Drexel University College of Medicine

August 2011

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ELAM® is a core program of the Institute for Women's Health and Leadership® at Drexel University College of Medicine, Philadelphia, PA.

The ELAM Program
Drexel University College of Medicine
2900 West Queen Lane
Philadelphia, PA 19129
Email: ELAM@drexelmed.edu
Tel: 215-991-8240
Fax: 215-991-8171

 

Sustaining Leadership on the Learning Edge:
Advanced Professional Development Program

In June, ELAM opened the website for its first professional development program for our alumnae, Conflict Management and Negotiation: Creating and Claiming Value.   This past week, we opened up our online registration site, and we saw immediate response - three alumnae registered within the first two hours! As discussed in July's Director's column, the Alumnae Program Committee aims to ensure that 1) the program is high quality and compelling, and 2) participants will be able to use their time to address real issues about organizational action and transitions to a more inclusive and collaborative academic culture. They are working with ELAM to balance entertainment and inspiration, networking and problem solving, new learning and applied learning that moves ideas into action. The agenda is outlined on the web. The core elements are described below. I hope you find them intriguing and are compelled to register early for this inaugural event!

Preparing:
In addition to contacting colleagues to make dinner and outing arrangements for the free evenings, you will want to reflect upon your current challenges and identify issues that would benefit from improved negotiation and conflict management. Alumnae have asked for a solid ELAM-like event, so we are pleased to let you know that there will be homework, although not very onerous. The pre-session assignments will prepare us for enhancing our leadership effectiveness. Expect to complete a brief online assessment of your conflict management style, and to think through the players and situation of an upcoming conflict or negotiation that you can focus on during the session.

Gathering and Entering into the Work:
For a good number of us, it has been many years since we left the community of our ELAM class. We will make every effort to bring participants into a trusting, inclusive and collaborative community in order to learn "on the edge" of our comfort zones. Be open to entering this ELAM community with curiosity and inquiry as we establish connections across 15 different classes of alumnae. Our opening work also will connect us to the issues of negotiation and conflict as we share our organizational challenges and find problem-solving partners in this community of wise women.

Negotiating and Managing Conflict:
Three workshops led by Catherine Morrison will guide us through new insights, preparation, and practice in addressing first negotiation and then conflict management. We begin by learning how to distinguish and apply five negotiation and conflict management styles according to distinctions made by the Kraybill Inventory. Through small group case discussions, large group debriefing, and then practice with our own negotiation challenges, we will explore the styles and their situational applications. We'll turn then to a problem solving approach to managing conflict. This diagnostic approach assesses degrees of cognitive and affective conflict in case studies presented in film clips and fish bowl exploration. (Fish bowl means that a couple of us volunteer to address a conflict while everyone else watches us swim in the diagnosis and management.) Given this preparation, we then will be ready to work in very small groups to address our own conflict and negotiation issues. In closing the session, Catherine intends to highlight observations about gender, style, and technique.

Executive Coaching:
Need some personal coaching on job searching, professional relationship-building, or organizational change? Those who sign up early will have this opportunity. A selection of ELAM faculty and consultants who provide executive coaching will be available for individual consultation during breaks. Each has agreed to conduct a 1.5 hour session on site with a 1.5 hour follow-up telephone consultation for a single fee of $350. You will be asked to sign up for a slot and pay for this optional session when you register for the program. Consultation slots are limited, so please be sure to register early if you wish to take advantage of this opportunity! 

Welcoming the 2012 Fellows:
The Class of 2012 will be meeting in Nashville from Monday, Dec. 5 – Thursday, Dec. 8 and will conclude with the opening reception and dinner of the alumnae community (only alumnae are invited to the remaining program Friday – Sunday). In addition to welcoming them to the ELAM community at the reception and dinner on Thursday evening, alumnae are invited to join the class earlier that day as facilitators and peer consultants during their Institutional Action Project Peer Consultation session. We will accept up to 20 alumnae to join this session facilitated by Luanne Thorndyke and Maryellen Gusic as they guide the fellows in how to design and carry out institutional action projects that will enhance their leadership while improving quality in their organizations. The session takes place on Thursday, Dec. 8 from 1:30 – 3:30 pm and participants are expected to join an orientation session that same day from 12:00 – 1:30 pm. When you register online, you will be asked to indicate your interest in participating. You also can email me directly at Diane.Magrane@DrexelMed.edu to be placed on the invitation list.

The Alumnae Development program will work to create a strong sense of ELAM community, much like the opening circle of the fall session did for the 2010-2011 ELAM class.

Connecting:
Connecting and networking is how we relate as a community. We are pleased that senior officials from both Vanderbilt and Meharry have contributed to sponsorship of a welcoming reception and dinner Thursday evening, December 8. The program schedule provides free time for connecting with classmates, learning community members, and new colleagues on Friday and Saturday with two-hour lunch breaks and open evenings. Of course, we anticipate you will be connecting with each other through the activities of the program as well.

Departing and Transitioning as a Community:
On Sunday morning we transition out of "this way of ELAM" and prepare to return to the work of leadership in our organizations. Activities for this morning will help us separate as a large learning community, identify ways of connecting across smaller communities, and commit to applying the lessons we have learned during the program.

Over the course of my career as a medical educator, staff of the AAMC, and now ELAM, I have attended many, many professional development seminars. I now have a personal rule that I only attend programs in which I either am teaching or believe that I will learn a great deal. Since the inception of the Legacy Fund and the development of this postgraduate program, I have been hoping that we would be able to develop a program that would whet my personal leadership appetite. This one does it for me — new approaches, excellent teachers, amazing community. I hope it does the same for you. The more of us that attend the richer the program will be.  It's time now to go to the meeting website and register for the first of what we hope becomes an annual event. And time now to thank the classes that have given generous gifts to the Legacy Fund, to make this possible.

MEETING INFORMATION AND REGISTRATION HERE!

A Few References:

• An excellent video of an interview with Linda Babcock, author of Women Don't Ask and Ask for It!, to provide some education and inspiration for your negotiating.

Did you miss the previous Director's Columns about this program? Linked here:

• Sustaining Leadership Learning after ELAM (December 2010)
• Survey Says—the top answers to what ELUMS would like to see in an advanced professional development program (July 2011)

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