A large state agency had been experiencing a variety of changes. The new head of the agency approached communication researchers about doing analyses of the effectiveness of communication in the agency. The researchers conducted two studies: a qualitative one to identify organizational and organizational communication themes, and a quantitative one to describe the relationships among and between factors. This paper is an analysis of the qualitative effort. There were two purposes of the study described here: (1) to describe cultural aspects of an organization experiencing change; and (2) to report what organizational members identified as communication strengths and weaknesses. The qualitative effort assisted the later quantitative study, and the paper will conclude with observations about the benefits of mixed designs. Contains 57 references. (RS)