Lab Training Programs
We'll work with your diocese to conduct a lab training program in your area. Information for the diocese.
Labs use an experiential method of learning. This form of training has a goal of increasing your options for effective behavior in interpersonal, group, and organizational settings. The process involves disciplined reflection on the immediate here-and-now experiences within the learning community. We make use of applied behavioral science theory to explore the patterns and dynamics present in a group or organization.
This has proven itself as one of the most effective ways to learn skills involving work with people in a change processes. In addition to learning in the focus of a particular lab (e.g., group development, consultation skills, etc.) all events offer the opportunity to:
- Increase your understanding of the impact of your behavior on others.
- Better understand the underlying social processes at work within a group
- Experiment with changes in your behavior
- Better integrate your feelings, thinking and values
- Increase your ability to give and receive feedback.
- Increase your understanding of group development and dynamics.
- Better integrate your feelings, thinking and values
- Increase your ability to learn from your own and a group's experience.
Participants will be involved at every stage in activities which will are designed to increase self awareness, expand your awareness of choices you have in the immediate situation, and at times challenge your filters and biases. These activities involve a certain amount of stress. It is not, therefore, advisable for persons to participate who are living in the midst of unusual stress in their personal or professional lives.
Most workshops begin on Sunday evening at 7:00 and continue until 11:00 a.m. on Friday. The interactive character of the training experience makes it essential that participants arrive on time and participate in all scheduled sessions throughout the week. If the workshop is at a conference center participants need to be in residence throughout the program.
Trainers - This is a group of trainers who have worked together over many years. Bob Gallagher (Seattle), Michelle Heyne (Seattle), Susan Adam (Castine, Maine), Susan Latimer (WVA), Joey Rick (DC), Stephanie Gadzik (WI), and Rebecca DeBow (Birmingham, AL). A training staff is organized for your workshop from among this group of independent practitioners and you are billed by each for their workshop fee and expenses.
Human Interaction - An opportunity to learn about yourself, how your behavior impacts others, and how to function more effectively in a group and interpersonal situations. The competencies developed are those associated with what has been called emotional intelligence. A key element of the program is the use of the T-Group method which facilitates learning by bringing together a small group of people for the express purpose of studying their own behavior when they interact within a small group. The T-group method provides little structure or direction from the trainers. The lack of a given structure allows participants to learn about their own patterns of behavior when there is a need for them to accept responsibility for a group's life and work. The training staff works to help participants learn from their own experience. In its intensive long-weekend format or as a five day lab, This event meets part of the perquisite requirement for more advanced workshops. This is a beginning point for learning core skills that are used and build on in other events.
Conflict Management - This workshop will offer special attention to the "use of self" in a conflict. The goal is to increase your awareness of what is happening to you in a conflict, help you to identify your blindspots, and to increase the range of options you have for effective behavior. We will begin with a couple of days of T-group work. There will also be opportunities for self assessment and feedback from other participants and trainers. In addition to the emphases on the "use of self" you will learn conflict management skills, methods and theory for use in groups and organizations. In advance of the workshop you'll take the MBTI and TKI on-line. This event meets part of the perquisite requirement for more advanced workshops.
Community Building - Focuses on the dynamics and issues in developing a healthy parish community. The workshop will draw on ascetical and pastoral theology, more recent behavioral science work on community building, and group development methods and theory. We will learn from our experience together as a community forms in the workshop. We will begin with a couple of days of T-group work. Prerequisite for Community Building: Human Interaction or Conflict Management. 
Group Development - This workshop focuses on understanding and effectively sharing leadership in groups and teams. Attention is given to developing an awareness of group development and dynamics, balancing task and relationship issues, establishing group norms. Group facilitation skills training is part of the event. Prerequisite for Group Development: Human Interaction or Conflict Management
Design Skills - Develop skills that can improve the quality of meetings, education, and programs; that increase "ownership", energy and excitement. Increase your ability to design more experiential and participatory events. Prerequisite for Design Skills: Participants must have completed two weeklong workshops.
Consultation Skills - For those in consulting or other third party roles This event focuses on skills for third party intervention, e.g., steps in the consulting process; consulting style, ethics, needs, dilemmas, dynamics; the ability to form authentic helping relationships; becoming more comfortable with the use of "self" in consulting. Prerequisite for Consultation Skills - Participants must have completed two weeklong labs
Participant Assessment of Conflict Management Workshop 2012
Arrange for a workshop by contacting Bob Gallagher
Group Development Lab, Diocese of Milwaukee