When my husband was hospitalized for 4 months at the end of 2019, it took 2 weeks of him in ICU and two hospital transfers for me to step up as his advocate when I realized no one else was going to do it and no one else could do it as well as I could.
Before then, I had filled my head with these thoughts:
"I'm not a doctor. They're the experts, not me!"
"They have the charts. Everything they need to know is right in front of them."
"They have his best interest in mind—they want him to get better as much as I do."
"I don't want to be difficult. They might not be as willing to be helpful."
Here's the thing. All of those can be true, but can also result in mistakes. Sometimes, life or death mistakes.
I also realized most of those beliefs said more about me than about the healthcare teams or the situation we were in.
They were my self-limiting beliefs.
I can't pinpoint the moment I had this epiphany, but I can remember that my family's lifelong involvement with football helped me get there.
Football?
Yes, football.
You see, my husband had multiple traumas after a tragic fall, so in addition to the trauma team, he also had orthopedics, respirology, internal medicine, urology, infectious diseases, physical medicine and rehabilitation, among others. Add to that the complexity of moving hospitals multiple times (as we had been medivaced to a hospital a few hours from our home) and we realized some mistakes were being made.
Even though he had some of the leading medical experts on his case, what he didn't have was a quarterback.
And I needed to be his quarterback.
So I stepped into the role and became a damn good quarterback.
While the excitement of football reflects those split second decisions that can lead to very different outcomes such as a touchdown or a sack from a 300lb linebacker, true football fans know it's just as much a mental game as a physical one. And quarterbacks not only are required to make those split second decisions, but also have a good understanding of all of the positions on the field and all the plays studied between games. And, most importantly, the quarterback knows it's on them once they're on the field.
We're talking about COMMAND this month and it instantly reminded me of this time. As Libby discussed last week, we often think of the command-and-control style of leadership when we hear the word command. Our walls go up as soon as we think someone is going to start barking orders at us and telling us what to do.
But in moments of crisis, we need someone to step up and LEAD.
You can't put out a fire by committee. And you can't score a touchdown without someone calling the play.
Let's rewind the play and think about those thoughts that took over my mind in those early weeks.
Of course the doctors knew more than me. Way more. (Although, as any family who has gone through a health crisis will tell you, you do feel like you are receiving a medical degree by firehose—just to keep going on the fire analogy I threw in above).
But I didn't need to be the expert. I needed to listen to the experts, and I needed to keep track of what the experts were telling us. I needed to learn and understand the playbook.
And, let me tell you, that playbook was heavier than Joe Biden's bible by the end of my husband's hospital stay.
Overwhelmed caseloads. Hospital bureaucracy. Silo-mentalities. Regardless of which (or a combo of all) is to blame, the reality is things get missed.
It was my job to keep it all in order. To point out when there were gaps. To point out when there were conflicts.
So I learned to speak up.
I learned to ask questions.
I learned to question when I didn't understand or had been given conflicting information.
I learned you can be direct and take charge without being an asshole.
I learned that we need to take command of ourselves first (which I'll talk about in a future article) in order to take command of situations.
I learned to quiet the self-limiting beliefs and believe in myself.
I learned that if no one was calling the plays, I had to call the plays or make sure someone was.
And while I hope you never have to become the quarterback in your own family health crisis, there are a few learnings that we can all apply to our business lives.
1. Take a few minutes and ask yourself the following:
- Who's taking responsibility to call the plays?
- If no one is calling the plays, are all of the individuals/teams working closely together to ensure clarity and transparency while pursuing a common goal?
- If no one is taking the responsibility to call the plays, should that person be you?
- What self-limiting beliefs are preventing you from taking command?
2. Check out this article about how the quarterback is so much more than the one who throws the ball.
3. And love him or hate him, Tom Brady and his storied record including 9 Super Bowl appearances and 7 Super Bowl rings over a 20 year career prove the value of a good quarterback. Read the article.
Best,
Christine
