The Value in Distraction

A post that once again is inspired by work with my coaching clients.  I was recently engaged by an entrepreneur looking to launch another successful business venture.  Unlike most of my clients he came well-prepared for our first meeting with, amongst other things, a fairly comprehensive business plan and metrics.  Further to that preparation, his efforts transcended a mere business focus and also placed his venture into the context of his life experience and goals.  I was very impressed with the comprehensiveness of his starting point and his obvious focus and determination to succeed.  While I am a business and executive coach, not a life coach, I emphasize and reinforce that NO ONE effectively compartmentalizes the various components of their life - what happens at home impacts work and what happens at work comes home.  This client came to me already seemingly understanding that reality and trying to reach the right balance - if that is what we can call it - between the various components, passions, and commitments in his life.

One thing that also struck me in a different way was a component of his plan that called upon him to make better use of idle time.  In many respects, I read this section to mean that idle time was a negative to be managed or eliminated.  If there was idle time or some form of downtime to be had the intent was to focus this time productively, divert distraction into business reading, perhaps watching a televised business report, or something similar that would continue to round out business thinking, enhancing skills, and otherwise drive success of the new venture in the near to long-term.

What it did for me, however, was raise a question about why as a society or, perhaps more to the point, as business leaders we denigrate distraction and pure idle time.  Taking a page from my previous (I'd like to say current but can't!) Ironman training, it's clear that more and more training becomes counterproductive at some point in time.  After a while, there is not only diminishing marginal returns from all that extra effort but we can actually start to do real physical harm to ourselves by not letting our bodies recover properly between training sessions.  Moreover, most of us have to ramp down workouts several weeks prior to our "A" race in order to be rested and energized for the big test.  Perhaps some truly elite athletes - or masochistic types - do it differently, but for the vast majority of us the rule of thumb is more is not necessarily better.

My suggestion and recommendation on a business intellectual side then is to take the same approach as we would in exercising our physical selves.  Do not discount distraction and idle time.  Rather see it as a way of resting and recuperating your intellectual faculties for the next big push.  I also suggest that you NOT structure this idle time.  I often recommend structured time in one's work calender for reflection and assessment of past efforts and planning for the next go.  That reflective time is different than idle time.  Perhaps the best way to think about idle time as eyes wide open REM sleep.  As to the form of this distraction I suspect the sky is the limit and we may not even recognize when we are doing it.  It could range from absentmindedly doodling on our notepads in a meeting, to zoning out in front of our TV's at supper time, to playing a game on our smartphone.  The truth is our minds need a break just as much as our bodies do in order to be as effective as we believe they should be when the real crunch time comes.

So my admonition to you is to allow yourself the opportunity to be distracted, to enjoy some true idle time, without feeling like you are wasting precious time.  Truth is you need that time to re-energize, refresh and renew for the next big effort.

Go ahead.  Build that Lego Death Star you've always wanted to. 

Or read a few more of my blog posts.  They could be pretty distracting too!


______________________________

Greg Hadubiak, MHSA, FACHE, CEC, PCC
TEC Canada Chair/Executive Coach/Senior Consultant
hadubiak@wmc.ca

Helping leaders realize their strengths and enabling organizations to achieve their potential through the application of my leadership experience and coaching skills. I act as a point of leverage for my clients. I AM their Force Multiplier.

Strategy, Strategy, Wherefore Art Thou?

Later this week the Government of Alberta will bring down it's 2015/2016 budget.  There have been more than a few trial balloons floated on both the revenue and expenditure side of the equation.  Public sector leaders have been anticipating budget cuts ranging all the way from 2% through to 10%.   When compared to recent years of increases, and further adjusting for inflationary pressures, the anticipated cuts are causing more than a bit of anxiety around what this may all mean.  This is even more true considering that up until this time public sector performance - whether measured by classroom size in schools, wait times in hospital emergency departments, or ability to maintain infrastructure - has been less than noteworthy.

The precipitous drop in the price of oil has seen similar drastic changes in the fortunes of many private sector ventures in Alberta and Saskatchewan (and Russia!) who are either directly involved in or provide services to the oil sector.  Literally thousands of employees and contractors have been let go while other vendors have been told to take substantial cuts in fees if they wish to maintain working relationships with their current partners.

Many of us have seen - and played a role in - this movie before.  In fact, if it were not for the tremendously negative impact it has on services and the many hundreds or thousands of individuals who are dislocated as a result, one might actually laugh and start making comparisons to movie sequels like Rocky (I, II, III, IV, & V).  At some point, it seems clear that there really is no longer a plot line but we feel somehow compelled to watch anyway and see how laborious the story can become.  For those of us who have lived this never ending story the humor works it way towards the dark and cynical side.  We laugh in order not to cry.  We joke if only to keep our sanity.

When I was in the public sector I was often fond of saying "Any fool can balance the budget, just don't provide any service."  My statement reflected my frustration as I perceived that outside of a set of fiscal parameters there was limited if any discussion of what underlying or foundational strategy "we" were being driven by or working towards.  At times it appeared that the only other "strategy" that we had in meeting our fiscal targets was to make sure that somehow no one became upset in the process of us taking significant resources out of the system.   I'm sure there are more than a few even more cynical and jaded pundits who would suggest that the public sector is not currently providing service regardless of level of financial resources being committed to it.  I believe that both perspectives come from the reality that while there has been a fiscal agenda in operation for several decades there has been no concurrent defining or overarching service strategy by which one could rationalize or guide fiscal decisions.  In many ways the tail has been wagging - and overpowering - the dog.

Make no mistake, there have been and are extensive strategic planning processes in effect and glossy strategic plans trotted out on a regular basis.  Unfortunately - again from my perspective - these efforts are defined by an excess of process, the use of elegantly crafted templates, and the next best-in-class graphics that belie a lack of grounding in honest assessments, true insight, and driving commitment to more than surviving the next fiscal year.  And whether we focus on the private or public sector in these down economic times our short-term focus, our willingness to shed our most valued resources - our people - seems at odds with the existence of any real long-term strategy.

Personally I would be more prepared to accept the current and pending cuts in the private and public sector if I could be convinced that there was in fact a real long-term strategy in play.  I further suspect that if there were a long-term strategy in existence, that the current downturn would at the very least entail more surgical precision in decisions being made to reduce body count in our organizations.  The boom and bust cycle that many organizations appear to go through - lamenting the lack of skilled human resources in one quarter or fiscal year followed by an unabashed eagerness to outdo one's competitors or counterparts in layoffs the next - only reinforces a cynical perspective on my part that "strategy" only exists as one more check box on a prescribed list of "management" things to do.

If service is really what our organizations - whether in the public or private sector - are all about surely we can lead better than what we have demonstrated over the past several decades.  If our most valuable asset in achieving our strategic directions are our human resources then surely we would undertake more efforts to preserve those assets.  The reality of thousands of layoffs in 2014 and more to come in 2015 suggest that we have not led well in the preceding years and have been guided by no real strategy.

The layoffs of 2014 and those pending in 2015 are akin to a ship on a storm-tossed sea.  We are just hoping to ride out another storm, lacking the foresight to have planned ahead, retained an experienced crew, and hoping that over the horizon we may find the next safe harbor.





 
______________________________

Greg Hadubiak, MHSA, FACHE, CEC, PCC
TEC Canada Chair/Executive Coach/Senior Consultant
hadubiak@wmc.ca

Helping leaders realize their strengths and enabling organizations to achieve their potential through the application of my leadership experience and coaching skills. I act as a point of leverage for my clients. I AM their Force Multiplier.

Do the Facts Speak?

In the middle of last year I was fortunate enough to renew acquaintances with some business associates in the US.  As part of developing a partnership with the firm I was invited down to one of their regional customer summits which in this case was being held in Las Vegas.  The location is somewhat irrelevant as I suspect that some of my experiences could have been similar regardless of location in North America.  One of the more interesting experiences I had was with a cab driver who seemed to come directly out of some past episode of the X-Files - The Truth is Out There! and government is hell bent on one form of deception or manipulation or another.  One of the more prominent subjects on our all too long ride from airport to hotel that day was how Ebola was mutating into an airborne virus and how, when combined with illegal immigration, it was going to bring the nation to the zombie apocalypse.

Fast forward to the March 2015 issue of National Geographic and the cover story about "The War on Science".  Pick your favorite subject and this issue touches on it - vaccines and autism, evolution versus creationism, climate change or not.  Aside from the fascinating reality we live in of such strongly held views it got me thinking about how these types of mindsets play out in our leadership forums on a day-to-day basis.  No less than in the large scientific "debates" of today, business leaders often tout their reliance on the "facts" and the "evidence" to drive their business decisions.  Just as often, however, as we Monday morning quarterbacks dissect another failed business venture it is clear that facts were mostly ignored and even actively suppressed as the cliff of doom rapidly approached.

What makes highly educated, experienced and qualified business leaders, Presidents and CEO's hold on to directions, decisions and initiatives that are clearly unsupported by facts and evidence?  They often tout their reliance on the "hard cold facts" as the cornerstones of their leadership.  One of my takeaways from the National Geographic article is that all too often rather than continuing to be open to the "facts" or new evidence, leaders become personally entrenched and invested in a position.  This positional stance is only enhanced or strengthened when it comes under attack from someone else with whom they don't identify or believe is personally antagonistic to them.  The choice to change or be open to the evidence becomes confused by the fact that they feel personally under attack and become resistant to giving into the evidence being presented by others whom they don't like or can't respect - board members, executive team members, external advisers.  Ego is an Achilles heel of many a leader.

What about being open to new perspectives and evidence brought forward by one's team?  Surely our team, with whom we go to battle every day, is respected and trusted enough to help move our position and thus help the leader and the organization avoid an embarrassing or even a catastrophic failure?  Perhaps, but as the National Geographic article points out in respect of believing in science fact or not, a stronger impetus may be at play which prevents individual team members from bringing new information to light or supporting new perspectives.  At the end of the day, members of an executive team have powerful inducements - both tangible and intangible - to remain and be seen as strong members of the "tribe".  In the short-term in particular, there is often no up-side to disagreeing with a strongly held belief of the leader and far more disagreeable downside related to being "outside of the circle of trust".  Keep your head down, maybe the worst won't happen, maybe the leader will figure it out before it's too late, and at the end of the day maybe I'll escape any negative consequences in any event.

One final insight on why it's so hard to get the evidence and facts to speak.  While we may consider ourselves to be rational beings it is far more likely that we are going to be persuaded to a course of action or a change in direction by  charismatic appeal than through a balance sheet.  Some of history's most effective leaders have never been much bothered by the facts but they sure could ignite action through their own passionate commitment to a cause (however misguided).

As for the rest of us we have to decide whether the tribe is more important than the truth or whether the truth is more important than the tribe.  In either case there may be a price to pay.  Nobody said leadership was easy.  Leadership - good leadership - is about making hard choices, staying humble and being able to admit to and learn from mistakes.  It's about being open to the facts and the evidence.  It's about being open to change.

Do the facts speak to you?
______________________________

Greg Hadubiak, MHSA, FACHE, CEC, PCC
TEC Canada Chair/Executive Coach/Senior Consultant
hadubiak@wmc.ca

Helping leaders realize their strengths and enabling organizations to achieve their potential through the application of my leadership experience and coaching skills. I act as a point of leverage for my clients. I AM their Force Multiplier.

Leadership at the Board Level

This past week I had the opportunity to be engaged with executives and board members of several different organizations.  Those conversations highlighted once again the critical role that boards of directors play in the success - or failure - of their organizations.  Some might believe the challenge of establishing and sustaining a high performing board is more acute in those circumstances where directors are unpaid as in the not-for-profit sector.  Alternatively, one might also hold to a belief that being unencumbered by financial motivations that the quality of commitment to governance duties might be at their best.  The reality that I have been exposed to is that good governance is the purview of neither the public or private sector and we have just as many examples of (spectacular) failures in one as in the other.

I last wrote about the impact and effect that the quality of leadership has on the success of an organization almost 2 years ago.  It struck me as a bit more than ironic and coincidental that this subject should be drawn to my attention in this past week.  But clearly some of the lessons to be learned remain relatively eternal.

Perhaps not surprisingly, many of us don't appreciate the role that boards of directors play in setting direction for large organizations and helping it achieve those objectives.  In most circumstances public and media focus falls on a leader - a President, a CEO or other top executive.  Collectively, we usually attribute great success or great failure at the feet of this one iconic or tragic figure.  Ultimately, however, a well functioning board is fundamental to the success of an organization through their decisions - not the least of which is their selection of the senior operational leader.  The quality of their decision making and their commitment to their governance task can have wide-ranging impact.

I have worked with a variety of boards in my 25+ year career.  I have worked with good boards and not so good boards.  I have seen them lose their way in a variety of circumstances including being burdened with an ineffective Chair, a disruptive board member, uncommitted board members, boards that get too involved in operations, and boards that simply perform a rubber stamp role for what senior leadership wants to get done.  Ineffective governance can severely compromise and inhibit the ability of an organization to succeed and fulfill its mandate.

Sometimes it's the case that boards don't even understand what their key responsibilities are.  This lack of understanding or confusion can often arise from the process by which a person is recruited to the board or the quality of the orientation they receive upon becoming a member.  Too often board members can be selected on criteria that may have nothing to do with kinds of skills that a board requires to fulfill its functions - they are part of the same personal network as existing board members, they are prominent community members, they are politically connected, they are major donors, and so on and so forth.  None of these factors necessarily make for a good board member.  Compounding a potentially poor selection process, too often inadequate attention is paid to orientation of new (and old) board members to their role as individual board members and as a comprehensive governing entity.  In that circumstance, an individual board member has to either rely on the skills they bring to the table from their life outside of the board room, the examples set by their fellow board members (for good or bad), or what they may be left to take in guidance from senior leadership of the organization.  Not the ideal recipe for success.

So what's the starting point for good governance?  The first task is clearly understanding what the roles of the board are.  First and foremost a board needs to focus on setting direction - making clear choices on an organization's vision, mission and strategic directions.  Failure to fully engage in this first are of major responsibility means that an organization can easily drift from its fundamental purposes.  And as "environmental" circumstances change so too does the organization move from objective to objective, without any clear plan and with major implications for public confidence and deteriorating staff morale.  Moreover, if there is no consensus amongst the Board as to vision, mission and strategic directions how can senior operational leadership be effectively guided or held accountable for performance? 

Second, a board is required to exercise oversight on organizational performance.  It is important here to distinguish oversight for organizational performance from managing the organization.  Neither the board as a whole nor individual board members (including the Chair) should get involved in managing their organization.  The temptation to direct operations is intense, especially for those board members who lead and manage significant entities outside of the organization for which they are a board member. The board needs to remember that they have engaged operational leaders - the CEO in particular - to manage operational matters.  Ostensibly, they have utilized a robust process for recruitment and selection, have followed up with appropriate performance reviews and feedback, and have trust in the CEO and other management personnel to achieve the Board-established strategic directions.  If the Board lacks such confidence then it has erred in selection, has erred in communicating expectations, or perhaps has not been engaged in managing performance at all.  Ultimately, if that confidence erodes the choice of the Board is to more clearly communicate its expectations or remove the CEO.  The choices available to the Board does not include becoming more engaged in operational decision-making.

That being said, a Board MUST exercise appropriate oversight.  It must be clear on its expectations and establish robust and objective mechanisms by which to evaluate CEO performance on achievement of the organization's vision and strategic directions.  Moreover, a Board would do well to evaluate not only outcomes but also evaluate - at a high level - how those outcomes were achieved.  The Board has a key role in ensuring that the values of the organization are fostered and upheld.  Every effort should be made to ensure that objective, quantifiable reports on performance are made available to the Board on a regular basis.  In this regard, the Board should avail itself of a variety of forms of feedback to evaluate performance and success in achieving objectives. 

A Board should manage its direction setting accountability, its oversight responsibility, and its own functions by establishing policy.  These policies must clearly distinguish Board function from management function.  Just as important, they must describe and detail how the Board itself shall function - role of Chair and other officers of the Board, how decisions will be made, what committee structures if any will be utilized, and so forth. 

Finally, individual board members and Boards as a whole must be as diligent and committed to their own self-evaluation as what they demand from their CEO and operational teams.  Too often, my experience is that this accountability is given short shrift, is downplayed in the spirit of maintaining a "comfortable" working environment for the board members, or quite simply dismissed lest the process of evaluation unduly offend the voluntary or professional commitment of board members.  None of these excuses carry water and if board members expect results from its CEO, operational leaders and the organization as a whole, they must lead by example and professionally and diligently evaluate individual board member performance and overall board functioning on a regular basis.  Moreover, they must be prepared to actually deal with poor performance as well up to and including board member dismissal.

As can be imagined, it is easy for Boards to become involved in non-Board activities and tasks.  Board members can easily neglect the very real work that is required to ensure proper Board functioning.   If this high-level, strategic work is not done or is done poorly, there will be little or no foundation for success for the organization as a whole. 

Boards have very real responsibilities.  The tasks they are engaged in cannot be minimized or trivialized.  We have seen too many organizational failures in recent years which can be traced back to governance failures.  Complacency about board performance is not an option.  However, effective governance does not mean becoming more engaged in operational leadership.  Nor is it to establish ever more controls and bureaucracy.  Boards need to do very real work in understanding their roles and responsibilities, establish proper structures to do their work, recruit and retain good members, and set the tone for the values and ethics that will guide the organization.

To achieve operational excellence there must be a foundation of governance excellence.  Good leadership requires good governance.
______________________________

Greg Hadubiak, MHSA, FACHE, CEC, PCC
TEC Canada Chair/Executive Coach/Senior Consultant
hadubiak@wmc.ca

Helping leaders realize their strengths and enabling organizations to achieve their potential through the application of my leadership experience and coaching skills. I act as a point of leverage for my clients. I AM their Force Multiplier.

Toxic Leadership

This past weekend I came across an article on toxic leaders written by Richard Gunderman, Chancellor's Professor of Medicine, Liberal Arts, and Philanthropy at Indiana University-Purdue University.  I'd been contemplating a similar post but the author had so many good points that I decided to simply share and comment on his thoughts.  In this case, I've emphasized Gunderman's points in bold lettering and provided my supplementary comments with my personal experiences.

Gunderman posits that just as effective bosses can do considerable good good for an organization, toxic ones can inflict a great deal of damage.  In my estimation, its also true that the extent of the damage is not fully realized or understood until the toxic leader leaves or is let go.  Oftentimes the organization is left repairing the damage for some time after.

The author suggests that the first step to coping effectively with a toxic boss is recognizing that you have one.  Here are the 10 indicators that Gunderman provides to help you diagnose that your boss is probably toxic.

One.  When the toxic boss comes on board it feels as thought all fellowship and joy are being sucked out of the organization.  Like Dementors in Harry Potter, toxic bosses drain people of their passion, leaving nothing in their wake but a widespread feeling of despair.  Employees come to resemble mice who have been subjected to random electrical shocks, lapsing into a state that psychologists called learned helplessness.  As another former employee of a toxic boss put it, "It wasn't long before the whole organization took on a soulless feel."

Two.  Within weeks of the toxic boss's arrival, the mercury in the organization's "distrustometer" begins rising precipitously.  People begin eying one another with suspicion.  Lively meetings become deadened, as though no one would dare voice a divergent opinion.  According to one employee, "People stopped saying what they really thought. If they ever spoke their mind, they did so only after glancing over both shoulders to make sure no one was listening, and then they spoke in a whisper. It was like Invasion of the Body Snatchers."

This one really resonated with me from a couple of my past experiences.  I've had a "leader" who has either taken an active approach of "divide and conquer" as it related to their subordinates or actively disengaged from their team leaving agreements or disputes to fester.  If you take a lead from Patrick Lencioni's work, the absence of trust that is created (and fostered) leads to suppression of any constructive conflict, lack of common commitments and so forth.  By design or neglect, a toxic environment is established.

Three.  Power becomes consolidated in the hands of a few people who report directly to the toxic boss.  People who question this process are moved aside or completely out of the organization.  In many cases, the toxic boss achieves these ends not by direct confrontation, but like a subtle poisoner, delivering the lethal dose in tiny amounts that build up over time.

Four.  Toxic bosses quickly seize control of the pathways along which knowledge is shared.  Organization charts and reporting hierarchies are rearranged so that everything flows through one central hub, with few if any alternatives.  Without admitting to it, toxic bosses feel threatened by more open patterns of information flow.  As the former colleague of a toxic boss put it, "He sensed that if others knew what was really going on, his position, power and prestige would be undermined."

Five.  With a toxic boss, employees may have a hard time remembering why they came to work for the organization in the first place.  The true mission of the organization is obscured.  The toxic boss shifts everyone's attention to crasser metrics, such as revenue and rankings, and the organization's mission is treated as a mere tool for boosting results.

Sad but true.  I've been in one too many large organizations where the stated values seemed very remote from the actions that the "leader" or leadership team took on a regular basis.  The substantial disconnect led to more than just a bit of disengagement on the part of employees and seemingly intractable morale issues.

Six.  Toxic bosses leave others feeling manipulated and used.  Some are simply so insensitive that they do not appreciate the toll that their modus operandi takes on their colleagues, but others seem positively to revel in it.  Said an employee, "She seemed to believe that the only way to make herself bigger was to make the people around her feel progressively smaller."

Seven.  Soon after the toxic boss arrives, people begin disappearing.  Almost invariably, such departures go unannounced, completely devoid of fanfare or explanation.  One day they are there, and the next day they are gone, and only later do people learn that former colleagues were abruptly told one day to pack up their offices and hit the pavement.  The toxic boss will never express gratitude to their service, publicly or personally.

The other way that I've seen this reality play out is not in letting people go or marginalizing those with contradictory perspectives but rather in hiring individuals who will be more malleable to the toxic leader's directives.  This sometimes simply plays out with a feeling of personal obligation that a new hire has to the person who has hired them.  Alternatively, I have seen toxic leaders ensure that new hires ARE simply weaker or less experienced and, therefore, can pose no credible contrary points of view.  Overall, a great means to ensure the toxic leader remains unchallenged but hardly a tactic to build organizational strength and success.

Eight.  The toxic boss has no interest in what others have to say.  Some savvy operators appear to listen to other perspectives, but when it comes to action, their in-boxes are black holes.  They seem to believe that being an effective leader means being the center of attention.  Before long, their behavior at meetings begins to reveal their true stripes.  Said one former employee of a toxic boss, "She kept cutting other people off, belittling their contributions, and ended up listening to nothing but her own voice."

Nine.  The toxic boss starts to act like a playground bully.  People are treated not as sources of insight but as tools of implementation.  When they diverge from this path, the toxic boss reminds them how easily they could be replaced.  In short, the tools of persuasion give way to the instruments of coercion.  And such techniques are powerfully augmented by the enhanced sense of vulnerability that accompanies the swelling ranks of the disappeared.

I have vivid memories of getting a phone call "pep talk" from a toxic leader of mine that was a couple of rungs higher up the ladder than I.  Her relative distance from me didn't dissuade her from giving me a shout and probably reflected as much her lack of confidence in my direct supervisor as in myself.  At the time, my organization was going through significant - and noisy - change.  The essence of the pep talk was summed up in her parting words to me - "There are going to be casualties in this time frame, don't be one of them."  I understood my role and standing quite clearly.  I understood that I was quite an expendable and replaceable tool.

Ten.  Do you feel like your every move is being watched by unseen eyes?  Like you are in some kind of jail?  Do you feel like your boss is taking leadership lessons from Jeremy Bentham?  His creation, The Panopticon is a building with a watchman sitting at the center, looking out on all the inmates, who are arrayed around the periphery, each in a separate cell.  The inmates cannot see the jailer, generating a sense of constant surveillance.

For me this goes back to the feelings of mistrust created by the toxic leader ala Lencioni.  In those environments where a toxic leader's impact has been particularly "impressive", it becomes the unfortunate reality that no member of the team believes they can trust any other member of the team - peers or subordinates.  The environment becomes marked by extraordinary caution and guardedness.  The environment becomes risk averse and lacking in a desire for innovation and creativity.

At the end of this article - and my supplementary comments - we have been provided with one set of variables that describe what toxic leadership looks like.  What is lacking is how to effectively tackle it.  In fact, Gunderman seems to suggest that the best one can do is to COPE effectively with toxic leader.  Is this really all that we are left with as a tactic when dealing with a toxic leader despite the very real damage being done to an organization?

So I ask you, what's been your experience in dealing with toxic leadership?  More importantly, what steps did you and others take to effectively DEAL with a toxic leader?  I'm looking forward to your answers, supplemented by my thoughts, as a means to creating a response or tactics that might be useful to us all!
____________________________________________________________________

Greg Hadubiak, MHSA, FACHE, CEC, PCC
TEC Canada Chair/Executive Coach/Senior Consultant
hadubiak@wmc.ca

Helping leaders realize their strengths and enabling organizations to achieve their potential through the application of my leadership experience and coaching skills. I act as a point of leverage for my clients. I AM their Force Multiplier.