After freak eye accident, a whole new insight
"Leaders would be forgiven for a lot of things. But never for a lack of vision," says Bill McDermott, the Newtown Square-based chief executive of the business-software giant SAP, after losing his eye.
"Leaders would be forgiven for a lot of things. But never for a lack of vision," says Bill McDermott, the Newtown Square-based chief executive of the business-software giant SAP, after losing his eye.
McDermott, an ex-Xerox salesman who has retooled his 75,000-employee company for the cloud-computing and iPad era, says he cut his eye in a freak accident while visiting his father down South to mark the elder McDermott's 76th birthday, on the July 4 weekend.
"It has taught me a lot about character," as he "willed" himself through pain back to his punishing, exhilarating global schedule, and about the generous, focused professionals who helped him rebuild his life, McDermott told me Friday. "I have, from seeing a whole different way of looking at the world, gained vision and insight."
I told him that readers of the first item I wrote were asking how such a thing could happen.
"People have a fascination with other people's trauma. That's understandable," McDermott told me.
"I had a great day - a very quiet, relaxed, 76th birthday with my dad. We golfed. We had dinner. And then I was in that house, an environment I wasn't used to. It was dark, and I was being my true self, charging ahead, with a water glass in my hand and that's all I remember."
SAP's billionaire cofounder Hasso Plattner told the German magazine Wirtschafts Woche that McDermott fell on the stairs, breaking the glass, which gouged his left eye. He also broke his eye socket and sliced nerves and blood vessels in his face. McDermott staggered outside, bleeding a lot. A passerby called emergency responders, and he was taken by helicopter to intensive care.
McDermott had planned to be at the Jersey Shore for the next three days for wife Julie's birthday, then fly to SAP's board meeting in Germany. Instead, he spent the next week in the ICU, with Julie, their sons, his dad, and siblings by his side.
Back in Philadelphia, Wills Eye specialists Christopher Rapuano, Kirstin Hammersmith, and Parveen Nagra fought a cornea infection. Surgeons Edmund Pribitkin, Howard Krein, Robert Penne, and Allen Ho mended the left side of McDermott's face with titanium screws and plates.
On July 21, nine days after leaving intensive care, McDermott helped run the company's quarterly investor conference call. He talked confidently about the firm's HANA in-memory computing platform, and didn't mention the injury.
His friend Kevin Plank, chief executive of Under Armour Inc., brought McDermott Muhammad Ali T-shirts with the boxer's quotes: I'm the best. I'm the champ.
Plattner, whose father was an ophthalmologist, engaged McDermott in long conversations, technical and compassionate. "He knew as much about the eye as a lot of the professionals. He could be so empathetic, which was pretty awesome."
Doctors banned the CEO from flying - a handicap when your board meets on another continent. So McDermott made more visits to U.S. corporate clients. The damaged socket was capped by plastic and tape, under sunglasses.
In early September, doctors removed the infected eye. As Wills master ocularist Kevin Kelley built a pale prosthetic replacement, the company announced McDermott's loss. He sent a memo to SAP's 75,000 worldwide employees, and posted a long note on his public Facebook account. "I feel grateful" to be alive, loved, and well-cared-for, he wrote. "I feel optimistic because that's who I am. . . . True insight doesn't come from what we see, but from what we know and feel. I have lost an eye, not my curiosity or my compassion. I am no less capable of leading SAP."
The Facebook note logged more than 250,000 visitors. Soon strangers were writing to tell McDermott their suffering and healing stories. "People won't judge you on how hard you got knocked back," he told one man. "They'll always judge you by how fast you got back up, and will yourself to live, and to do great things."
McDermott postponed his planned Oct. 15 Union League appearance at the Greater Philadelphia Leadership Award Dinner, which raised $250,000 for Roman Catholic High School in Center City last year. That event has been rescheduled for Dec. 14.
McDermott says he feels closer now to God, "the only one who can take a thing like that away and give you something else."
This week his doctors have cleared him to fly again. He's headed back to meet with SAP's board in Germany.
215-854-5194@PhillyJoeD