HS 421G — Power and Influence: Beyond Formal Authority

Yields quarter course credit.

How does a physician trained to focus on an individual patient care become a manager able to implement change in a large, complex organization? Physicians have a successful track record of coming up with good ideas and approaches. We have been rewarded for our performance, intelligence, and patient-oriented priorities. We have been enculturated by our training to think logically, to feel we are right, and to often find we are right. Intelligence, knowledge, dedication, orderly thinking, and clinical goals are sufficient for managing a patient, but not enough for managing a team or dealing with a complex organization. What has worked and been rewarded in becoming a physician does not apply wholly or neatly to management…and the fit decreases with the size and scale of the management task and complexity of the organization. Usually offered every year.

Michael Jellinek