Bill Klaproth: This episode is part of a special Women In Leadership Podcast series.

Sarah Brownell, FACHE (Host): Really excited to be together today to talk about this really important topic. Done a couple of these sessions with SHSMD, really focusing on highlighting female leaders and really just telling their stories. So first of all, introductions. My name is Sarah Brownell.

I lead strategic growth with HDR Architecture. We do architecture and consulting. Very happy with HDR. Love working for the organization. But I think one of the things I love the most about HDR is that I've had the tremendous opportunity to meet just really amazing female leaders through the course of my job.

And that's kind of what brings us together today. One other thing that's very important is as a mom of three daughters, so ages 17, 15 and three. And this series really stemmed from me seeing my daughters as they grow with my oldest one now about to venture out into the world, embarking on her own professional journey.

So, thinking about them at this stage and really just trying to identify like, what do I want them to really know as they embark on this journey? What do I wish I knew when I was just starting out? And so really wanting to put a series together that can share insights from amazing leaders that I've had the true pleasure of meeting and deliver it in a way that can be, you know, inspiring and can help empower women really across their professional journey. So that's a little bit of background on the series, and I am really, really excited to talk today with a true professional, a true, really an inspiring colleague, Morgan Jones, Vice President of Strategic Planning for Duke. So can you please just start us off and just share a little bit about your background and your career trajectory to this point?

Morgan Jones: Yeah, happy to and again, really appreciate the opportunity to be here with you today. So grew up in Eastern North Carolina at, actually grew up from pretty poverty stricken family. And that ultimately is what started my career in healthcare. So my parents' family actually grew up where they didn't even have a true home, didn't have running water. And from that didn't have access to high quality healthcare. It showed up in so many different parts of their lives. And ultimately in my life as well as I was younger. Very quickly I saw kind of have and have nots.

And, I think healthcare is such an important part of that, that sometimes people just take for granted. So some of the things that were really important to me were increasing access to high quality healthcare. Both my grandfathers passed away of Alzheimer's. One grew up and was in a family that they were, they had a family, they had access to healthcare, they had access to services and providers and medicine, the other one did not.

And the one that did not died much younger and a much more severe death because of it. And so I really wanted to come in and see what I could do and see how I could help. And, you know, I thought I could rule the world and fix it all. And after I decided I wasn't going to be the first to female president of the United States uh, then I decided, okay I thought I wanted to be a lawyer in the healthcare field.

Very quickly realized, books and writing and words and where the comma was placed was not for me. No offense to all the attorneys out there. I love working with you, and I'm so grateful for the work that you do. However, it was not my personal passion. Instead, what was my passion was really focusing on challenges in healthcare and how I could facilitate bringing some of the best and brightest people together to solve those challenges, or at least identify new opportunities.

And that's really what I've been able to do. So all the way from coming right out of undergrad, going to do cognitive and heuristic studies for a physician CME firm, to working on the Hill as a healthcare advisor, to working at Joint Commission, to working at the Department of Veterans Affairs in operations and saying, okay, operations is not for me, to now being in strategy. I mean, those are all milestones along my healthcare journey, and I've loved every single chapter.

Sarah Brownell, FACHE (Host): Oh, through your career to this point, obviously, you've accomplished some pretty significant things and had the opportunity to work on some pretty big initiatives. So as you reflect on your path to this point, what are some of the standout moments for you? So what are the things that kind of stick out as, things that you're the most proud of?

Morgan Jones: Yeah, so a few I would say. Number one is I helped craft the high risk pool legislation for North Carolina. And so again, that was writing legislation that uninsured or underinsured, were able to have access to insurance where previously they didn't. Wasn't necessarily popular across all parties, but again, it was something that was able to improve the health of the community.

And I received the North Carolina Impact Award actually for it. So it was really excited for that. Another thing that I did is working with the Department of Veterans Affairs. I actually did a rotation with the Joint Commission and created standards around cultural competency around diversity. And those were things that really hadn't been done for the Joint Commission previously.

And so how to ensure that you have appropriate translators. How to ensure that the policies and regulations that you have aren't contradictory across different populations or that you're not having unbiased policies, but you are implementing them in biased ways and how do you assess for that?

So that was really exciting work as well. So again, these kind of challenges that like people haven't yet figured out that I was able to either facilitate a group of people or help negotiate through political turmoil. And those are all really exciting. At Duke, one of the things that I'm proudest of is being able to stand up over 20 ambulatory sites and we've been able to grow the number of patients that we care for nearly double, by adding these ambulatory sites really since 2017.

And these are sites that include primary care, urgent care, women's services, children's services. We've been able to open ambulatory surgery centers that previously we didn't have as well as a lot of imaging. So, if a woman needs to go get a mammogram, you don't always want to have to be referred from your OBGYN or from your primary care, but you just want to be able to go and get it yourself and you want to be able to do it where it's easy and convenient for you.

And so those are some of the things that I'm really most proud of across parts of my journey in the industry to date.

Sarah Brownell, FACHE (Host): That's amazing. Yeah, I mean, I think that's just so inspiring and I learned so much about you that I didn't even know. So I think that that's just really great. So the focus of this session is really centered around resiliency and what that means and really, talking about how we can shift our mindset away from avoiding difficult things, because I think when things are hard and challenging and nobody likes it, right?

We want to be comfortable, we want to be, we want the road to be smooth. We don't want to hit any bumps. And when we do hit bumps or find challenges, our goal is to eradicate it and or find a process or improvement strategies so that we don't ever have to face those things again. I know I do it in my own life. I'm with, I look at my parenting style with my daughters and I want things to be as easy for them as possible, but when I reflect on my own life and my career path, the when things have been challenging, that's when I've learned the most about myself as a leader professionally and personally. And so I think that one of the things I'd like to talk to you about, because you are one of, one of the most, probably one of the most resilient leaders I've had the fortune to meet, is to just talk a little bit about by really focusing on resiliency and embracing challenges, or at least having the mindset of where there's growth to be found there, I think it, it better enables us when life does throw us curve balls to be, to respond a healthier way that helps us grow. So that helps us more long term.

So my next question for you is thinking about your career path, obviously to be able to accomplish as much as you have, there's, you're bound to find struggles and challenges, right? So what can you share from your own experiences that stand out to you around how you've been able to navigate that, how you've drawn on that resiliency? I'd just love to hear insights that you have on the importance of that for yourself.

Morgan Jones: Yeah. Great question and thank you. Um, I really appreciate some of your kind remarks as well. So number one, I think as we are going through change or difficult challenges, I don't know that any of us think about resiliency. I think resiliency is a byproduct or is something that's created and happens. I think there are days that personally, professionally, like we don't know what to do. We don't know what the next turn is going to be. We don't know, either the change is happening to us or we know that the change needs to occur, but we don't know when to get started or how it's going to end.

We don't know what the end result's going to be. And so for me, this has shown up in so many parts of my life personally and professionally, but I think number one, you just do the best that you can every single day, and sometimes doing the best that you can means give yourself grace and you say, today I'm going to lay in bed and in watch Netflix. Today, I'm going to go to the beach because I need to walk by the water. Today, I'm going to crank it out at work because I just want to cross things off my to-do list. And so I think being able to provide grace for yourself that you're not going to get everything done off your checklist that you want, you're going to make mistakes. And some days are going to be really, really hard. When you have those really, really hard days, what's the community or the network that you've built that you can lean on? I think that's really important as well. I think sometimes, in particular as females, we try to think we can do it all or we should do it all. We're the CEO, we're the personal shopper, we're the cleaner, we're the hemstress, we're the nurse. Like, we literally try to do it all and delegation was really hard for me to learn. And sometimes delegation happened by a friend coming beside me and saying, I got this. I gotcha. I'll help.

Let me take your kids tonight. Let me bring you dinner tonight. Or a colleague saying, Hey, I see you're really struggling with this deliverable. Like you want to talk through it. Like, do you just want to like talk out loud. And so being open to again, giving yourself grace, but also being able to lean on others at times I think is probably the most important thing I've learned.

Sarah Brownell, FACHE (Host): I think that's a really great point because I think you're right. I think as I, and I don't know where this pressure comes from, but as females, I mean, I definitely feel it too. Like I feel like there really is no saying no. I mean, it's just an expectation that things just have to get done. Right. Right.

And so feeling comfortable. And a lot of times the community, the network is there, but it's really just finding the strength, I guess, to accept help when it is offered. I think that that's something that a lot of people struggle with. So I think it's really good insights.

Morgan Jones: We're all told, everybody's struggling with their personal challenge, right? Like nobody really shares it or wears it on their sleeve or tells everybody what's going on. But we all have our challenges. And I think if we were each a little bit more vulnerable or each a little bit more honest, we would be able to learn from each other more. We'd be able to support each other more and overall we'd be happier people and probably a stronger community. I believe strongly in community.

Sarah Brownell, FACHE (Host): Yeah. That's great. So as a female leader, I'm curious if you could share how you've been able to navigate those challenges that you face in your career growth and anywhere from like advocating for yourself and your team and how looking at those specific areas that you need to navigate through. Can you share more about how you've been able to do that?

Morgan Jones: Yeah, I would say I'm still navigating, right? It's something I'm still working on, still doing. I think a few different ways and some of it are things I look back and I cringe. Some of it are things I look back, I'm like, man, I could have done that differently or I could have done that better.

So, mentioned that I was going to go to get my law degree and do health law. I was actually an LSAT teacher and typically I would come in and I would sit in just a normal seat and people would come in and they would look around and they would have no clue. I was the teacher. Oftentimes I was younger than the people coming in to take class.

I can cringe at some of what I was told or some of the comments made to me about being young or being a female, or I remember being in a professional meeting where water spilled on the floor and I immediately jumped up to clean the water up or clean the drink up, and not that I shouldn't have helped out a colleague, but why was I as the youngest female in the room, the only one getting up too clean? Why was everybody else looking at me? And actually had one of my colleagues come up to me later and say, don't ever do that again. And she was doing it from a way to say, you should not be the one, if someone spills their drink, they have an accountability responsibility to clean it up. If you want to help them, fine, but don't jump to try to take care of everybody else.

And so again, those are some of the cringe worthy moments or examples of some of the cringe worthy moments that have helped me to say, you know what? We all have moments of imposter syndrome, and I think females suffer from it probably more so, but it's this feeling of how did I get in this place?

I don't deserve this. Somebody's asking my opinion, well, what do I have to offer? And instead, how can we say, here is what I have to offer. Here is what I've experienced. Here is my thinking. Or sometimes it's just a question. Sometimes asking a good question can be the most valuable part of a conversation.

It can turn a conversation, it can pivot it in a way where maybe we're spinning, maybe people don't know what to do. And a lot often, oftentimes, people talk about it as kind of this fresh eyes perspective. Which I kind of go back and forth with. I always appreciate fresh eyes, but I think, again, as females, sometimes we are quieter or slower to speak up and so I start with making sure my team knows everybody has a voice at the table. I want to hear from every single one. I try even at home to say, if you've already spoken up once, like try to ask somebody else to speak, like try to see like if they have a thought or an idea.

And again, this is with seven of us at the dinner table, so it can be a little rambunctious. And so I try to instill things like that that encourages others to speak up, encourages others to have questions, provides a place of safety where all questions can be asked. And sometimes it's just asking for an ally, somebody that's really close to you to say, how to show up.

How did I show up in that meeting? What could I have done differently? Where did I come across confident? Where did I come across as weaker? And being able to accept that feedback. And learn from it and apply it in the next meeting. And hopefully you can also provide one of your colleagues or allies kind of similar feedback as well.

 I think it's harder as you grow from a team member to a supervisor. So how do you become an advocate for others and even a mentor for others? And that's been something that has been really important for me; identifying top talent and investing in them and pushing them. And sometimes you got to push them out of the nest.

You got to say, you are ready for this. I remember one teammate that I have on my current team, and she listens, she'll know exactly that I'm talking about her. But I think sometimes we as females also feel like things have to be perfect. And so we had a pretty serious question where I was like, Hey, did this really require A plus work?

Or could you have provided B plus work on this one? Because she was just killing herself. She was putting in too many hours, and the additional five hours that she was putting into the work was probably only making it 5% better, and it was stressing her out and she wasn't getting other things done, or she wasn't going to the gym because she was just focusing on this project.

And I finally said, time out. Who is this going to? It's not going to the board, it's not going to the senior parts of the organizational leadership. And it's our first pass for this deliverable. It's okay to give this a B work effort. And she'll bring that up today. She'll say, even today when I get a new assignment, I'll say, okay, what level effort do I need to give this project? What level effort do I need to spend on this particular assignment? And I would say that's step one. I could probably spend an entire podcast just on that question.

Sarah Brownell, FACHE (Host): I think it's a great idea for a podcast. No, and I think it, so it goes back to that minimum effective dose, you know? Yeah. So what is that critical point? I think it's just so great to hear you talk about your experience and then how you're using that now to mentor your team and carrying that forward. And then also how you rely on your network to get yourself that feedback so you're continually improving and identifying those opportunities to, to just grow. So I think that that's just really great insight.

 So, you've got me beat, I have three daughters. You have five, right?

Morgan Jones: Yes. Yes, I do.

Sarah Brownell, FACHE (Host): I'm curious and it's just definitely something I'm thinking about with my oldest now graduating high school. Um, what advice would you want them to know that you didn't know, or what would you want your younger self to know as you were starting out? Like, what are the things you think are most important? They're not going to listen to you, but maybe someday they'll listen to this podcast.

Morgan Jones: Yeah. And listen to somebody else. So, yeah. Such good question. So, I think a couple things. I think when we're growing up, we all kind of have what we think our life is going to be or what it's going to entail. And I promise you, every single one of us is going to get it wrong. Right? Like no matter what we predict, no matter what we say, it's going to look like, there may be portions that are very close to our ideal, but even our ideal is probably going to be change pretty significantly. So I never expected to have five children and five girls at that.

How that came to be, I'll quickly go over, but I'll also say the way I was when I was very first a mom with my very first child who wasn't put down, only ate organic food that we made. Nobody could touch her without washing their hands. She wasn't going to bump her knee, and who I am now as the mom of five girls is very, very different.

And I think number one, being a strong person is teaching others how to be strong and how to be their best self as well. And it's okay if you get a cold. It's okay if you bump your knee. It's okay when you have those really tough moments and allow yourself to be emotional in the moment. All of that is okay, and I think actually makes you a stronger person.

And again, I think sometimes we don't allow ourself to have those emotions or feelings. I tell my girls a lot, you know, we can't always control our emotions, but we can control our behaviors. And that is really important. So making sure that you can sit by yourself sometimes with your emotion, but you still have to control your behaviors and how we show up for each other and support each other is really important to me as a mom.

So very quickly, fell in love with my high school sweetheart. Got married. We were together 22 years. We had three girls, absolutely amazing. Kind of two years apart, this like, perfect little family.

Take the girls to swim team practice one day and come home and unfortunately he has had heart attack and has died and our youngest was actually the one that found him. And so that was again, probably like the darkest moments of my life and knowing that I had to keep going both for myself, but ultimately for our girls, was significantly important. And I think goes back to perhaps the word resiliency, that at the time I wasn't feeling resilient at all. I was feeling very broken.

I was feeling like I wasn't sure how I was going to get through that day, let alone the next day. I didn't know how I was going to be able to help the girls or have happy moments again. And it was little by little and it was through community. Again, now, I have these moments where I can look back at my late husband, and it's not just sadness, but these amazing moments of joy and happiness.

And we'll laugh out loud about the memories and about funny things that we see or hear, and it reminds us of him. I'm also super blessed now to now be remarried and with this amazing man that has two girls. And so together we have five girls, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. And it is a constant circus sorority house, beauty shop, lots of emotion. It is a, we talk about it as being a beautiful mess. And I think that is what life has become for us. It is a beautiful mess, and I want our girls to know how important love is. And love comes in so many different shapes and sizes, and again, maybe different from what you originally expected or intended, but every single person in your life that loves you contributes to you being your best self.

And so how do you make sure it's always additive and always loving and that, how do you receive that? And again, we're not always great at receiving the love, but I think you have to first receive it so you can give it back.

Sarah Brownell, FACHE (Host): Yeah, I think that's great. I really, I really appreciate you sharing that story. I know that it's a hard one to tell, but I can feel the appreciation that you have for the journey and just really appreciate that.

I think that you mentioned a couple things there. Talking about how you handle the uncertainty and just going with the flow a little bit. So understanding that your plan is not always going to be your reality, right? And I think that that is something that's so important to understand in our personal life.

And also in our professional life, because you have to be flexible and adaptable to when life throws you those curve balls, like what are you going to do with it? Like, are you going to really just crumble and quit? Or are you going to continue on and grow and make something beautiful out of it?

So I think that that's just a really important message. I'm curious, looking at all that you've, gone through, you've accomplished so much as a young leader, you've so much more to do, having experienced all of this, at this point in your life, like are there elements of the resiliency that you've seen come to the surface in your personal life that you carry through in your professional life? Like, I'm curious how going through this tragedy, how has your profession benefited from that? How have you grown professionally from that, if you know, what's the...

Morgan Jones: Yeah, a couple different ways. Number one, I mean, imagine being with your high school sweetheart, we were together 22 years, they pass away. We were together for more of our life than we were not together, and so growing up with somebody that close, he was part of me. And then you kinda lose that.

And so I had to go back to who am I? Who am I as a person? What matters to me? Who am I as a mom? Who am I as a friend, who am I as a colleague, et cetera. And so, I'm still, still working through a lot of those areas, but I think it actually helped me realize what's core to me. And so as the change occurs or as twists and turns happen, what are the things that are really important to me?

Some people talk about it as your personal brand or whatever. To me, it's much deeper than that. It's who am I as a person, what is most meaningful to me, and how do I always stay true to those things? So I think that has been something that has really been a pillar of stability and foundation for me that I was able to identify that I don't know I would have discovered without such significant loss and change.

I think another thing is, I feel more okay now with change and maybe even a little bit more okay now with some risk that perhaps I wouldn't have been as comfortable with previously. Because change can be so uncomfortable and sometimes when you're going through it, you don't, you can't imagine better days.

You can't imagine the sun rising the next day and a smile happening on your face or whatever. And sometimes it's as simple as watching my kids laugh or listen to their dad sing on a recording and they're not sad about it, they're happy about it, and they share stories. And that's when I feel like, okay, I'm doing something right.

And if I'm doing something right as a mom, it helps me show up for work better. It helps me do a better job at work as well. It helps me be a better friend. So again, like for me, it's all about, we each bring so many different parts of ourself to work, but I think the fuller perspective, you can bring the fuller better person ultimately you're going to be. And again, I just think going through such trauma and such loss and such change, there's a bit of you that you have to believe that things are going to get better. You have to believe things are going to be happy again. And what I have started to really focus on is you just, you make the best decision you can every step of the way.

None of us have a crystal ball. I work in strategic planning. Right? Like how many times are people like, well, what's the, what do the next five years of industry look like and what do we need to prepare for? And what's going to happen with this law and what's going to happen with CON in North Carolina? And you're like, you know what?

I don't have crystal ball. If I did, I might be doing something slightly different. But we don't want crystal balls. And so how do you make the best decision that you can every single step of the way? And be confident enough to make a decision. Sometimes we don't make decisions because we're so scared of what the outcome may be, that change happens to us.

And sometimes just being an advocate or taking agency for your own change can be so empowering. It can be more engaging and can be more fulfilling to say, I'm choosing to take on a new job. I'm choosing to move to a new house. I'm choosing to hire this employee, whatever all those things. Or I'm choosing to take Friday off because I need to go walk on the beach, like whatever it is, like being more purposeful about the decisions for me has made me more comfortable and confident in the change occurring and seeing the positive in it.

That again, I think helps me to not second guess and helps me to grow. And I think it also helps, my team be happier cause I'm clearer about direction. It helps my girls be stronger because they know what we're doing, when we're doing it. So that's one example.

Sarah Brownell, FACHE (Host): No, I think that's great and I think you're right. I mean, what other industry is changing as rapidly and is facing so uncertainty than healthcare right now. So I think that you, to some extent, leading the strategy team here, you have to be comfortable with taking risks and living with some uncertainty, right? So, I mean, that's a's a...

Morgan Jones: And be willing to consider the unimpossible things that you thought would never happen. So, I remember watching the Jetsons and being like, well these things are silly. Like, how in the world is that ever going to happen? And now, like where we're in healthcare, you're like telehealth or doc in the box services or what are the things that we can be doing to improve the industry that we haven't thought of or we have previously thought are so ridiculous; but now we have to be willing to do because the industry or consumers are demanding it.

Sarah Brownell, FACHE (Host): Yeah. So I have one more question for you, and you are such an amazing, dynamic leader. I'm just really curious, what is next? You've already done so much. Like what's up next for you? What are you focusing on?

Morgan Jones: Yeah, I don't know. Um, I think, I think number one right now, I am trying to focus really on just a little bit more stability. And again, it's just a lot of personal change, a lot of change in the industry. And so where can I continue to feel more grounded? So whether that be exercise and physical, whether that be joining a tennis league, again, I played tennis in college and just haven't had a lot of time recently.

So is there something that I can focus on that just creates a little bit more stability for me is really important. There are so many unique professional opportunities right now. I think that's the most intriguing and difficult thing. So I'm trying to like dabble in new ways of thinking and bringing them back to the organization and how can Duke think about implementing them because Duke is such a big organization that even if it's not something that can happen across the entire enterprise, there's probably some pocket of Duke that's willing to invest in it or consider it or think about it.

And so I'm trying to think about how to plant those seeds across the organization and figure out what grows. But I think it all goes back more to me for embracing the change, seeing change as what's next on the horizon that's possible, that makes you a fuller person, that helps you even like, understand yourself better while always staying true to your core.

Sarah Brownell, FACHE (Host): Yeah, absolutely. I mean those are inspiring words. I mean, I think it's a great message. I think it's something that I certainly appreciate hearing and I really appreciate you sharing. So really appreciate the time, Morgan. Thank you.

Morgan Jones: Well, thank you. I really appreciate it. It was fun and some really thought provoking questions, so really appreciate it.

Sarah Brownell, FACHE (Host): Awesome. Thanks.

Bill Klaproth: Looking to spark your own career advancement? Expand your knowledge and network at shsmd.org. That's S-H-S-M-D.org, where you can engage with SHSMD's tools, resources, and member community.