By: Roberto Litwak
Chief Operating Officer, International
FEHER CONSULTING
I remember that day as if it was yesterday, and I doubt I will ever forget it. It was a cold Sunday morning in Maryland, where we lived at the time. Sunday December 12, 1999, to be precise. I was changing our first-born’s diaper, and as I often did, I was blowing bubbles (raspberries) in his stomach to make him laugh. That day I felt something that I had not felt in his belly before, there was something hard in his stomach, something that just did not feel right. My wife and I had been told that babies can develop hernias and our first thought was he probably had one.
We had a great relationship with Oscar’s pediatrician and my wife gave him a call to let him know that we would be stopping by during the week to see him. He said that it was probably nothing, but since he was going into the office to pick-up some things he needed, that we should swing by. It took him 3 minutes to examine Oscar and immediately asked us to take him to the hospital. We arrived at Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, D.C.
Within the hour we had seen 3-4 doctors, Oscar had gone through a series of tests and scans, and when we were finally alone in the exam room catching our breath, the ER resident peaked in and said that the oncologist was on his way to see us. Having had a history of cancer in my family, I immediately understood what that meant. Oscar was diagnosed with bilateral Wilms’ tumor, cancer of the kidneys. He was 4 months old.
What followed were 4 years of surgeries, chemotherapy treatments, trips to the hospital, emotional ups and downs, incredibly long days and nights caring for a child with cancer. Oscar passed-away on September 24, 2003, just a few weeks after his 4th birthday. Throughout these four years, as hard and painful as they were, I had no idea I was gaining incredible skills that I would use sometime later in my business life.
While I would emphatically and unequivocally make no comparisons in terms of the gravity and the stakes between taking care of a sick child and any business endeavor, in retrospect, I do find some similarities in how my thinking, attitude and behavior was/has been similar in both situations.
Soon after Oscar’s treatments started, my wife and I quickly realized that there were many teams of doctors, nurses, specialist, etc. taking care of him. All incredibly smart, capable, compassionate, and caring, but also all incredibly busy and with different roles and responsibilities. We realized, either consciously or not, that we would have to be a funnel, to centralize information and be facilitators of that information for the doctors and medical teams, Then and there we knew we that, not only would we have to take an active role in our son’s treatment, but also, we would have to lead it.
Leadership is often confused with rank, and these two concepts could not be more different one from the other. Rank is a position of authority, and while it certainly has a place and, in some situations and organizations (in the military, for example), is of vital importance, rank on its own is just that, a position within an structure. In contrast, and to quote one of my favorite authors, Simon Sinek, “Leadership is not about being in charge. Leadership is about caring for those in your charge.”
Neither my wife nor I had any medical training, knowledge, or experience to deal with the disease, so we definitively didn’t have the rank to influence, less direct the medical treatment Oscar would receive, but what we had more than anyone in the world, was the relentless drive, desire, and passion to see our son beat cancer, and without even thinking, our most important priority from that moment on became to ensure that every one of Oscar’s needs, and every need of those taking care of him was quickly and adequately met.
Years later, I realized that these same principles were equally relevant and important in my professional life as they were when we took care of Oscar.
While there are several, I believe the first experience I transferred over into my professional life, was to understand that things happen. Not everything goes according to plan and situations, environments and circumstances can change in a moment’s notice. Having the ability to quickly assess and understand a situation along with having the courage to adapt and pivot to meet the challenge in front of us, is critical. These changes will carry a certain level of risk and that risk will undoubtedly create uneasiness. Understanding that the feeling means that we are doing something proactive to address the issue and we are not letting things just happen will transform the uneasiness into reassurance.
I have been fortunate to have been given the opportunity not only to have an important rank within organizations I have worked with, but also, I was and have been entrusted to lead different teams within those organizations. As a leader, I immediately understood that to meet the desired outcomes my first and foremost responsibility, as it was with Oscar’s treatment, was to make sure that the people who are ultimately doing the hard and important work, those “in the trenches” were in the best position to be successful. While this discovery was empirical in a way, as I continued my education and experiences in business I ran into the concept of Servant Leadership, a concept that was developed back in the 1970s by Robert K. Greenleaf which validated my approach to leadership.
Another important lesson we quickly learned during Oscar’s treatment was that being a leader requires energy, and a lot of it. No matter how bad the day was, how lousy Oscar was feeling or how tired we were, if we did not keep (and often, force ourselves to keep) our levels of energy up, it would permeate and everyone around us would feel it. I remember one of the many trips to the emergency room, it was around 1:30 AM and we were received by the triage nurse, as it regularly happened. You could tell by looking at her face and body language that she was just done! We did not know anything about her, what she was feeling, what problems she may have at home, etc. but what we absolutely knew is that we needed her best that night and at that moment to provide the care Oscar needed. A quick positive conversation and maybe even a joke or two in the first few minutes of our interaction completely changed her demeanor. She perked-up and delivered the care we needed to help Oscar that night. If we had met her “level of energy” that night, while we are sure the outcome would have probably been very similar, after all, she was a professional, our level of energy made things easier and go smoother for everyone.
Being a leader in business is very similar. There is a popular saying that states that if you run, your team will walk, if you walk your team will crawl, and this is absolutely true. Having the ability to encourage and inspire your teams with positive energy, will lead to easier, if not better, results. This doesn’t mean that you’ll need to become a cheerleader within the organization, but it means that the way you conduct yourself, as a leader, sets the tone for everyone around you. It is not always easy to maintain high-levels energy, and it requires effort, but the effort will ultimately pay-off.
After Oscar’s passing, my wife and I understood that his life had to mean more than the 4 incredible years we were able to have him with us. Having lived through and understanding some of the challenges and difficulties children going through medical treatment face, we decide to create The Oscar Litwak Foundation, a charitable organization that would dedicate its energy, time, and resources to “lift the spirits of hospitalized children.” The foundation was created under the premise that while doctors and medical staff are amazing at treating the physical aspect of a child’s disease, sometimes the emotional side is neglected. The Oscar Litwak Foundation provides Mobile PlayroomsTM which are hospital-grade carts that filled with toys, games, books and arts & craft materials that are there to provide entertainment and a sense of normalcy to hospitalized children. At publication, The Oscar Litwak Foundation has donated more than 200 Mobile Playrooms TM throughout the U.S. and international locations.
