3 Tips From the White House Chief of Staff on Overcoming Adversity

As a staffer, first on Capitol Hill and now in the White House, I’ve worked a lot of interesting challenges. Terrorism. Health care. Education. Epidemics. The government has done good work on these challenges, especially under President Obama. We have also experienced setbacks. Here are three big lessons I’ve learned along the way about overcoming setbacks and persevering.

1. Be a firefighter
In Washington, there are two kinds of staff members. The first—which is more common—want to know the outcome of an assignment and what’s in it for them before they take it on. The second—which is rare—are fearless, eager to take on any challenge. The latter are like firefighters, a profession unique precisely because they run into burning buildings. When the alarm rings in the station, they don’t ask, “Hey, chief, what’s in it for me if I put this fire out? And what will the newspapers say about how I handled it?”

There was no manual on how to fix the hole in the Gulf of Mexico that was dumping millions of gallons of oil into the sea and onto our coast in 2010. And there was no guarantee that we could fix it, but that didn’t stop Carol Browner, Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen from stepping up to take it on when the President called on them. Three fine firefighters. One hole in the ocean floor fixed.

2. Ask for help when you need it
In October 2013, it was no secret that we missed the initial target on HealthCare.Gov; the broken website led the news every night and was on the cover of every paper each morning.

The President publicly owned the failure—and promised a path to success. He added a first-rate engineer, Mikey Dickerson, and a proven project manager, Jeff Zients. And the President put himself and his new team on a public timeline that recognized the American people, while forgiving, are impatient. Now, for the first time ever, more than 90% of Americans are insured.

3. Keep your cool even when everyone else is getting hot
In late 2014, cable news networks ran constant coverage of Ebola horror stories, and the World Health Organization projected one million Ebola infections by early 2015. In the face of that volume of public coverage and a terrifying threat, a group of people—outside and inside government—quietly went about stopping Ebola. Two nurses who treated a patient with the virus contracted it themselves—and then beat it. A missionary contracted it on mission in Africa, beat it and then shared his now-stronger blood with others who were at risk. Inside the government, Susan Rice, Lisa Monaco, Ron Klain and Amy Pope coordinated a rapid, multinational and multi-agency buildup of medical and science resources in Africa and here at home.

These seven people took a big problem and quietly and tirelessly addressed it. No hyperbole. No inflated view of their role. Just a quiet and tireless fight.

As the President said in the State of the Union, overcoming adversity has been a hallmark of American success “because we saw opportunity where others saw only peril.” That doesn’t mean we should invite adversity. But you need not fear it.

Denis McDonough is the 27th and current White House Chief of Staff.