Conversation Starter: Dr. David Campt
Learning from the leaders—across sectors—sparking new conversations.
First up: David Campt, author of Read the Room for Real: How a Simple Technology Creates Better Meetings. Buy the book during its launch on Amazon.com from July 3 -5!
David Campt
Dr. Campt has a more than two-decade long career as a specialist dialogue and civic engagement. Dr. Campt served as Senior Policy Adviser to President Clinton’s Initiative on Race, and in that role designed nationally televised town meetings for the White House and created large multi-state dialogue campaigns. He has organized forums for members of Congress, and provided facilitation expertise for Fortune 500 companies, foundations, and national and international non-profit organizations. In addition to his expertise in facilitation and process design, David also is considered an expert on issues related to racial reconciliation and equity. Read the Room for Real is Dr. Campt’s second book. His first was The Little Book of Dialogue for Difficult Subjects, co-authored with Dr. Lisa Schirch.
Read the Room for Real
The trend toward using audience polling to make classrooms and other environments more dynamic has long been recognized. Read the Room for Real: How a Simple Technology Creates Better Meetings is the first book to explain how polling can be used outside the traditional classroom to improve virtually any gathering, including speeches, conferences, workshops, school reunions, and social events.
The book explores how audience polling keeps meeting participants more engaged and thoughtful, makes sure that a few strong voices don’t dominate, pushes presenters to be more responsive to the audiences, and makes the group’s perspective a greater focus of gatherings.
Conversation with David
How did you come to first encounter audience polling technology? What fascinated you about it?
I was first exposed to audience polling in about 1999 when I started doing consulting for AmericaSpeaks. Their specialty was very large-scale dialogue meetings, and they integrated polling with other facilitation processes. I recognized that separate and apart from the great dialogic processes AmericaSpeaks pioneered, audience polling by itself could contribute to the sense of communion at a meeting, which make people feel more connected to each other and to their common task.
2. This is a technology often applied to the classroom - how can people use it to optimize their meetings?
I think that there are there three modes of meeting interaction: First is download, when the purpose is the get information from a presenter to the crowd – think speeches, trainings and most classroom settings. Second is feedback mode, where the purpose is to hear from the group so that a decision-maker can take in its perspective – think focus groups, organizational culture assessments, or community meetings about new plan or policy. Finally, there is crosstalk, where the purpose is to get people to talk to each other, exchange ideas and perspectives, hopefully increase empathy and collaboration – think workshops or dialogues.
The great thing about audience polling is that it can help in all of these modes of a meeting, Polling can help a presenter understand where a group is coming from, so s/he can adjust the presentation; it also allows the presenter to check for understanding. In a download meeting, polling can help insure that everybody is heard from, so that a few loud voices don’t dominate, and that people don’t walk away with a distorted sense of what the group thinks. In a crosstalk meeting, polling also helps people become more empathetic and nudges them listen more, since they can see that perspective in the context of the entire system of views. This often helps them become more curious and less stuck in their own view.
3. What kind of organizations or settings would be most likely to benefit from this technology? Where are you seeing it and where should it be more prevalent?
Polling is useful in almost any setting. Its good for speeches and panels - there even are preachers who use it. It’s great for organizational development specialists, urban planners, public health folks, or event middle managers. who want to understand their subordinates’ perspective. And of course, when you are trying to guide a group to talk through issues, like in a workshop setting or a community dialogue, polling can be very helpful in pointing out how people’s views of a situation can be affected by who they are, which can be very insightful and enhancing of dialogue.
4. As an organization that values conversation, how can we employ technology as part more effective human communication?
There is a particular power of the polling to get people ready for good conversation. A well-constructed opening polling experience often relaxes people, helps them feel more safe, and makes them feel both more connected to and curious about other people. In the middle of a conversation, polling can be good for helping the group see with clarity the diversity of perspectives on key issues. It also can help facilitator keep group attention on the key issues. At the end of a meeting or conference, polling is great for evaluation.
Questions for Every Conversation-Starter
1. What’s your favorite tool/tip for promoting more open, constructive conversations?
Keep aware of conversational phases and if possible, manage the sequence. Usually the best order is: 1) values related to topic AND something fun/moving not related to topic, 2) direct personal experiences that have some relationship to topic that are likely be to very different, 3) examination of the social conditions that may help explain diversity in experiences, 4) exploration of what might happen so that experiences were not different in a way that is unhealthy
2. What in particular do you wish our society could have more constructive conversations about?
The way that we have many conditions around which there is consensus among the public but leader's behavior does not reflect collective desires. I think that we need to have hundreds of communities engaging thousands of people in conversation about police/community relations.
3. What would you be most likely to be overheard in conversation about?
Ironically, the structure of conversations. (I am something of a dialog-a-holic). Also, the hidden psychological payoffs that people or groups get from on-going conditions they complain about.
4. What’s the best conversation you’ve had this year?
I was talking with someone I had just met about the way our political system will remain stuck if progressive dialogue specialists don't help conservatives develop a strain of thought that might be anti-racist conservatism. Without something like this, blacks and Latinos will always vote overwhelmingly democratic, and this is not good for those groups, the Republican party, or the health of democracy generally.