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I appreciate that the title of this piece may be up for debate. It certainly is counter-cultural for my generation. And yet it is my truth and the reality I’ve experienced in building a fulfilling career, largely within one company at NYU Langone Health. I joined the company in 2007 as an Administrative Fellow (think extension of grad school) and since late 2019 have served as the Vice President for Strategy, Planning, & Business Development reporting to our Chief of Staff. In those years, I’ve worked in four different parts of the organization, participated in two company-sponsored leadership development programs, and added two beautiful children to our family – both born at NYU Langone Health.

In my position, I’m responsible to lead an ambitious team of about thirty high-performing, high-potentials (HiPos), the majority of which are under the age of forty-five. Since winter 2013, I’ve been responsible for this function in increasingly larger capacities. In this time, I have needed to rebuild the team about four times due to natural attrition. While that might sound alarming, experiences gained through the highly visible work within the strategy portfolio and the high-trust relationships built with key stakeholders, prepares employees for higher levels of management within the organization. The longer you stay in the team, the higher you tend to catapult out of it.

For this reason and because I truly enjoy it, I spend a significant portion of my discretionary time and energy in leadership development and coaching. I’ve put a lot of thought and time into building a “thick organization” where the core values of the team, Gratitude, Resilience, Intellectual Rigor, and Team (spelling the acronym GRIT) becomes part of a individual’s identity and engages the whole person: head, hands, and heart.  While I’m still mid-career, I am most proud of the leadership legacy that I’m creating. I have learned a lot in watching roughly one hundred former employees move through the early stages of their career in pursuit of their dreams since I began managing people.

Through the Lens of an “Oregon Trail” Millennial

On LinkedIn, I stumbled across an article about the microgeneration of people now currently in their mid-forties to mid-thirties, dubbing us “Geriatric Millennials.” I suppose this may be a spin on the equally offensive term of geriatric pregnancy in women over age 35. This was not the first time I’ve heard about a distinct cross-over generation born in the mid-1970s to mid-1980s. Categorizations of being Xennials, and perhaps my favorite “the Oregon Trail Generation,” highlight some commonalities present in this group of individuals who had an analog childhood and a digital young adulthood.

Last week, I was taken aback by a 40-something car salesman who had just sold me a 2010 Chevy Impala. Led Zeppelin played on the radio, as he turned to me and said, “I don’t know what you Millenials listen to.” With a cocked eyebrow, I shot him a side-eye that could have rivaled Kamala Harris in the Vice Presidential debate. He had the benefit of knowing my exact date of birth from the sale, and it took every bit of restraint I could muster to not remind this man (no more than 18 months my elder) that he had just picked me up at my mortgaged suburban home where my husband of 14-years and two school-aged children resided, to allow me to pick up a reliable, low-mileage, used car for our future 26-year-old au pair. If 2020 taught us anything, wasn’t it to be more tolerant and aware of our unconscious biases?

Often described as an old soul, I am a strong believer that one should never paint an entire generation with one brush, nor scorn millennials, whether geriatric or younger. In my team, I have had the good fortune of working with Baby Boomers, Gen Xers, a TON of Millennials, and now the oldest of Gen Z. Those who have been most successful share some distinctive common traits of a strong work ethic, a high standard of excellence, and the focus of this piece – they finish what they start, are interested in longitudinal relationships and find purpose in seeing the impact of their contributions.

The Value of “Stick to it – ism” and Seeing the Opportunities Right in Front of You

Reflecting back on my own career, as well as those leaders I’ve developed that have gone the farthest, there is a patience, discipline, lack of entitlement, and resilience that enables the individual to not give up in times of struggle and testing. For lack of a better term, I’ll dub this “stick to it – ism.” These talented individuals could have opted to look around and take another job when the going got tough, but they did not choose the easy way out. If anything, they tackled the hardships straight on, got through them, and only after getting successfully to the other side even thought about their next career step.

Early on in my career I was warned about the allure of potential opportunities, advised by a wise mentor to always take the long-view. She taught me to consider where a career change might take me vs. what might happen if I stayed on my current trajectory. Truth be told, I would never have reached the level of leadership within my company that I’m entrusted with today had I not continually chosen to stay. Much like running a marathon, the active choice to keep running the course set in front of you is indeed a choice.

In many ways, I never intended to have such a long tenure with one healthsystem and stable career path. I distinctly remember my husband and I early in our marriage commenting on how our parents had stayed at the same companies for the lion’s share of their careers (30-40 years of service). We didn’t get it. We assumed our career paths would be different. While we have each held a handful of roles, truth be told, Matthew stayed at his first architecture firm for 11 years and I’ve now been at NYU Langone for 14 (the entirety of our marriage). Why?

I can only speak to my experience, but I’ve stayed because I’ve continued growing and I’m at a company that has enabled my growth. The last two positions I’ve taken, I have been head down doing my work when I have been tapped on the shoulder and asked to consider an opportunity. Neither time did I have an updated resume, nor really had looked seriously for another role. I don’t believe my experience is that uncommon.

For those I lead, this happens a lot and such within company opportunities are usually the best next career step for that individual. When the valued employee comes forward to share the news, I throw my full support behind him or her as a mentor and coach, devoted to the employee’s long-term success in the new role. Most share with grateful humility the experience of being thought of concurrent with some trepidation in “leaving the nest” they have grown accustomed to. I reassure each of them that they are ready to spread their wings and fly. Over the years, the team “alumni” I’ve helped develop has also resulted in the good fortune of having strong colleagues across the enterprise who understand our core strategy.

Growing Future Leaders through Handed-down Experience

These last two months have been very special to me and prompted much reflection, as my team stood up enterprise strategic planning across all three geographies of our healthsystem in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Long Island for the first time. Intertwined throughout the dialogue were threads of projects I have worked on, knit together to form the canvas of our strategic growth; some even dating back to my previous role in payment reform, the year that old Chevy Impala rolled off the lot.

Some of the insights I’ve gleaned have come directly from my own work and reflection. More than an equal share of the knowledge and wisdom though has been handed down to me by the executives I’ve been lucky enough to learn from. Those Baby Boomers aren’t so bad afterall. Learn from them all you can before they retire!

One year in my annual performance review, my former boss, Rick Donoghue, over a slice of pizza and recounted the 185-year history of the company, dating back to University Hospital. As we paid the bill, he told me my performance review score, and smiling I left well-enough alone. The historical perspective I gained at that lunch was much more valuable than any feedback he could have given me. Rick was also the kind of boss that didn’t wait to let you know if you could have done something better!

Rick was a natural storyteller who had spent the last 40-years of his career at the enterprise. In the roughly ten years I spent reporting up through him, I was able to learn our company and market’s history inside and out through the strategic lens of Rick’s lived experience. I had been at the company for some of the historical moments, but being early in my career at the time, my role had not allowed me such deep insights. Rick filled in important gaps that only the wisdom of experience can bring (i.e., reasons behind the failed merger with Mount Sinai, the transformation of Dr. Grossman’s early years, our strategic response to the crisis of Superstorm Sandy). I’ve now added our company’s heroic response to the COVID-19 surge to that list.

Finding Purpose in Seeing the Impact of Your Contributions.

With an encyclopedic knowledge of NYU Langone Health, I sat in both the Brooklyn & Long Island Strategic Planning Departmental Reviews last month feeling deeply fulfilled in witnessing strategy execution at its best and the culmination of work set in motion earlier in my career. As a geriatric millennial (or whatever I am), I did grow up with a set of Encyclopedia Britannica sold to us by a door-to-door salesman and understand the reference.

In Brooklyn, the quality and efficiency being achieved is impressive to say the least. It’s been awesome to be a part of it and witness such transformation by an incredibly dedicated and talented leadership team. In 2015, Lutheran Medical Center was the first Merger & Acquisition project (M&A) I had ever worked on. A safety-net hospital located in Sunset Park, Brooklyn with a strong primary-care network through a large network of school-based clinics and Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs), the partnership provided an opportunity to bring the world-class quality of an academic medical center and completely transform the care rendered to the incredibly diverse population walking through its doors.

As I walked the halls ahead of facilitating their strategic planning cycle, I chuckled to myself remembering that the local leadership at the time had painted certain hallways and staircases on a strict route, intending to make as positive impression as they could on their NYU Langone counterparts on a tour of the building (formerly a factory manufacturing bowling pins). In six short years, NYU Langone Hospital-Brooklyn has come so far and is now the stand-out top provider in the borough and was a crucial healthcare provider during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Out on Long Island, I had a similar experience. Supporting the strategic planning efforts for both the NYU Langone Hospital-Long Island and NYU Long Island School of Medicine, their local department reviews brought me back to the building and conference rooms where we had first engaged in preliminary discussions. Those strangers across the table (probably wondering how old I was) are now friends and dear colleagues.

I still remember the day that Rick asked me to have our team to pull data for all LI hospitals and looked at it with fresh eyes. Winthrop University Hospital was the obvious preferred partner, sharing a congruent culture focused on quality and having a long-standing history of medical education. The due diligence work moved swiftly and by 2017, there was happy marriage between the two organizations with eyes set on a full asset merger in 2019. The conceptualization of a separate and distinct tuition-free medical school on it’s campus by Dr. Grossman came into formation and we quickly began the necessary steps to bring this vision to life. Regarding the clinical enterprise, the opportunities were limitless. Now almost three years later, the work has marched forward with impressive achievements and I truly believe the best is yet to come.

Accelerate Your Career by Staying Put

About two years ago, Rick retired in a way that allowed me the high-performing headroom to grow into his role within Strategy. He taught me well and then exited the scene. My new boss, Joe Lhota, is supportive and hands-off, allowing me enough rope to run with it, but not too much as to not hang myself (his words and vote of confidence). My role and my team have expanded our scope considerably, supporting three geographies in strategic planning projects to drive accountability, excellence, and higher ambition and are now working on the next set of potential integrations. Rick wasn’t always the easiest person to work for. There were many a time I wondered if I ought to move on. For me, the grit, knowledge-base, and longitudinal relationships I developed in staying, as well as the opportunities that continued to present themselves kept me engaged and growing in place.

In hindsight, had I left to pursue another opportunity – I doubt I could have had the influence I have in my current role. The value of staying put has allowed me to build not only some degree of hierarchical power (the weakest of the powers), but expert power in having been down this road in the recent past, informational power inherent in knowing why things are the way they are, and connection power in know how to get things done with my colleagues in a high-trust environment.

I am far from perfect and know all careers benefit from a bit of luck. As someone who is often asked about my professional journey, the best words of wisdom I can share is to be content and growing. Don’t be distracted by shiny opportunities that might in a year or two’s time have you back where you started (at best). If you find a company, a team, and/or a leader you believe in and who inspires you – there is nothing better to accelerate your career. Whatever generation you hail from, I believe the ingredients to one’s success are universal. Work hard, finish what you start, invest yourself in getting along with and getting to know people. The end result, for me, has been finding purpose in seeing the impact of your collective contributions.

“Opportunity is missed by most people, because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”

– Thomas Edison