About two years ago, I took over as the Chief of Staff at our hospital. My predecessor, Dr. Mike Farrell had served as our Chief of Staff for over 22 years. He had been (and remains) a fixture at our hospital - his current tenure now runs close to 43 years. Dr. Farrell has been everything to this institution. He was our pediatric residency program director for nearly 20 years, training almost 500 residents (virtually all of our community pediatricians that did their residency training here at our hospital either worked with Mike or trained under Mike). As a pediatric gastroenterologist, he worked in our subspecialty clinics at virtually every single ambulatory site. He performed endoscopies in the operating rooms at both of our hospital campuses. He worked in both our emergency department and our urgent care clinics. He touched virtually every facet of our clinical operations. Suffice it to say that Mike Farrell is a local legend. He is a great colleague, a good friend, and a fabulous mentor, and I consider it an honor and privilege to have learned from him.
How do you replace a living legend? I actually asked Mike how I could ever hope to fill his shoes. Mike smiled and told me, "Just be your self. Always put the patient first. And don't screw it up." Great advice! Over the years, whenever I have had trouble with something, I have looked for other similar examples in the literature. In this case, I looked to the world of sports (hey - remember that I was a "Sports Science" major in college!). Specifically, I looked for examples of when someone had to replace a living legend. In this case, I looked at two examples from the National Football League.
Dan Marino was a living legend when he retired from football. Although he never won a Super Bowl (he actually only played in the Super Bowl once, during his second season in the NFL, losing to another living legend, Joe Montana and the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl XIX), by the time he finished his career he held virtually every passing record and was a first ballot Hall of Famer. Who replaced Dan Marino after he retired? Do you know? Well, if you said "Jay Fiedler" you were correct - the reason most of us would have never said "Jay Fiedler" is because Jay Fiedler went on to have a "journeyman's career" in the NFL. Fiedler actually did fairly well in his first season (in the 2000 NFL season) as quarterback for the Miami Dolphins, going 10-5 as a starter. But, you could certainly argue that he was a good, but not very memorable quarterback.
I mentioned above that Dan Marino lost to Joe Montana in Super Bowl XIX. Montana was another living legend. He won the NCAA National Championship at the University of Notre Dame in 1977. He was a virtual unknown after his first year of college, but he did well enough in a few late appearances that Notre Dame's coach at the time, Dan Devine, decided to give him a shot as the starter during the spring football game. When a reporter asked, "Who's Joe Montana?", Coach Devine replied, "He's the guy who's going to feed our family for the next few years." He ended up as a great college quarterback and was eventually drafted by the San Francisco 49ers. He went on to win the Super Bowl for San Francisco four times (Super Bowl XVI, XIX, XXIII, and XXIV), winning the Super Bowl MVP three times. He was the NFL MVP twice and was named to 8 Pro Bowls. After leaving San Francisco, he was named the NFL Comeback Player of the Year in 1986 after a successful season for the Kansas City Chiefs. He retired in 1994 and was a first ballot Hall of Famer. Who replaced Joe Montana? Almost everyone who follows football knows that Joe Montana was replaced by Steve Young. Why? Because Steve Young went on to have great success too. He won the Super Bowl three times (twice as Montana's back-up XXIII, XXIV and once as a starter XXIX), was the MVP in Super Bowl XXIX, named to 7 Pro Bowls, and was the NFL MVP twice (1992, 1994). He was another first ballot Hall of Famer.
The lesson here - if you are going to replace a living legend, be like Steve Young and NOT Jay Fiedler. But here is the interesting part. If you could use one word to describe Steve Young as a quarterback, most people would say, "Grit" (ironically, his father's nickname was "Grit"). He was known for his mobility as a quarterback - he could run almost as well as he could throw. He was tough, resilient, and gritty. While at Brigham Young University, Young struggled as a quarterback during his first few years and considered switching to defensive back. He eventually succeeded legendary quarterback Jim McMahon (again, Young replaced a living legend) and won the Davey O'Brien Award his senior season as the best quarterback in college football. He finished second in the Heisman Trophy voting that year, earning All-American honors. He was drafted by the L.A. Express in the upstart USFL (he signed a 40 year contract for $40 million). The team owner went bankrupt in the middle of his second season - at one point, the team bus broke down on the way to the game and the team had to bribe the bus driver to call for a replacement bus. The season went so poorly that Young even played running back at one point. The USFL eventually folded, and Steve Young went to the NFL to play for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers - while there, he had a 3-16 record as a starter. He was eventually signed to play as a back-up for Joe Montana and served in that role for 3 years. The rest, as they say, is history.
Steve Young's career is a great example of something that all leaders need - resilience. Never give up. Never quit. Be confident in your abilities, and be true to yourself. Keep pushing ahead, even when things look bleak. You never know when success is just around the corner. Resilience is defined as "the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness." Resilience is a basic, fundamental requirement for leadership in today's turbulent environment. There is no universal formula for resilience, but research would show that resilience can be learned. That is good news for me - and for us.
So, in more ways than one, "Be like Young..."
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