Fall/Winter 2003-04
International Mindset
David Campbell (Ph.D. '60) believes creative leadership and listening are key to international understanding.
Photo by Hardy Klahold
When the Soviet Union's Communist regime invited a number of American psychologists to a professional conference in 1966, David Campbell (Ph.D.'60) jumped at the opportunity. He was a new faculty member in the psychology department at the University of Minnesota and had never traveled overseas. A $300 grant covered his airfare and weeklong hotel stay in Moscow. The experience changed his life.
Going international
The Cold War was in full freeze. The Soviets were at odds with the United States about a number of issues, including involvement in Vietnam. "There were big billboards all over Moscow showing American planes bombing southeast Asia," Campbell recalls.
But the professional meeting also gave Campbell a glimpse of how psychology was practiced and studied outside the American Midwest. He noted the influence of Jung and Freud in the presentations of Russian practitioners, alongside handwriting analysis and belief in psychic phenomena.
"Psychology as practiced worldwide was far broader than at Minnesota," says Campbell.
The trip confirmed two things for the young professor: First, that Minnesota's psychology department--rooted in empiricism rather than hocus pocus was indeed among the best in the world; and second, that international exchanges of information were key to the healthy development of the profession worldwide.
A gift to students
Although he left Minnesota in 1973, Campbell remains an enthusiastic fan of the U's psychology department. In 2001, he established the Campbell Graduate Research Fellowship Fund. Matched with dollars from the 21st Century Graduate Fellowship fund, Campbell's endowment has given nearly a dozen Ph.D. candidates the opportunity to study overseas. Last year, one student traveled to the Czech Republic to attend an international brain research conference, another participated in a narcotics research meeting in France, and a third planned to attend a conference on computer vision in Beijing until the meeting was postponed because of the SARS epidemic.
Now a resident of Colorado Springs, Colo., Campbell has met with several fellowship recipients and says he's delighted with the diverse uses to which the students have put the grants. "The participants have been very enthusiastic and grateful," he says.
New creative directions
Always a proponent of taking psychology in new directions, Campbell is also a pioneer. He is perhaps best known as a coauthor of the Strong-Campbell Interest In-ventory. The survey, devised more than 30 years ago, is widely used by career counselors and vocational experts.
A battery of other psychological assessment tools also bears his name: the Campbell Organizational Survey, the Campbell Leadership Descriptor, the Campbell Leadership Index, and the Campbell-Hallam Team Development Survey.
These days, he works as a senior fellow at the Center for Creative Leadership, an organization dedicated to the development of effective leadership in business and industry.
A stormy beginning
Campbell laughs when he considers the coincidences that led to his fame. The Iowa native was working on a master's degree at Iowa State in 1957 when, on a cross-campus walk, he was caught suddenly in a horrific rainstorm. "I ducked inside [a building] to wait out the downpour. While waiting, I was idly reading the bulletin boards, and I noticed the announcement of a one-credit course in computer programming," he recalls. He enrolled and learned enough about the fledgling field to make him a valuable asset by the time he arrived at the University of Minnesota psychology department.
"As a result of this meager, almost paper-thin talent," he says, "I was quickly swept into projects way beyond my level of sophistication the most notable one being to reanalyze the standardization data for the Strong Vocational Interest Blank, a widely used career inventory authored by E.K. Strong, Jr."
For his dissertation, Campbell wrote a computer program that detected notable inconsistencies in respondents' answers. "I was very proud of what I had done," he says. "But any tenth grader these days could do in 20 minutes what I did back then."
Building leadership
Campbell retains a strong interest in academia, but for the past three decades, he has devoted himself to using psychology as a tool in building leadership skills. His work at the Center for Creative Leadership has allowed him to work with thousands of top-flight business leaders, as well as such notables as retired U.S. general Norman Schwarzkopf and former Texas governor Ann Richards.
"The funny thing is, the higher up you go in any organization, the less feedback you get," Campbell says. "If you're the boss, nobody's going to tell you to your face, Whoa, you really blew that." Using psychological inventories and surveys, Campbell and his colleagues are able to give leaders a detailed analysis of how they view themselves and how others view them. Capitalizing on their unique strengths, leaders can hone their abilities.
As Campbell has traveled the country and the globe talking to leaders, he has discovered that many of the traits of effective leaders are universal. People appreciate leadership, regardless of country or culture. And as business and academics grow more global in scope, there's plenty to be gleaned from leadership and learning that cuts across international barriers. Again, Campbell notes, there's value in meeting people face to face whether in Moscow, Mecca, or Manhattan.
"I don't want to overstate this," he says, "But it's my belief that these interactions, to some degree, are useful in lessening international tensions between countries."
Matched with dollars from the 21st Century Graduate Fellowship fund, Campbell's endowment has given nearly a dozen Ph.D. candidates the opportunity to study overseas.
The champ challenges his peers
Campbell has received many honors during his career, including an honorary doctorate from the University of Colorado. But he says nothing has given him more pride than winning the University of Minnesota Faculty Squash Tournament in 1968.
"[My win] was a perfect validation of Woody Allen's famous quote, ÔEighty-five percent of life is showing up,'" says Campbell.
"At least three or four faculty members were better than I was, but the tournament was held over Christmas vacation, and only a handful of us showed up. It was my name that went on the championship plaque."
Campbell is looking forward to January 2004, when he will be eligible to play in the "over age 70" bracket.