A Good Man

What is the ultimate compliment you can pay to another human being? 

When talking about someone, what is more meaningful: that he/she is a Great Man (or woman), or that he/she is a Good Person? 

You might think, “Being a Great Man” is the correct answer 

Many times, what you think you see is not what you get. 

In 1956 there was a movie released titled, “The Great Man,” Ostensibly, it was based on the real-life radio and television personality Arthur Godfrey. As the story goes, when a national radio and television celebrity named Herb Fuller dies, a young correspondent is given the assignment of producing an elegant documentary praising the Great Man’s virtues and immortalizing his memory for the ages. 

After all, Herb Fuller was a media God to the public and he deserved a god-like send off.

But, when the correspondent talked to Fuller’s peers nobody had anything good to say about him. At best, they said he was a jerk. At worst they thought he was an (you know the word. It begins with an “A”). 

This month St. Onge’s Sean O’Neill will be hanging up his slide rule and retiring to the greener pastures of the Great American West to cogitate on inventions that the world will need in the future. 

The best thing that can be said about Sean O’Neill is this: He’s no Herb Fuller. 

With Sean O’Neill what and who you see is EXACTLY what you get. 

I first met Sean in the summer of 2019. The company I was working for had taken some revenue hits and conducted a Reduction in Force and I was one of the victims. I scouted the internet for healthcare Business Development jobs and discovered that St. Onge was looking for someone. I was familiar with St. Onge, contacted them and got an interview. 

Evidently, my first set of interviews was not impressive, but I managed another set- face to face in York, PA where the company is headquartered. Those interviews went well, and I was hired in July of 2019. 

Working with Industrial Engineers was a new experience for me. I quickly learned that they are disciplined, methodical and often linear in their thinking and their approach-1, 2, 3, etc. Logical, orderly thinking leads to reasoned and documented results. 

As a veteran of the healthcare wars, linear and logical thought was not the way we dealt with problems. 

So, it took a while for me to acclimate to my new environment. 

Fortunately for me, Sean O’Neill was there to learn from. Sean’s singular defining trait is his humanity. For sure, he is still an IE (and an excellent one at that), but the thing that stands out about Sean is the fact that everyone is important to him. He takes time to listen. He doesn’t inflict authority on people but encourages them to contribute their input. 

Sean, along with Bryan Jensen and Matt Kulp comprise the Senior Leadership group for St. Onge. I have heard it said that the senior leadership of an organization is representative of the Mission, Vision and Values of the organization. I believe it can also be the other way around. 

St. Onge is a company known for its performance excellence and its care for its employees and the community it resides in. It is regularly listed as one of America’s Best Places to Work. Why? Because its leadership cares about the employees. 

In my career, I have worked for two companies that stand head and shoulders above the rest- Baptist Hospital of Miami (now part of Baptist Health of South Florida) and St. Onge. Both organizations were characterized by customer-centric, community-centric and employee-centric leadership. At Baptist, it was Ernest C. Nott Jr. and Brian E. Keeley and at St. Onge, it is Jensen, Kulp and O’Neill. Both organizations are consistently on the Best Places list. 

Last week, St. Onge celebrated Sean O’Neill’s career and his contributions to the organization. It was heartwarming to hear the many testimonials from the St. Onge employees. It seems that I was not the only person to have  been positively impacted by him. There are over forty employees in the Healthcare Practice, and virtually every single  one had a personal story about the impact Sean has had on them. 

So, to answer the question that began this article- It is far more important to be a Good Person than to be a Great Man. 

And Sean O’Neill is a very Good Person. 

And a Great Guy as well.

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