given topic // Against: Those who oppose a given topic) 

• • Option 1 - Within each main group (For and Against), divide participants into three smaller subgroups. You should now have six subgroups in total:

    • 3 subgroups in the “For” group.

    • 3 subgroups in the “Against” group.

  • Option 2 - pick a topic and then randomly choose two people to determine which team they are on by flipping a coin or playing rock, paper, scissors. 

• Assign Debate Topics: Randomly assign each pair of subgroups (one “For” and one “Against”) a debate topic. Each topic will have two opposing subgroups debating—one arguing "For" the topic and one arguing "Against" it. Below are some debate topic suggestions. Have the group vote on the topics or you choose them in advance. You’ll need about 10-15 minutes per debate:

  • • Work-Life Balance vs. Work-Life Integration

    • Remote Work: Diversity and Flexibility vs. Community Building

    • Companies should prioritize work-life balance over high performance.

    • Employee Recognition vs. Financial Incentives

    • Company Culture: Leadership vs. Employee Influence

    • Flexible working hours improve workplace culture.

    • Remote work is a crucial tool for improving workplace diversity.

    • 4-Day Work Week: Employee Well-Being vs. Company Success

    • Is Culture created or emergent

    • Can a company succeed without any feedback given for a calendar year?

    • Work-Life Balance vs Work-LIfe Integration

    • Community service projects should be mandatory for all employees.

    • Diverse teams perform better than homogeneous teams.

    • Companies should publicly disclose their diversity metrics.

    • Blind recruitment is the best way to ensure fair hiring practices.

    • Mentorship programs are key to advancing diversity and inclusion in the workplace.

    • A Workplace Should be like a family.

    • Can you put a dollar value on culture?

    • Should leaders eat first, or last?

    • Is love a word that should be used at work?

• Preparation: Each team will have 10-15 minutes to organize their arguments. Remind them to collaborate and playfully lean into their roles, even if they don’t personally agree with the stance they’re assigned.

• Explain the debate format again:

  • Each team has 2 minutes for opening arguments.

  • 2 minutes for rebuttals.

  • 1 minute for closing statements.

  • Audience Q&A and voting.

• By the end, you should have:

  • 3 debate topics.

  • 2 opposing subgroups (For and Against) debating each topic.

The Work - The Debate Rounds (45 mins)

Bring the groups back together and prepare the first group to debate. Use a timer to keep track. Each group has:

• 2 minutes for opening arguments

• 2 minutes for rebuttals.

• 1 minute for closing statements.

• 5 minutes for audience Q&A and voting.

Audience Participation: After each debate, invite the audience to ask questions, share reflections, or offer feedback. This is a great opportunity to deepen the conversation and get more people involved.

Voting: Hand out voting paddles / ballots, and let the audience vote for the most compelling argument that changed their mind or the team they feel made the best case. Folks can also just raise their hands. 

After each round, encourage participants to reflect on what they’ve learned from the opposing arguments.

Wrap-Up & Prizes: Announce the winning team based on audience votes. You can also offer prizes for categories like “Most Creative Argument” or “Best Teamwork.”

The action (15 mins)

Group Reflection: Invite participants to reflect on their learnings from the debates. Some question to consider asking: 

• What was the most surprising argument you heard tonight?

• What did you learn from listening to opposing views?

• What did you learn, re-learn or un-learn?

• How can you apply what you’ve learned to your own workplace or team?

The close (5 mins)

Closing Remarks: Thank everyone for their participation, emphasizing the value of differing viewpoints in creating a better world of work. Encourage attendees to stay connected and continue the conversation in the Culture First community.

Check-Out: Encourage guests to share a one word or a one sentence check-out for how they are feeling at the end of the gathering.