Management Student: LEAD Activity - Face to Face: The Big Debate

INLEAD conducted a “LEAD activity – Face to Face: The Big Debate” for Event Management & Public Relations, Healthcare Administration, Infrastructure Management Oct’12 & April’13 batches and International Hotel Management Jan’13 & April’13 Batch.

The debate was planned to encourage the students to examine every side of the important and controversial topics provided, in an atmosphere of reasoned argument and respectful discourse. The enormous effort that students put forth to succeed in this intellectually exciting activity was truly inspiring.

The preparation for the activity began at least 1 week in advance when the topics were provided to the participants. Participants were then divided into main speakers and the interjector team. Following were the topics for the debate:

              1. Should there be electronic surveillance in the workplace? Agree or disagree.

           2. Business Development is more important than operations in an organization? Agree or disagree.

        3. If there are rewards, should there also be retribution in an organization? Agree or disagree.

              4. Is cost reduction more important than quality in an organization? Agree or disagree.

On the day of the debate, the speakers were all charged up and a healthy discussion ensued. Once the speakers finished with their affirmative (in favor of the topic) or negative (opposed to the topic) thoughts, the interjector teams sprang to action with their series of questions in an attempt to gain information and reveal weaknesses in the arguments of the person who had just spoken. The rebuttal team did their best by taking a main point of the speaker’s argument and showing why the other speaker’s argument made more sense. Because a lot of the thinking for this was done quickly, it was one of the most challenging and enjoyable aspects of the day.

The day culminated with the following participants emerging as winners:

             ·         Best Speaker – Ashutosh Sharda (EMPR April’13)

             ·         2^nd Best Speaker – Aditi Mohan (EMPR April’13)

             ·         3^rd Best Speaker – Leesha Gujare (HCA April’13)

             ·         Best Interjector – Priyanka Wadehera (EMPR October’12)

             ·         Best Team – Ashutosh Sharda and Aditi Mohan (EMPR April’13)

Overall, it was a day filled with energy and fun with the students gaining benefits like rigorous and critical thinking as a result of their hard work along with confidence to speak in public.