NPHLI - PHLS Alumni Renewal Retreat
Refresh, Renew, Reconnect
May 14 – May 17, 2007
Paul J. Rizzo Conference Center
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Meeting Highlights
In May, forty PHLI graduates gathered in Chapel Hill to reflect, renew and reconnect. These individuals work at the federal, state and local levels of public health. Some currently work in governmental organizations; while others are associated with not for profit agencies, academic institutions or with private companies.
Retreat Photos (pdf) | Participant List
After some brief introductory comments on Monday afternoon, Donna Dinkin, Director, PHLI, facilitated a group discussion about the outside forces that have or are having an impact on the way in which public health practitioners are leading themselves, their teams, their organizations and their communities. Some of the forces that were identified include:
- IOM 1988 Future of Public Health Report
- Population demographic changes
- Growing risk of terrorism and mega-disasters
- Global climate changes
- Increase demand for accountability
- Globalization of health and business
- Increasing dependence and use of technology
- Health Disparities
On
Tuesday morning, Pat Libbey, Director, NACCHO, shared the
impact of his PHLI experience on his professional life journey.
He was followed by a discussion with internationally recognized
thought-leader, Meg Wheatley (left).
Dr. Wheatley challenged each participant to explore their
own desire to be a pioneer for the future. She said that
pioneers create and lead change but often do so by facing
resistance, challenges and difficulties. The group identified
several difficulties of leading change but also recognized
the potential for significant rewards if public health leaders
become the pioneers of change.
Daniel
Cable, PhD (Kenan Flagler Business School) presented
his thoughts on how to create a high performing organization
by building a strange workforce. A lively discussion took
place over the use of the term "competition" for
public health organizations. Do public health organizations
have competitors? Are we in competition with other companies
or organizations? If so, what are we competing for? Dan
suggested we create an exceptional and different workforce
to set ourselves apart from our competitors. All retreat
participants were given a copy of Dan's new book, Change
to Strange: Creating a Great Organization by Building a
Strange Workforce (Wharton School Publishing, 2007).
Representing CDC and the Office of Workforce and Career Development, Dr. Steve Thacker announced CDC’s continued commitment to the development of strong public health leaders. For the next three years, CDC will provide some funding for leadership development initiatives targeting public health leaders working across the country. He requested feedback and suggestions on how CDC can be most effective in using their resources to help leaders develop.
On Wednesday morning, Carol Woltring, Director, Center for Public Health Leadership and Practice, led a panel discussion of some of the tools and strategies available for developing your organizational leadership bench. Topics and guest experts included:
Use of 360 Degree Assessment Instruments
Sylvester Taylor – Center for Creative LeadershipDevelopment in Place – Challenging Work Assignments
Cindy McCauley – Center for Creative LeadershipMentoring and Coaching
Carol Woltring, Center for Health Leadership and PracticeCustom Leadership Development Programs
Stephen Orton – NC Institute for Public Health
Wednesday
afternoon was spent reflecting on the past 15 years of PHLI
and envisioning a potential future leadership development
system for the country. In a brief celebratory session, Bill
Roper (left), Carol Woltring and Ed Baker reflected on
the development of PHLI at CDC and on the early years of
the program. A sixteen foot timeline with class photos was
posted on the back wall of the room and a power point slide
show of the 15 classes was shown. View
the class photos.
Karl Umble, lead PHLI Evaluator – UNC, presented some preliminary findings from a recent evaluation study of the impact of PHLI. His comments are summarized in the attached power point slide show. View the presentation: Years 1-15 PHLI Evaluation Results
Ed Baker then presented his thoughts on the components of a model national system for leadership development. His thoughts are outlined in a white paper titled "Designing an Architecture for a National Public Health Leadership Development System".
The remainder of the gathering was spent in dialogue with each other about the potential components of a national public health leadership development system. The retreat participants split into four subgroups to discuss the following questions:
- What audience(s) need to be served with leadership development initiatives within your context (national, state, local)?
- What initiatives should exist at this level to serve these target audiences?
(An initiative can be anything from a recruiting policy, to a mentoring network, to a leadership institute.) - What should be the main goals of these specific initiatives?
- What relation should initiatives have to each other, or to initiatives at other levels?
In summary, most agree on the following points:
- There should be numerous opportunities and initiatives available to public health workers for leadership development as they progress through their careers.
- There is a need for strengthening our skills at identifying new talent .
- Training opportunities should be available at national, state, local and organizational levels
- Initiatives, services and programs should be integrated into a well networked and coordinated system.
- Development opportunities should include a variety of activities, including but not limited to formal off-site programs.
- A life-long learning model should be used to keep people connected and learning from each other.
- The new public health context and the new world trends should be considered in planning new initiatives for development .
- Connectedness and social networks are an important part of leadership development and ways to develop strong networks within the public health community as well as with business leaders, faith leaders and other community leaders – should be included in a system.