Get Tailored Consulting for Your Department, School or Unit
Services offered by Duke’s Learning & Organization Development cover change management, team development, and more
Over six years at Duke, Dr. Leslye Kornegay has called on Learning & Organization Development for help building a range of skills on her team.
Kornegay, executive director of Duke University Environmental Services in Facilities Management, engaged Duke’s Learning & Organization Development (L&OD) for consulting services around leadership, communication styles, organizing a staff retreat, and strategic planning for supervisors and managers.
“They don’t try to give you a carbon copy of a workshop or a program or course,” Kornegay said. “They listen to you ... They’re very good at taking what you want and then helping you flesh it out and put it together.”
In addition to the lineup of regular professional development workshops, L&OD offers Consulting Services for departments and administrative units across Duke University and Duke University Health System.
The tailored consulting services draw on L&OD’s expertise in strategic planning, organizational assessments, change management, designing and facilitating retreats, and competency and team development. To date, L&OD has worked with numerous departments and units across Duke to make long-lasting strides in various areas.
“These sessions really help to set culture and tone for a full-group experience,” said Gina Rogers, assistant director of L&OD. “I work with clients to help them think about not letting this be an event, but to take this opportunity in a way that gives them ongoing utility.”
Departments or administrative units begin with an initial no-cost consultation to discuss the situation and goals. Once L&OD is engaged, a fee for services applies, and a facilitator is assigned and prepares a customized plan.
Earlier this year, Chris Tobias, chief administrator for the Department of Head and Neck Surgery & Communication Sciences, worked with L&OD to organize an in-person research retreat with about 15 people to set priorities.
The leadership group came up with four buckets of priorities such as looking for new funding sources and increasing research resources using a Strengths, Opportunities, Aspirations and Results (SOAR) analysis. L&OD helped guide the conversation through the analysis during one of the department’s first in-person events since the pandemic began.
“What was great about this is we got everyone involved that could show up, which was almost everybody,” Tobias said. “Part of the goal was to make them feel like a group because we hadn’t really gotten together because of COVID.”
The four-hour retreat set a framework for a larger department meeting scheduled for May when team members will continue strategic planning.
“It was extremely helpful for the leadership in the department to know there are these four buckets,” Tobias said. “We know where to focus effort during the first years of the strategic plan.”
Dr. Alex Cho of the Duke Outpatient Clinic (DOC) enlisted the services of L&OD for a hybrid strategic planning session that brought an outside perspective to long-range goalsetting over 12 to 18 months.
“We want it to be an opportunity to dream together, but not in sort of an aimless daydreaming way,” Cho said. “In a purposeful, collective way where you can come away with some sense of shared purpose.”
The clinic provides medical care to underserved populations in the community after they leave Duke University Hospital. Focused on care for diabetes, smoking cessation, dermatology and other needs, the clinic sees approximately 5,000 unique patients each year, who are primarily under or uninsured.
In the strategic planning session last year, the department set new priorities in clinical operations, population health and education. The core team has continued meeting monthly to check on progress, including ways to make paperwork more efficient for providers, patients and staff.
“They helped us come out with an organized result because it’s very easy to do these things and have them not amount to much,” Cho said. “L&OD certainly helped us organize things so that wasn’t the case for us.”
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