The Garrulous Jay – No More Heroes

This week’s BBC documentary, Confessions of a Brain Surgeon, about Henry Marsh was both a moving and challenging watch. It provided viewers with a reminder of the valuable lessons we can sometimes learn from others.

Marsh enjoyed a remarkable career as a pioneering brain surgeon, operating on thousands of patients at the Atkinson Morley Wing of St. George’s Hospital in London over a period of thirty years.

He and his team pioneered ‘awake craniotomy’. This technique involves performing operations on people under local anaesthetic, allowing the surgeon to identify when he or she is at risk of removing ‘good brain’ rather than tumour by talking to the patient.

Confessions of a Brain Surgeon is not so much about Marsh’s successes, however, as the deep impact his work has had on him both personally and professionally.

For all his successes Marsh admits to being plagued by the memories of his failures. He confesses to carrying around “a cemetery in his head” of the lives he has been unable to save. These live with him particularly clearly where he admits that his arrogance and reluctance to listen to others led him to take on more than he could handle.

The risk of thinking you don’t need the help of those around you when you’re in the daily business of saving lives is considerable, as Marsh acknowledges. It is also addictive, and he admits his obsession with his work also cost him his first marriage and the opportunity to enjoy his children’s formative years.

There is an inherent tension here, as those in any walk of life seeking to be the best in their fields need to be ambitious to the point of obsession and confident to the point of arrogance. But there are dangers in them being lonely heroes.

This is as true in business and in the world of investing as anywhere else.

In banking one of the highest profile examples of this would be Fred Goodwin, the now discredited CEO of Royal Bank of Scotland. Goodwin had a fearsome reputation for intimidating the investment banks’ research analysts tasked with covering his company, and he also brooked little criticism internally.

Once the people in any business start to fear taking bad news to the boss the seeds of that company’s downfall are potentially sown.

The same is also true in fund management, where the concept of the ‘star’ manager is in my opinion more of a red flag than a reason to invest. It is telling that despite the high-profile collapse of Woodford Investment Management, Neil Woodford continues to argue that the blame lies elsewhere and not with him.

While most people would argue that Henry Marsh’s self-criticism is unduly harsh and misplaced, the lessons he teaches today about the importance of listening to those around you and not letting success go to your head are timeless.

They apply to each of us, as well as to the CEOs whose businesses we might choose to invest in and the fund managers we might select to entrust our money to.