Volume 6, Number 1, Nov 2005

Participation & Involvement:

A Community College Transforms
Its Culture
by Susan R. Glaser, Peter A. Glaser, and Larry
Warford
As part of Lane Community College's effort to develop a more
participative culture, a two-day performance-based training
program was designed to teach observable skills in conflict
resolution and group process. Every employee of the college
was invited to participate: faculty, management, and classified.
Two hundred and twenty employees have participated in the
training. A representative sample participated in the study. The
longitudinal research extended over a three-year period
beginning six months after the training began. A multi-method
research design was used: statistical survey, interviews, and
direct observation. The results suggest a substantial cultural
shift in which employees are more direct in their
communication and more effective at solving problems
collaboratively. This article describes the key details of the
training program as well as the results and outcomes.

INTRODUCTION

For nearly a decade, Lane Community College has been

involved in an institution-wide "restructuring" process designed
to prepare the college to respond to changing times including
becoming increasingly learner-centered. In 1994, President
Jerry Moskus sent all Lane employees a document spelling out
the characteristics of the "New Lane." His words gave shape to
the new direction: "To continue to be a strong, effective
community college, Lane must rethink nearly everything it
does, and every staff member will need to consider how to
perform his/her job in new ways that are more efficient and
effective." This charge was combined with a continued
emphasis on staff training at Lane. The emphasis, however,
changed from one that had focused almost entirely on
individual development to one that sought to develop an
organizational capacity to respond to needed changes through
teamwork and participation that cut across all employee
groups.

ASSESSMENT

A survey was developed to discover how often people at the

college were using the skills targeted in the training and what
the general outcome had been. To help interpret the
questionnaire results, interviews were held with people from
across the college. Employees were interviewed over a three-
year period. Researchers also observed group meetings over a
two-year period to record the extent to which group facilitation
and problem solving skills were being used in actual work
situations.

INTERVENTION STRATEGIES

A training program was developed to teach conflict resolution

and consensus skills to all faculty and staff at the college. The
purpose was to prepare them with the skills and competencies
for a more involved culture. The intervention spanned a three-
year period. The curriculum is built around two key dimensions
of teamwork: interpersonal conflict resolution and group
decision making and problem solving. The goal of the
interpersonal component is to develop among all members of
the college community the ability and desire to address and
discuss any issue directly, no matter how charged it might be.
The objective of the group process component is to teach skills
for solving problems creatively and collaboratively. In the
 conflict resolution curriculum, four sets of skills are taught:
responding to criticism non-defensively, raising delicate issues,
perception checking, and the power of encouragement and
recognition. In the group process curriculum, participants learn
how to use group facilitation skills for achieving quality
consensus solutions to controversial issues. Each of these
modules is taught through a behavioral shaping process which
includes direct instruction, behavior modeling, written practice,
and behavior rehearsal.

The first phase, direct instruction, involves a brief presentation

of the concepts underlying a particular skill. The purpose is to
insure that participants understand exactly how and why the
skill works. In the second phase, behavior modeling,
instructors present role-play dramatizations based on
situations and experiences described in pre-training interviews.
The purpose is to model the action making up each skill set
being taught. In the written practice phase, participants
analyze a real-life situation and develop a written response
using the target skill. During behavior rehearsal, individuals
practice what they have written, in a role-play situation where
they get immediate feedback from a neutral observer. This
behavioral shaping model is designed to efficiently move
learners from knowing to doing. Finally, a trainer-training
program was instituted to provide a skilled corps of in-house
training experts, representing every level and division of the
college. The goal is to make the program an on-going part of
the organizational culture.

RESULTS AND OUTCOMES

The following conclusions can be drawn:

• The majority of participants use the skills taught in the training.

They are being more direct and less defensive.
• A sizable group of participants have changed their behavior as a
result of the training. Skilled communication is becoming a more
natural response.
• When the skills are put to use, the results are overwhelmingly
positive.

When people use the skills, 64% report that the outcome is
generally positive, 30% report a mixed response, and notably,
none report a generally negative outcome. One person said,
"There are many little opportunities daily that have just
become 'the way' to handle things. It comes together as
second nature now... It has definitely made me a better
employee."

Four individual skills are being used significantly more than

average: Raising Issues, Perception Checking, Praise and
Recognition, and Consensus Building.

The skill for Raising Issues has clearly provided concrete

steps for conflict resolution at the college. People appear to
have changed their own process significantly in the way they
raise issues. A faculty member said, "I have become more
aware of my listening skills and more likely to stop and listen
rather than rush full steam ahead with my own agenda. I ask
more questions and stop to check more readily. I feel this is
enhancing the quality of my interactions with others." A
classified staff member said, "One result of the training is a
feeling of courage because we have words to use in a difficult
situation. I' One manager noted, "In the past, things might
have become bigger than necessary and people would dwell on
issues. Now problems are resolved more quickly." Another staff
person spoke for many when she said, "I had a problem with a
co-worker. On the surface we were polite but underneath there
was a lot of hostility. I used the Raising Issues skills and set a
new tone for our relationship and established a new norm for
our interactions."

Perception Checking is the skill people seem to be most

comfortable with, and the one most integrated into their
behavioral repertoire. As one classified staff explained,
"Recently, when my supervisor gave me some work it
appeared that he was angry. Rather than dwelling on this
concern, I waited a bit and then approached him, using
perception checking to find out if there was a problem. It
turned out that he was just having a bad day."

Praise and Recognition is acknowledged as a frequently used

skill at the college. One classified staff member indicated that
by praising the faculty she works with, she has been able to
improve their response time. "I was having difficulty receiving
the monthly statistical reports on time. I decided to put each
faculty member's name on the white board and as each turned
in their report I wrote thank you next to their name on the
board to publicly recognize them. Now they compete with each
other to see who will get the first public thank you - and I get
my work on time!" A number of people mentioned the
Employee Recognition Gala, which was created by the college
to encourage people to praise their colleagues publicly. The
event is an open forum and employees say things about the
individual being recognized.

People reported that meetings are more productive because

Group Facilitation Skills are becoming second nature around
the campus. A number of people have had an opportunity to be
on a campus-wide shared decision-making team. One
supervisor spoke for many when he said, "Since the training, I
have noticed a real change in meetings at the college in
general. They are more skillfully led, and participants are more
skillful." Over a two-year period, researchers observed four
different campus groups meeting in their natural work
environment. Each group's skill level appeared to be related to
the number of people within the group who had been formally
trained. Sometimes, a trained and skilled facilitator had the
ability to compensate for a group with less training and limited
skill. Clearly, the most high performance groups were those
where many of the participants were trained in using key
facilitation skills.

WHAT NEXT?

People indicated that training is now needed for intact work

groups. Many observed that it was effective to conduct the
initial training in mixed, inter-department groups because it
created a safe environment, and that now an important next
step is to follow up with the people who work together. People
observe that training with intact work groups would enable
those groups to work on real issues, and share a common
language. There has also been strong sentiment that some
type of refresher course is needed because so much material
had been covered in such a short time.

Currently the college has addressed both of these issues by

putting in place a trained group of internal facilitators who are
providing both regularly scheduled courses as well as training
designed for individual work units.

CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS

For a community college to successfully achieve a team

structure requires strong, fundamental communication skills
and competencies. This calls for the development of learning
modules to teach faculty, and classified employees, managers,
a range of communication skills, from managing conflict to
collaboratively solving problems. At a time when community
colleges increasingly are bringing employees together in
teams, it is crucial to understand the concrete communication
behaviors that contribute to teamwork. As colleges continue
their commitment to being learning communities they must
discover ways to make that learning part of the fabric of the
culture. Carefully conceived training in conflict resolution and
group process can assist a community college to make such a
cultural transformation.
Susan R. Glaser, Ph.D. is a Professor (Retired) of Business
Communication at the University of Oregon. Peter A. Glaser,
Ph.D. is President and partner with Susan at Glaser &
Associates, Inc. in Eugene Oregon. More information on Glaser
and Associates is available online at
http://www.theglasers.com/ Larry Warford, Ph.D. is the
Director of the League for Innovation’s Community College
Workforce Partnership Network. He also directs the League's
College and Careers Transitions Initiative (CCTI) funded by the
U.S. Department of Education. At the time this article was
written, he was Vice President for Instructional Services at Lane
Community College

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