Reading Group Café A reading group, reading circle or book discussion club

Reading Time: 4 minutes


A powerful application of the Knowledge Café uses the process as the backbone of a reading group, reading circle, or book discussion club.

Book discussion clubs are limited to 12 to 16 people, and members meet about once a month to discuss various books based on their interests. If you are unfamiliar with the concept, you will find more about book discussion clubs and how to run one here.

Benefits

• The intellectual stimulation of diverse opinions
• To make new friends and deepen friendships with existing ones
• To meet like minded people and people very different to you
• The freedom to speak your mind
• To contemplate deeper issues
• To sharpen your communication skills
• To read more often
• To read material you would not normally chose to read yourself
• To discover new thought leaders and ideas
• The side conversations that take place

I prefer to use the term reading group as the material for study need not necessarily be a book.

In an organizational setting and the context of the Knowledge Café process and principles, reading groups can be transformed into Reading Group Cafés.

• They can become powerful professional development tools.
• They can be used to investigate and probe potentially innovative ideas, disruptive technologies, and new working methods.
• The reading material need not be a whole book; it could be a single chapter of a book, an HBR or Forbes article, or some other relatively short document—something that, rather than taking several days to read, may take 20 minutes or less. Such material is especially useful in a business context where time is short, and if the article is freely available online, it is easy for everyone to access it at zero cost.

• Rather than reading a book or article, participants could be asked to watch a video, such as a TED talk, though then, strictly speaking, it would no longer be a book club or a reading group.

The Process

The process runs similarly to the Knowledge Café:

• The participants are given a piece of material to read or watch sometime before the Café or at the event itself.
• The host welcomes the participants.
• The Café starts with a short, speed conversation session.
• The host briefly explains the process.
• Like the Café, there is an equivalent of a speaker – someone who is the focus of the topic of the Café. This speaker is often the host.
• The speaker briefly discusses the topic and introduces the reading material or video to be watched.
• The session then breaks out into regular Café mode – 3 rounds of conversation in small groups for 10-15 minutes per round, but unlike the Café, there is not usually a particular question. The instruction is to discuss the material.
• At the end of the small group conversations, the participants form a circle as in a regular Café and continue the discussion. Here, the ‘speaker’ plays a slightly more active role than in a regular Café by asking probing questions such as those listed below.
• Again, like a regular Café, the participants are individually asked to share what they have learned or one actionable insight.

That’s it. As you can see – it is very similar to a regular Knowledge Café, and like the Café, it can be adapted in many different ways.

Questions to stimulate the whole group discussion

• Which ideas shifted your thinking?
• What did you agree with?
• What did you disagree with?
• Did you have any “aha!” moments or profound insights?
• Did anything surprise you?
• Did you find anything confusing?
• Are the ideas practical?
• As a result of reading this item, is there anything you will do differently?

Resources

• Wikipedia: Book discussion club
• Forbes: Employee Development through Reading — Start a Book Club

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