Beyond IBA Spring 2018

The Interest-Based Approach

The Mission: Using the interest-based communication and decision making process to create an environment in

which individuals participate fully, feel respected, and receive recognition for the contributions they make.

The Vision: An organization in which it is evident that all individuals are honored contributors to the Los Rios

Community College District using open, honest, and reasoned dialogue.

HISTORICAL OVERVIEW OF IBA.….2

GET TRAINED!......................…….2

POWERFUL ELEMENTS OF IBA…2

FACE THE ISSUE, NOT THE PEOPLE…………...…….3

TOP 10 REASONS WHY YOU NEED TO ATTEND IBA.…………………..3

HAVE YOUR HEARD? THE IMPACT OF IBA ON LRCCD EMPLOYEES……………………….3

IBA CRYPTOGRAM………………..4

HOW ABOUT A REFRESHER?....….4

IN THIS ISSUE

As I visit our campuses throughout the

year, I feel privileged to have the oppor-

tunity to reconnect with many of the tal-

ented, hard-working people that make this

district so exceptional. At all four campus-

es and the district office, our faculty and

staff are dedicated, skilled and passionate

about student success.

Above all else, we are an organization

made up of people, so it’s fitting that we

once again have an opportunity to talk

about our interest-based approach (IBA)

to district communication and decision-

making. Throughout the years, the IBA

principles – seeking to understand before

being understood, trust- worthiness and

creativity – have guided many of our pro-

cesses and key decisions and enabled us to

continue to be successful in serving our

students.

It’s an exciting time to work in communi-

ty colleges, especially in California.

Through new, groundbreaking legislation

(AB 705), we have the opportunity to

reimagine how we get students into col-

lege-level courses quicker and start them

on the path to reaching their academic

goals even sooner. Our colleges have be-

gun to implement Guided Pathways, look-

ing for new and innovative ways to help

our students succeed. And we continue to

work with local, regional and national

leaders to build and develop Promise pro-

grams that eliminate barriers for students

to attend college. None of the great things

we are poised to accomplish in the coming

months and years, however, can be real-

ized without a continued and relentless

focus on building and maintaining positive

relationships. This work is core to our

ability to work together to help our stu-

dents reach their goals.

The Los Rios Community College District

and its colleges have earned and fostered a

stellar reputation over the years for excel-

lence, especially in how we work together

to meet our students’ evolving needs. The

principles of IBA have played a big part in

the creation and cultivation of the collabo-

rative culture that we enjoy.

If you haven’t yet participated in the dis-

trict’s IBA program, I strongly encourage

you to consider it this spring. Regardless

of your role with the organization, I

think you’ll find it incredibly valuable

and rewarding. This year’s 3-day train-

ing is scheduled for March 14-16, 2018.

-Brian King

APPLY NOW!APPLY NOW! Los Rios Community College District’s

3-day IBA Training:

Spring Dates: March 14-16, 2018 Location: Marriott Hotel: 11211 Point East Drive, Rancho Cordova, CA 95742

Information: Valerie Carrigan, HR Training Specialist, carrigv@losrios.edu

Deadline to apply: February 5, 2018, 5:00 pm

A Note from the Chancellor January 2018

2

All Los Rios employees are offered an oppor-tunity to be trained in the IBA process at no cost to them. For participants and facilitators who choose to stay at the hotel during IBA training, the District pays the hotel costs; however, the hotel room expense is taxable and reportable to the IRS and will be reflect-ed on employees’ W-2 forms as income. To apply to participate in the next 3-Day IBA training, take the following steps: 1. Discuss IBA with your manager or super-

visor and get permission to attend.

2. Complete and return the IBA Application (indicate meal and hotel stay prefer-ences, and, if applicable, required ADA accommodations).

3. 36 - 42 participants and 5 alternates are selected each semester and will be noti-fied approximately one week after the application due date.

4. Questions? Please contact the HR Train-ing Specialist at 916.568.3106.

COMMUNICATION

Even ping pong balls can express emo-tions! In one IBA exercise, participants are given words representing emo-tions, such as happy, sad, and excited and asked to draw those emotions on white ping pong balls. This exercise stresses the importance of non-verbal communication and demonstrates how facial expressions reveal emotion with-out the use of words.

After attending IBA, participants are challenged to be cognizant of their own and others’ non-verbal and verbal communication: expressions, body language, word choices, and assump-tions made about what was said and what was meant.

RELATIONSHIPS

The interest-based approach is also known as the interest-based attitude. The attitude among the members of a

group is as important as the approach taken for the work of that group. The idea is to disentangle the people from the problem. Positive relationships among people in a group are essential to an effective process for addressing issues of substance.

CREATIVITY

Successful IBA outcomes are propor-tional to the degree of flexibility and creativity in the room as people work together to find creative and fair op-tions. Creativity can be summed up as one’s ability to reuse existing ideas in new combinations or contexts. In many cases, these combinations are difficult to visualize because we focus on how things should go together. In order to unlock our creative genius to solve problems, we need to adjust how we look at possible options or results. We need to think about what we know in a new way, challenge our assumptions, and suspend judgment until we have generated all the ideas we can.

Los Rios Community College District continues to promote the interest-based approach as the preferred way to do busi-ness in the District. When the approach was adopted in 1993, it was on the heels of a small collective bargaining mir-acle. The entire 100+ page Los Rios College Federation of Teachers (LRCFT) and Los Rios Community College District (LRCCD) collective bargaining agreement was renegotiated along with the first “golden handshake” program in a decade and a new assignment preference system for adjunct facul-ty—all in three days of negotiating! This minor miracle was made possible by the two bargaining teams having the cour-

age to try something new: an interest-based approach (IBA).

After the first successful bargaining effort, representatives from the Los Rios Management Association (LRMA), the Los Rios College Federation of Teachers (LRCFT), and the Los Rios Supervisors Association (LRSA) got together and agreed that the interest-based approach was too valuable to be limited to collective bargaining. From this desire to share the approach, the IBA Steering Committee was born. The committee devel-oped the training curriculum that is used to train all Los Rios employees in the interest-based approach, and this curricu-lum is continually updated to achieve maximum impact.

Historical Overview of IBA

GET TRAINED! Powerful Elements of IBA

3

10 You think compromise is your best option in negotiation or conflict reso-lution.

9

You’re fighting with your colleague about who gets the __________ (choose one: office with the window, classroom, new computer, course assignment, last brownie…).

8 Hotel, meals and snacks are provided at IBA, so you can concentrate on the training.

7 Dressing in casual clothes is manda-tory at IBA—jeans and tennis shoes!

6 Once you complete IBA, you can add the accomplishment to your resume.

5 You may find attending IBA to be life changing.

4 “What happens at IBA, stays at IBA.” Find out what that means!

3

IBA is valued so highly at Los Rios that managers/supervisors will ap-prove their employees’ attendance for this 3-day training, and faculty are allowed to get subs for their classes.

2

You recognize the value of lifelong learning to improve the skills you have to offer to those around you—both professionally and personally.

1 You will meet and get to know col-leagues from all different levels around the Los Rios District.

TOP 10 REASONS WHY YOU NEED TO

ATTEND IBA Two shipwrecked colleagues floated in a lifeboat at sea, quarreling over their limited rations and supplies. “You’re drinking a lot of water. We need to conserve if we’re going to sur-vive out here for long.” “You should talk. I saw you gobbling up beef jerky when you thought I was asleep. I’m thirsty because I’m the one in full sun without a hat!” “Maybe you should be more resource-

ful and make something to cover your

head!”

If negotiators view themselves as ad-versaries, anything one says about the problem will sound like a personal attack. To survive, these two col-leagues will want to disentangle the problem from themselves as people.

They will want to identify each other’s needs: shade, medicine, water, and food. They will want to go a step fur-ther and treat the meeting of those needs as a shared problem, along with other problems like keeping watch, catching rainwater, fighting off sharks, and getting the lifeboat to shore. See-ing themselves working side by side to solve a mutual problem will enable them to reconcile their conflicting in-terests and to advance their shared interests. However difficult our personal relations may be, you and I become better able to reconcile our various interests when we accept that task as a shared prob-lem and face it jointly. We must deal with people as human beings and deal with the problem separately. This is not something we do once and then forget about. We have to continually work at it. Learn how to do this (and much more) at the 3-day IBA training!

[Adapted from Fischer and Ury,

Getting to Yes.]

“I was blown away by how fun and

engaging the facilitators were and how

this element of trust and comfort was

created so that everyone could voice

their opinions—both in the workshops

and outside of them.”

“I believe it was very helpful. I wish I

had attended it my first year.”

“I’ve been doing business conferences

and training since 1970 and this was

right there at the top in terms of

quality and effectiveness.”

“This is a great tool to help people

resolve conflict effectively while main-

taining an agreeable working environ-

ment.”

“Negotiating takes place every day. I

like the IBA because it encourages you

to view information from another

perspective.”

“What a wonderful experience this

was! I liked being able to stay at the

hotel and be immersed in the training

the entire time. It was great to meet

everyone on a level playing field, and

not know who they were or what jobs

they do for the various colleges.”

“ I want to have an IBA reunion! I

absolutely loved the workshop and the

camaraderie.”

“I will use this in any arena where

bargaining or conflict negotiation is

needed. This includes scheduling con-

cerns between faculty in my depart-

ment, FTE discussions with our Dean,

interactions with students, and more.”

Face the Issue, Not the People

Have You Heard? The Impact of IBA on LRCCD Employees

4

Submit Inquiries To: 1919 Spanos Court

Sacramento, CA 95825 Human Resources

Training & Development Dept.

Contact: Valerie Carrigan

Training Specialist Phone: (916) 568-3106

IBA STEERING

COMMITTEE

Valerie Carrigan

Ryan Cox

Betty Hall

Patricia Harris-Jenkinson

Diana Hicks

Todd Howton

Kelly Irwin

Chris Iwata

Ellen Arden-Ogle

Dan McKechnie

Sue Slager

Sandi Thacker

Chancellor

Dr. Brian King

Board of Trustees

Tami Nelson

Pamela Haynes

Dustin Johnson

Robert Jones

Ruth Scribner

Deborah Ortiz

John Knight

Evan Nguyen (Student Trustee)

You are eligible to attend the 3-day IBA training only once in your Los Rios career, so what can you do if you’d like a refresher? Apply for IBA facilitator training! This training is two full days and provides you with tips and strategies for being an effective facilitator and recorder for IBA. You will get an advanced refresher of IBA and lots of hands-on practice in groups, with guidance and feedback from seasoned facilitators.

The intent of IBA facilitator training is that trained individuals will participate in a portion of the 3-day IBA workshops in the future. If selected for facilita-tor training, you will need to get your supervisor’s or dean’s approval and arrange for appropriate coverage or substitutes for these two days. Click here for the Facilitator Training Interest Form, or request it from the HR Training Specialist (see con-tact information in this page’s left margin).

IBA Cryptogram

How About a Refresher?

In this cryptogram, the letters of the alphabet are represented by numbers:

1. Solve one letter at a time.

2. Make the best guess; then guess again.

3. Work in pencil.

For How to Solve a Cryptogram, click here.