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Anatomy and Physiology of Leadership: Ears
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The Silverbacks, Nick Brunancini, Terry Garrison, Pat Dale, and John Vance discuss the anatomy and physiology of leadership, focusing on how effective fire service leaders balance priorities and build trust through active listening.
• Addressing the viral social media post about uniforms that received over 200,000 views
• Exploring Bruno's hierarchy of leadership engagement where service delivery takes priority over trivial matters
• Discussing the Blue Card Hazard Zone Conference in Ohio featuring Silverback leadership class
• Examining active listening as a critical leadership skill that builds organizational trust
• Sharing real-world examples of how listening and taking action resolved issues like unsafe apparatus
• Contrasting leaders who focus on service delivery versus those who micromanage uniform policies
• Exploring how accessibility and where leaders physically spend their time impacts trust
• Emphasizing the importance of simplicity in procedures and communication
• Highlighting that the primary focus of fire service leadership should always be the work and service delivery
Check out Timeless Tactical Truths at the B Shifter store for $10—makes a great Christmas stocking stuffer!
This episode was recorded in Phoenix, AZ on September 9, 2025
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and welcome to the B Shifter podcast. Got John Vance here, nick Brunicini, terry Garrison and Pat Dale hanging out with you today want to tell you today we're going to talk a little bit about the anatomy and physiology of leadership and how that really equates on the different body parts. So we'll get to that in a second. I do want to talk just a little bit. We'll see if we cut this or not, but we made a Facebook post last week and it was just a clip from the last podcast.
Speaker 2:We did, and you, I think in a parable type of way, terry, talk about uniforms and the thing has got like over 200,000 views so far. We've never done anything. You know we talk about life safety. We talk about, you know, very important command and leadership issues and then you know the triviality of this is we're talking about uniforms and that's what got everybody kind of up in arms, partially, I guess, but it goes to show. I mean I don't have anything else to say, but watch the entire episode if you really want to know what we're talking about Like it was something as simple as their uniform.
Speaker 1:Well, they can't wear that uniform and they can't do this, but it got around uniforms. Like you know, you trust this fire captain to make a decision when the smoke's pouring out, whether to duck down and to go in and attack a fire With these people's lives. You trust them for that, but you can't trust them to make a decision in what uniform, what color socks to wear.
Speaker 3:It's bullshit right when they go with baseball hats and fire station. Yeah, all that.
Speaker 1:It's silliness, it's micromanagement yeah.
Speaker 2:The fact that it's such low-lying fruit and so many people get upset about it is kind of funny to us, isn't it?
Speaker 1:Well, it's interesting that you know everybody has an opinion about that right. So when it gets to command procedures, a lot of that is like math. It should line up in a specific way Like a math problem there's a right and a whole lot of wrongs, but there's only one right way to do it. But when it comes to leadership, you start it's more like social studies and there's not a lot of science to leadership, there's a lot of social to leadership and everybody has an opinion about that and it certainly played out in that little I don't even know how many seconds that was and we don't- 23 seconds and we don't put these together to get likes or dislikes or nothing.
Speaker 1:No, we don't care about that at all, but it's good that we can create some sort of dialogue regarding a fire department subject that people care about.
Speaker 2:And I think the point was is leaders that focus so much on these trivial little things. And we see examples. I was at FRI last month and heard several examples of leaders who nitpick and really start micromanaging things. Instead of looking at the big picture and keeping strategic and planning ahead for their department, they get involved in how wide the stripe is on their apparatus or you know, redesigning patches and badges and all of that window dressing stuff.
Speaker 1:No, and we never said that uniforms aren't important.
Speaker 2:No, we didn't.
Speaker 1:It's just like if you had and we talk about that, pat and I are going to talk about that in Ohio but if you look at the hierarchy Bruno's hierarchy of leadership, engagement it's actually a scale and what's most critical and what a leader should focus on, and then at the bottom what a leader shouldn't spend a, and then at the bottom what a leader shouldn't spend a lot of time focusing on, and that's uniforms. I mean everybody should be in the same uniform, we should all look alike, we play for the same team. But it didn't require a lot of leadership and creativity, a little bit of management on the front end, and then, hopefully, a leader will leave that area, spend a little time there and then move up the hierarchy and start focusing on the delivery of service and how we deliver that service.
Speaker 2:Well said, and that's really what the key to that all was. I thought we should acknowledge it because it's so funny. Might have brought us some new listeners, at least for a few seconds, and then they probably left.
Speaker 1:Might have brought us some new listeners at least for a few seconds, and then they probably left. Come back, even if you listen and hate us, you're still listening and maybe you'll learn from it, and maybe we'll learn from you, hey let's talk about Ohio.
Speaker 2:What are you guys going to be doing in Ohio next month? We are there at the Blue Card Hazard Zone Conference. October 2nd and 3rd, Sharonville, Ohio, You're doing a Silverback leadership class. What are we going to be talking about?
Speaker 4:Yeah, we're going to be talking about Bruno's hierarchy of leadership engagement and it's going to include a few areas like building trust and we'll talk through what that means and lead that out with some questions like why is trust important and engage in conversation around that. And another question around trust what are the characteristics of trust, conversation and some back and forth about that. And can you build or rebuild trust as a leader in an organization? We'll talk about the scale of difficulty that Terry just mentioned and kind of go over that a little deeper.
Speaker 1:No, it would be nice, honestly, to have a room of people wanting to talk about leadership and then some of them saying you know, I didn't exactly agree with you on that whole uniform deal. Let me listen to what you got to say about it. And then, you know, in group settings there's not a lot of back and forth, but hopefully we'll get some interaction with the audience. So we're hoping people show up and you know you don't have to agree with everything we say. I think that's part of leadership, right is looking at people that disagree with you and trying to be respectful and say, okay, I see where you're coming from. I think you're an idiot, but no, I'm just kidding, but I see where you're coming from and let's talk about that as we move forward.
Speaker 1:But we're excited about it. And if I was sitting out there and I was like, oh, these guys are going to talk about trust and leadership, you might think, no, we're going to have fun with it. You might think, no, we're going to have fun with it. We're going to share a lot of the Brunicini's leadership style and how he got to where he was in the world of fire service, and his was really built on trust, and the trust was that I trust you, as firefighters, to go out there and serve the customers, and that's really what he did. He said I trust you to serve the go out there and serve the customers, and that's really what he did. He said I trust you to serve the customers the best you can, and here's all the skills and the tools and the training necessary. Now go out and do it, and I trust you to do a good job and understand that that's the most important thing we do. So we'll talk a lot about that.
Speaker 2:One of the things we're referencing, so we want to see everybody in Sharonville. We're looking forward to that. Yes, the links are all here, so hit the link. We are, as of today, 19 days away from the pre-conferences kicking off.
Speaker 3:I get to get a ticket.
Speaker 2:Yeah, get your ticket, man you better show up. You've been advertised.
Speaker 4:You're on the bill.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, get your ticket and see you in Cincinnati, charingville, ohio, for the Blue Card Hazard Zone Conference Talking about the anatomy and physiology of leadership. That's a book that was put out a few years back. Alan and Nick wrote it and it really breaks down. For those of you who haven't maybe read it, it's available. We put it out out in the buck slip this week, so it's $15. Great book. I loved it because there's some great examples. Alan just kind of talks about the body parts and then Nick throws in some real-world examples of how it relates, but he talks about starting at the head, listening. So why is listening and active listening an important part of leadership?
Speaker 4:I'll jump on that one because I just wrote an article about it, this A&P from the chief and Nick. As I came down to ears, it made me think about the importance of listening and so I wrote an article recently about it. But the active listening and critical listening, a couple aspects that the chief talks about in his book and Nick, and one example of critical listening I use in this article. The one example I dropped from is in the relationship with labor and management, and a brief story is when I came into a couple of departments from the outside as the fire chief, one of the things I did was, of course, ask the union leadership how it's going and I said how often do you meet with labor management?
Speaker 4:The union president says, well, we're supposed to meet monthly, but really we only meet when we need to argue about something. That's what he tells me. Really, we only meet when we need to argue about something. That's what he tells me. So I said, well, how about we?
Speaker 4:We, instead of that, we'll meet weekly and we'll do it at a coffee shop away from the department, neutral ground, and my whole intent was just to listen. So the the deputy chief and those of us that were sitting on the management side before the meeting, I said let's go in here and it's in here and they're going to have a lot of grievances they want to air out and they're angry right now, frankly, and are let's just listen, this critically listen and not interrupt. And some of the things might sound hurtful and you'll want to be defensive, but our goal is to listen and the whole goal was really just to start building trust with the labor group. So critical listening meant well, for one thing, listening more than talking, I say at the start of this article, sometimes the best way to lead is to shut up and listen, and that's what I attempted to do with the labor management. We continued to meet weekly for five years and that was a big part, and building trust was listening and practicing that.
Speaker 1:So what was the biggest thing you heard early on, when you first got there, and then, because you started to build trust because you were listening, did that change throughout? Did you see themes change? Trust because you were listening Did that change throughout? Did you see themes change? So how was it on the front end? Because I went in at one organization and said I'm here to listen. They're like, hey, yeah right. You know, you get that.
Speaker 1:And it takes a while to start the dialogue and go back and forth, so sometimes you got to say some things to get somebody to open up a little bit. But what were you hearing early on in your conversation?
Speaker 4:Yeah, it was clearly this us versus them. I mean it was palpable coming in really quickly. It was the floor versus the regime was the word.
Speaker 4:Oh, wow I mean, that's a powerful word that they're using right, just right out of the bat, and it was really rooted in distrust. You look in the organization and you know where to look. I knew where to look and how to come up to speed quickly and there was just distrust everywhere and that was over years of just not feeling. You know, they didn't feel valued, they didn't feel important to what was going on in the department, they didn't feel heard and that's powerful. And the opposite of building trust in an organization is that distrust, once it gets going, is like a cancer. It's just everywhere I looked. That was a theme, not distrust and us versus them. You know, it makes me think of one thing I heard and you're listening for themes, terry, you're exactly right was they talked about this tender? Okay, it's a tank or some places call it the big water carrying truck, this tender, and I heard it in several of these small groups they bring it up about this tender. That was old and they felt like the brakes weren't safe. The brakes didn't work, the emergency lights intermittently worked, the radio didn't work and I just listened to that.
Speaker 4:And finally, after one meeting, I went to the BC and I said is that true about the tender and he says, yeah, it's been that way. I said, of course, has everybody written it up and followed the process? Yeah, we stopped writing it up because nobody did anything. So I had the tender immediately taken out of service, get it to the mechanic shop and go through it. Of course I went and looked at the thing myself and frankly, it was a jalopy.
Speaker 4:I couldn't believe it was still in service and just that act of listening and then the action that goes with the listening is just as important as listening. Of course that wasn't about the tender, it was really about listening to people. And that's when I had a chance with the chief officers that had been there not listening, and they felt like, well, it'll affect our I heard this honestly it'll affect our ISO rating because it's the only one we have, and so we had to have a long talk about that. We can never, never is that rating and what it does financially more important than our members' safety. So it just became white noise to the admin staff is what I found. Listening became white noise. They heard it so often. The membership stopped writing it up because they didn't get any action and the admin you know the chief officer's leadership. Just it became white noise. So that was a theme when you talk about themes that you listen for.
Speaker 2:How do you balance approachability to be a good listener and decisiveness and and tempering yourself as a leader to? You know, people don't always need action or one action, they just want to be heard. So how, how do you, how do you navigate all that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't think it's. You know it's funny, cause that's that you just talked about marriage, right, the genders kind of talk differently and and women talk to share feelings, and men at least what I've been told by my wife and men want to solve problems. I didn't ask you to solve my problem, I'm just sharing with you how I feel about this. And now you're trying to get engaged. That's what my wife says to me. I said sorry, I thought you were asking me to get involved. No, I'm asking you to listen, right. So I think that's what happens is you've got to look, and that's why a leader has to have their values aligned right. So Nick would always talk about Bruno's values, and then I took it out in the same thing Be safe, be nice, be accountable, those are the values, organizational values. So if I heard something in a conversation that impacted firefighter safety or customer service, I go okay, time out, let's see what this issue is and we need to resolve this before we go forward. You just told me this Now I can't. The brakes aren't working, the lights aren't working, it's time out. As a leader, I can't. The brakes aren't working, the lights aren't working. Time out, we're going to. As a leader. I need to do something about that. I can't have another 30 conversations about brakes not working. I'm going to engage right now.
Speaker 1:So you got to know when to kind of step forward and say and you kind of learn that a little bit, right as you learn that, okay, that person is just kind of sharing a little bit and they're not really asking for it. And I think a good thing to do when in doubt is say what would you like me to do about it? Seriously, well, chief, I want you to. Okay, well, I'm not going to do that, but I will do this. Or, yeah, you know what I can do, that I can get involved and do that for you. Because if we say servant leadership and I'm working for you, not in a socialistic sort of way but in a customer-centered, firefighter-focused kind of way, if I'm working for you, then I can say what can I do for you? And having a leader ask somebody they're sitting across from, what can I do for you on? This is a really good phrase to use.
Speaker 1:And you may be surprised what they tell you and you say, yeah, I can do that, or you know I can't do that, and here's why I can't. Yeah, I like do that, or you know I can't do that, and here's why I can't.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I like that.
Speaker 1:Any of that makes sense, yeah.
Speaker 4:You know the question. I like that and you bring up a great question that, as I listened, I wasn't going to react immediately. But you're looking for themes and across, you know, 150 people is a department that I was in that size of a department Try to listen to everybody as much as I possibly could in small groups and themes emerge pretty quickly actually and those are what you want to try to. You know, bringing in your intuition and experience and instinct, those things that are mission critical. There's some that rise to the top in themes and you're going to definitely take action, Honestly, Nick.
Speaker 1:so what is? You've been very quiet.
Speaker 4:I know, that's alarming.
Speaker 2:I'm worried.
Speaker 4:We're putting him to sleep.
Speaker 1:I love Nick's perspective. I'm not putting you on the spot, but I'm going to ask you what is active listening when you hear that? Because that's a phrase that people throw out there, right.
Speaker 4:Yes.
Speaker 1:So active listening? I always thought, well, if I'm an active listener, does that require action? Does it require I got to look and be alive and conscious, or does it require me to take? What does active listening mean to you If you had bosses that? What does active listening mean to you?
Speaker 3:You had bosses that— See, the problem with it is it's too simplistic. So listen. I've heard Gordon Graham once. He was talking about whoever the greatest current author was in leadership, and the guy wrote a book about listening. And Gordon Graham said well, like every other page, he says you got to listen. And he's okay, I get it, I got to listen. What do you do then? Well, I think active listening is you first of all.
Speaker 3:The role of the leadership of the fire department is making sure they can run the next call. That is your job as the chief is. If you want to boil it down, it's like the most important call for the fire chief is the very next one, not the current one, but the next one, cause that's what. And so that's what. All your active listening. So, to use an example like patch tanker, and so that's what, all your active listening. So to use an example like patch tanker and like everybody's pissed off because this tanker stays in service and it shouldn't. Well, the iso guy. So you've listened. You're like, okay, you don't want it in service because it's a hazard and it doesn't work. Well, if the tanker doesn't work, and so that's what you would look at is the history of the thing it does. Does it even flow water? Does it haul water? They're like, no, it doesn't do anything a tanker's supposed to do. Well then, if we really need this for the ISO rating, what I need to do is I need to go to my bosses and say we need a new tanker and the tanker's going to cost X amount, but what it's going to do is it's going to save X amount on everybody's insurance that pays into this. So that's why we have to do this. So then it becomes the fire chief's job to collect all this information, which is the way you do that is by active listening, and that's part of it. That's the people that use it.
Speaker 3:Well, the reality is what condition is a tanker in? Does it do its intended purpose? Well, no, it doesn't. And so now what it's done is the tanker has become an issue over some chief who says no, I'm in charge and you're going to use the tanker because I said so. It's got nothing to do with the ISO rating. The guy's just sticking the tanker up everybody's ass because he can. Well, now a boss comes in that hears it all and you're like the mother. Like you said, it's okay, I've understand the what's going on here is you were subjugating the workforce with the tanker. That that's the no more. So that's your issue. It ain't the tanker, it's the chief who uses the tanker to whip everybody. Because I can't so like you're the. You went viral because it's like well, no, I got some idiot who his whole only deal is the uniform. And so if they listen to the podcast, that moron, mr Uniform Police, what he's really dangerous at is showing up and managing a hazard zone, because they don't understand that, because that's beneath them.
Speaker 3:So we talked about this before the podcast started. We worked for what was really the greatest fire department in the history of fire departments during that phase. That's where we were there. So we rode this ride.
Speaker 3:As soon as that was over, you know what they started doing. They started redesigning the uniform, the Class A uniform. They look like a bunch of stagecoach drivers from the goddamn 1800s. Now it is pathetic. That is like the symbol in my mind, for what happened is the old uniform and the new one, and you're like, yeah, there, you go Over here. This is what we listened critically. We did this. It was service delivery.
Speaker 3:Everybody kind of flourished in that system because it was all designed around the next call. It wasn't designed about. I'm in charge and you're going to do what I said because I'm in charge. Now, that's not why we exist as a fire department. We exist to deliver service to people. Now you should wear a uniform that looks good. We're not saying you should dress like a bum and not shave and just not care. No, no, no, no, no. If you're wearing white socks with your uniform, who gives a shit? You're wearing socks. So I guess that's what active listening is is the ability to reconnect it into the mission of the fire department.
Speaker 3:And now see, the old man used to say this. He says the difference is procedures. Don't have feelings. Firefighters do. So you've got to manage systems and then you have to deal with the emotions of the humans that operate within those systems and understand everybody's a little bit different. So that's where the diversity of the department comes in, in the workforce. See, and that's why I go to the work is because we're here to go on calls and deliver service. If you can't do that, you don't belong here. That's what we're doing. Yeah, if you don't understand how to be a neurosurgeon, you shouldn't be one.
Speaker 3:Yeah please, yeah, you should do something different. Well, if you're a firefighter, this is what you do during the day, and that's pretty tough man, to deliver service to the community all day long. We don't qualify. You call 911, and if you can say the right words, you're going to get a response and we're going to go out and do what we can for you. So I mean, I think that's where that starts. So in Pat's deal, it's the tanker. No, the tanker's got to be able to haul this much water. No, the tanker's got to be able to haul this much water. And if it can't, well, maybe we need to go to ISO and see what happens if we get rid of this tanker, because we put in hydrants. Now, as we're suburban, we don't need that maybe.
Speaker 1:And let's be honest about our response capability.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So here's, and now take this whole communication piece. It seems really simple. Now you're the leader of a fire department. Doesn't matter if it's 185 people, like I had, or 4,000 people, like I had.
Speaker 1:The key to being the leader of that and active listening is how do you get communication from the people doing the work to the people making the decisions? Because it goes through a lot of layers and I would say that you know the communication flow chart is also the organizational flow chart. So firefighters talk to captains, captains talk to district or battalion chiefs. They would talk to your deputy chiefs, assistant chiefs.
Speaker 1:And if you don't understand that as a fire chief and create some sort of system which Bruno was great at I think that's what he excelled at better than anything you got to create a system to where you're getting information from the people doing the work up to the fire chief, because if anybody along the way is stalling that, with information going up that affects firefighter safety or customer service or information going down that affects those two areas, and you got a break in the system, you got a big problem. So now how do you create a system that manages that the way Bruno did? That is because he took the time and it was not easy and it took a lot of time, but he listened a lot, right? So you're talking about the one on one listening with the union president. When you first get there, which is absolutely important, you've got to listen all the way up from the bottom of the organ I say the bottom of it, but where the service is being done all the way to the bottom.
Speaker 3:The foundation of it. Yeah, that's what it is.
Speaker 1:So when I would find out things as a fire chief and I go really, when did that happen? Well, chief, it happened like three weeks ago. Well, who knew about it? And did you know about an assistant chief? No, no, I didn't know about it. Did your guy that you worked for? Would you find out if he knew about it? He did, he didn't pass it up. Okay, would you talk to him and tell him that? That's pretty critical. So there takes a lot of coaching about how communication gets moved up through the organization.
Speaker 3:Well, I think the other part is it's kind of the baseline where you have to start is like when the fire chief actually knows what goes into deliverance service and that becomes the driving thing for them. See, because, like I talked about it, the old fire chief left and the new fire chief like didn't give a shit about that. It's like that is not my job, that is a task level thing. Deal with some a battalion chief on it, not me, let me jump in because you said we're once again, we're a married couple.
Speaker 1:That's why, when they say he's a fire, don't hit me with anything, please.
Speaker 3:Yeah, okay, he's a firefighter, That'll get some bucks Swing swing. There better be a date.
Speaker 1:So when they say, oh, we like him, he's a firefighter, fire chief or he's a firefighter, you know, that's because a fire chief that doesn't understand the job that is being performed by firefighters.
Speaker 3:Care. I think they understand. They just don't care.
Speaker 1:It's beneath them If they lose their way and their priority isn't the work that's being done. If they turn their chairs and they're facing the city council and that's their biggest deal of the day, which they have to listen to the city council and deal with politicians and HR directors and all that. But when they talk, you got to think about OK, how is what they're saying affect what my people are doing? I say my people. That sounds weird, but the firefighters are doing how? And bring them back to that. It's like OK, thank you, mr Finance Director, but here's how that impacts my firefighters. When you do this and this, this causes this for Mrs Smith and the firefighters' fire chiefs are the ones I mean. That's the greatest compliment you could ever have is a fire chief.
Speaker 1:He's a firefighter's fire chief and that's what I hoped, that I was trying to be most of my career and I'm sure I was in all time but being a guy who understood the operations work and then, like Nick always says, focusing on the operations work and then adjusting everything in the organization to where you support those guys. That's so true, right you?
Speaker 4:know that's so true and it makes me think I used to say when I was a fire chief, I'm an ops chief in drag Shit. I was still really interested. You got the legs for it, yeah, thanks. Now I didn't. I was deliberate. I was an ops chief for like 17 years in a previous department so I I was careful not to get into the the shit of the ops chief in the department but.
Speaker 4:I was very interested in what we were doing and delivering a service the op go figure. I was interested in what we were doing in delivering our service Go figure I was interested in the operations of the fire department.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and Nick said about caring. You know I put some thought into the active listening part when the chief and Nick wrote about it in this article I was mentioning, and you know I think there's a lot of consultants and executive coaches that talk about active listening and it becomes a gesture. They tell you to paraphrase what you're hearing and how to sit and how to look.
Speaker 1:Did you say paraphrase yeah, oh, thank you. Yeah, how did I do?
Speaker 4:And I mean those are gestures. Yeah, I do, and I mean those are gestures. And you know firefighters and you're sitting around a table. They sniff that fake poser shit out in a nanosecond, don't they?
Speaker 3:But yeah, but a good fire chief does too. They have even more of a skill to do that. So, and what they're saying? You watch them. It's like you'll be conversing with a diverse group of people, so you'll have like union officials. You have older officers, older command people, younger firefighters and there's something going on in all those meetings and somebody's always trying to juice the system and get what they want out of it. So it becomes incumbent, like if you're an operational person.
Speaker 3:I think the reason you guys could go to different systems from the departments that you grew up in are because you understand the basic mission of the fire department, and so that becomes the common language of everybody, especially when the chief—no, no, no, this is what we're going to speak. We're going to speak service delivery and deployment capability and our ability to manage and, yada, yada, keep you guys safe and all of that. So now you can kind of I don't know if lead the discussion, but you can manage them in a way where you can kind of sift out the political stuff people are trying to do and then see and it makes it easier to do, like if all of our politics and I'm not talking about elected officials, I'm talking about the way we view and what we want to get as employees of the organization. Well, see, the thing that we were good at when we had the leadership was everybody could say, okay, we want this, this and this. And then, when you context that around service delivery, that created a system where, like 25 years later, when they looked at it, like the authority having jurisdiction said we're not responsible for this, we didn't give you all this as you stole it. And you're like no, this was all negotiated in the thing. Well, how did it get where you guys are? So, and like they said about the fire chief, they said, just, he'll be gone in a couple of years, just leave. You can't outperform him, so just give him what he wants. He doesn't ask, he's not filling up his gas tank, he's driving the fire department for service delivery. So it puts you in a position where you can defend yourself.
Speaker 3:So and I think that's what he was good at was figuring out here's what we do to deliver service and improving that. And see, the leadership part was getting everybody to go along with it. Well, the union wanted it because they saw no, they do this. This is like being Marilyn Monroe's pimp. Now I don't have much that I have to do because it's all in place. As we all worked very hard and did a lot of personal stuff and sacrifice to get the system here, and now we can manage it in a way where and they used to say this everybody goes home in a limousine the firefighters, the customer, the city, all of us.
Speaker 1:So you know, we were blessed, were blessed. Yeah, I got to meet with Bruno when I was worked for him and then when I worked for other departments. Every conversation I had with Bruno, every one, it absolutely revolved around the work. Think about that. I mean great guy?
Speaker 3:The worker's safety somehow Great guy? Well, look at the NFPA standards that were passed. It all had to do with the work or the safety.
Speaker 1:It was all about the work. Even when we'd go to breakfast and we sat there for two hours, it was about the work. When we went to lunch, it was about the work. When you talked to him in a car driving somewhere, that was his primary focus and he kept it going.
Speaker 1:That's amazing so if he did that with me, he did it with council members, mayors, police chiefs that he had to interact with other agencies and you know not everybody—I wasn't that so directed. You know, I wandered sometimes too, but if you can try to keep the conversation focused on the work and how you do the work safer and better, the patient outcome increases and the customer support increases and everything grows exponentially right. That's what happened in Phoenix.
Speaker 4:It's a genuine interest in that's the active listening. It's a genuine interest and curiosity on how they're doing and what they need, and that comes through just as opposite as the BS gesturing. That. I think it kind of turned into this active listening and that's just. It's as simple as you give a shit, yeah, and you show that.
Speaker 3:Well, look at it. Kurt Vonnegut said the most glaring example of man's humanity towards man is a fire engine. So that's what we got.
Speaker 3:That's our root of our service, that we do. It's people today, in the polarized world we live in. Evidently, france's government just collapsed, who knows what that means, but all the bullshit going on and still it's like no, they're here to help us. So that's what we represent and I think it may be fire departments that save civilization. Who knows? But Benjamin Franklin saw it early on 1726, he made the first municipal fire department. That was ahead of the post office, the army, everything else. That became like one of the core, foundational elements of local government is the fire department. So if you can represent that and you can make that actual, executed system where, like, everybody is working towards the work, you'll flourish.
Speaker 3:Always, people recognize this is for our own good. I think that you see property taxes being assaulted across the United States of America. Well, people don't want to pay taxes. A variety of things. The problem is is most fire departments are funded through some kind of property tax. Well, most people don't understand that. Well, when you tell them, no, this is what it's going to do for you, get rid of it and you're on your own period. When you call 911, it doesn't work anymore. It's not 911. Well, that's going to have an effect for you. So that's, I think, when we stand behind what we do as the work, you're not going to lose. We redid the political system in this city based on that 40 years ago, whatever the hell it was. We're getting older, so it seems like it was 15 minutes. It was actually like four decades, but it the hell it was. We're getting older, so you know, it seems like it was 15 minutes.
Speaker 3:It was actually yeah like four decades, but it is what it is and that hasn't changed. I think people still feel that way. So Brunicini.
Speaker 1:Along with talking about the work individually, that's what he did organizationally. So, when we would come together in our meetings, and we got to do that at the command training center early on. That's why it was so successful is because he made that. That's a work that you're only going to talk about the incident.
Speaker 3:Well, as everybody had a voice then in strategic and tactical operations. That nobody did before and it was just well, we don't know what the chief's doing. Well, when you got them all in a room together and see and that was the thing that was driving it and that's what was challenging other groups that were seeking power is that we had between 80 and 85% attendance for what was a voluntary training program. It wasn't like EMS or hazmat where you had to attend and people were looking at that. Well, that's about the time some people from the labor side started coming About a year and a half. They're like why is everybody coming to this and all the things they're talking about there? We don't know what it is, and they didn't check with us and they would come in and say, well, you ain't got our permission. Like, well, I don't think we have to in this, and early on.
Speaker 1:You know, throughout the whole time we did that is, you would have somebody from another division which they got their own job and it's good for them, but they would say, hey, I need 15 minutes of your command training center to cover this HR.
Speaker 1:Nope, do that alone First of all, is it training or is it sharing information? Because that's two different things. Right, how many training groups get together and have a training session and focus on something that they're just giving you information? Do that through an email, through whatever, but training should be training, right. And so early on they wanted that. The fire chief said we would tell them they were above us in the organization as far as rank and we would say nope. We're going to tell the fire chief and they would walk out.
Speaker 4:You would have killed your voluntary attendance and they would come back.
Speaker 3:And it's like ugh and you can see they're thinking to themselves. Oh so a bunch of deputy chiefs now outrank me in assistant chief. They're like, no, but they'll kill you.
Speaker 1:Why do you?
Speaker 3:want to get in a boat with them anyway. They're insane.
Speaker 1:They just wanted 15 minutes of our training time. It's like, no, we can't spare 15 minutes.
Speaker 3:No, we don't.
Speaker 1:We don't have.
Speaker 4:Buzz kill right there, yeah.
Speaker 1:We don't dislike you, we just we're not going to give you our time, right.
Speaker 3:Well, we did the same thing with the training committee. The training committee says, no, you have to get our permission to deal with it. No, we don't. You're here to support us, we no longer need your support, we're off and running. So it was so all that is listening.
Speaker 1:Yeah, one body part that we talked about Right.
Speaker 4:The ears listening.
Speaker 2:I want to ask one more thing about listening, especially when it comes to Bruno, because he had a lot of trust within the organization. So, building trust through listening, how much does that really have to do with accessibility you know, having access to that leader, that that leader you know actually being present, like, how does that work, and how that work with him? Because for for I mean, in my outsider's view, for somebody who's a big city fire chief, he was very accessible, but you can't go with every idea that somebody brings to your door either, right? So how do you balance all of that.
Speaker 1:No, I saw him tell a lot of people no, that's. You know, there's a lot of good ideas. That's not one of them. We're not doing that. You know you would hear that every once in a while. But he has scheduled meetings where he would. He would talk to chief officers. He talked to fire captains. He even had sessions where he talked to firefighters. People would take a day off and miss a captain's meeting and come in on their next day off because they were out of town on B shifts.
Speaker 1:So they would come in when they returned on C shift and go to one of Bruno's captain's meetings, because they didn't want to miss the communication that was taking place. And that's because they knew they were going to get beat up. And you know you ever work for somebody. You think they don't like you. Well, bruno, he felt like he liked everybody. I'm sure he didn't. You probably know more about it. You got to hear some of it.
Speaker 3:Well, I'm still alive. So I mean, he was a very patient man.
Speaker 1:So, but every one of these sessions everybody was treated pretty respectful. I mean, there was a time I'll tell you and we've said this story before there was a guy in there who was kind of a knuckleheaded fire captain who promoted through the process he wasn't discriminated against but he became a fire captain and he was in a session and he was kind of known for being mouthy and not a rule follower and in one of the sessions he smarted out to Bruno like one or two times and finally Bruno said hey, you know, you and I have one thing in common. What's that? We're both at the highest rank. We're going to go in this organization.
Speaker 1:Now can you say that today?
Speaker 2:No, because they're going to see oh, why not, come on? They're going to say that today.
Speaker 1:No, because they're going to see oh, why not Come on? They're going to say that guy said that, but it was beautiful, so he knew when to call bullshit on it. But you said the key word is accessibility. So one of the body parts that we talk about is your feet, and for me, the main part of the feet is where do you, as a fire chief, where do you spend your time? Where do you walk? What do you do? Where do you show up? Now I know of fire chiefs that will not step foot in a fire station because they're afraid about, they don't want the interaction with firefighters. It's like man. They may ask me a hard question, I can't answer. If somebody asks me a hard question, I can't answer. I say I can't answer that.
Speaker 1:Say something If somebody asks me a question and the answer's no, it's like hey, no, good for you. That was really nice that you asked that and there ain't no way we're doing that or whatever it is. Or let me get back to you, or whatever. But you see, some fire chiefs spend a lot of time in their office which you should spend time in your office, and you spend a lot of time in their office which you should spend time in your office and you see a lot of fire chiefs spending time having lunches with dignitaries and council members and mayors. You should do that also. I'm not saying you don't do all that, but your primary focus should be how do I get out and interact with the people that are doing the work, and it's hard.
Speaker 1:So in Houston we had four shifts and 92 fire stations. I'm not going to make all the fire stations, that's too many fire stations but you get out to one or two a week and people are like, oh, he's visiting stations, he's the chief that's getting out and visiting stations. And then you start hearing oh, he's going to that station. Hey, tell him this. But you've got to be somewhat accessible. Some people will tell you if a fire chief's out spending time in fire stations. He's not doing his job. He needs to be in his job and working for us and fighting a council. Yeah, you can do all that too, but that doesn't take a lot of time. You need to place, take your feet and place them in the best position where you're accessible.
Speaker 3:Well, it's crazy that somebody that's been an engineer for 25 years knows what the fire chief's job should be. So a lot of it is patience and just nodding and smiling at people. I've been to a number of different fire departments over the last little while and it's my observation that they're all the same. It's the same firefighters, it's the same people.
Speaker 3:So you know, and I used to hear oh, they won't work here. You know, maybe we'll work there. No, it won't work here because you don't want it to. So that's the difference between the is you have leaders that say no, we're going to do this, and then others that are no, we can't, we're not going to do that, so it's yeah. Being a fire chief is a lot like being a parent, and not everybody should be a parent. So I think that's what you're left with in the thing.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that idea of saying no, what you're left with in the thing. Yeah, that, that idea of saying no. It was a. The dichotomy for me was I led the senior management team. I said let's create a muscle memory within ourselves that we find a way to say yes, cause I think a lot of times it's just so you get beaten down with so many ideas and work and it's and it's just so much easier to say no because it immediately causes you and at the, you know, at that chief officer level, no more work, no monkeys on your back. But what does that do to the workforce? What does it do to trust? What does it do to them thinking that you value what they're saying?
Speaker 3:it kills it there was an assistant chief in our department and, uh, his description was uh, I don't know the question, but the answer is no, and that's what he was known for his whole career.
Speaker 4:That chief is in all the departments. Like you said, it's the same person.
Speaker 3:He's the one that called Garrison and said I need 30 minutes of your next thing and you're like, I don't think so.
Speaker 1:No. What's the next question? When he said yes, he said yes, we have no banana.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no that was his deal. Double talk man. Well, the dichotomy with the thing with the leaders Every weekend that guy would leave to go to Vegas to play blackjack for the whole weekend and then drive. I mean you, just the strangest people, make up the whole son of a fire department. Yeah, I love it. Oh, it's tremendous man, the greatest place to work ever.
Speaker 4:Sometimes we have to say no and there's a reason is because we should all agree, like in an annual or strategic plan of where we're heading and it's all about the work when do we need to go over the next year and the board and the membership and labor. Let's all get together and agree on that and then when it's some idea that if I can relate it to the top five or 10 things that we're working on, then it's a yes and if it's outside of that, then hey, it's no now and maybe it'll be yes later, but right now it's no. So sometimes the best thing you can say to keep you on track so you make progress over time, is to say no and it's tiring to explain why you said no, that's no fun, but you take the time if you can.
Speaker 4:Yes, Terry, I agree Whenever possible to say.
Speaker 1:the answer is no, and here's why I found the best and the really difficult questions where I said, where I was getting ready to say no, because I didn't have to say no now. It's not like the hazard zone where you've got to make a decision right there. I had some discretionary time.
Speaker 4:Good point.
Speaker 1:I said let me get back to you. I would get labor and I'd bring them in and I'd go hey, this is what your member, our member, I should say our member asked, and I'm going to tell him no. I'm telling you, I'm going to tell him no, so that you get on board with this too, and we can kind of work.
Speaker 1:This out and have our little closed discussion in here and we'll be late, we'll eat, and sometimes that guy would the union president would say, well, here's why he's saying he's asking that, and you get the whole picture and you go, oh well, then, yeah, it's a yes. I didn't know it was that. I thought it was this and you could get labor and have, and bruno did that better than anybody, nick smiling because I don't know why, but nick had a labor president that they will get together and they were on the same page about just about everything. I tried to do that with um, uh, the union presidents that I worked with is try to get on the same and even if we disagreed, it's like here's why we're disagreeing, let's do it in here, man, if you're going to do it in this room, you know with the doors shut, and tell me why you're calling me that, and then let's you know. And it's not always that easy.
Speaker 1:Believe me, I get it Sometimes I want to MF them back, and I do, and I did, but it's like when we leave the room. Dude, you and I got to get on the same pace because, they'll— oh yeah, they're looking for those cracks, right, yeah.
Speaker 2:So one other thing on listening I wanted your takes on is when you get the firefighter that comes to you and says hey, Chief, can I talk to you off the record? Yeah, I love that yeah.
Speaker 1:What do you do? I say no yeah.
Speaker 1:That's a no, you could talk to me and I would love to hear anything you got to say. But because most of and this is experience game a little bit here Usually when somebody wants to talk to you, off the record, they're telling on, they're trying to beat somebody else to, whatever it is the discussion is about, and that's not fair, and so it's like, yeah, I would love to hear from you, but you may tell me something that I may have to act on. So nothing is really off the record. Never Come on, chief, you can, I want to, and you know what they always tell you. And when you tell them, no, you can't tell me.
Speaker 1:Off the record, I've never had anybody say okay, then I'm not going to tell you, and they walk out never, because they'll go. Okay, chief, well, here it is Okay. Well, here's what I got to do. They never go away because people want to tell you whatever it is they're going to tell you. Usually they want to get that guy or that guy, or they did something themselves that you got to act on.
Speaker 1:It's like okay well, thank you for disclosing that. Now, here's what I got to do. Are you the same way?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean yeah, are you the same way? Oh yeah, absolutely. I wondered how you guys felt Did you get that a lot as either a BC or a shift commander? I got it more as a shift commander.
Speaker 3:Especially when I moved, like the last three years, I went from the CTC to setting the board and the C-shift. Well, all three boards had like I counted it once like 583 people on them, the positions on that board, and every morning you had, at the before the start of the shift, you had to make sure that everything was staffed so, and there was a phenomenon that happened and they called it husband-in-laws, and so I had been a B-shifter my whole career and then at the last three years, they put me on C-shift like it was a science experiment. Well, within about I don't know, it may have taken a whole shift, but they started to be more like B-shift than they were C-ift when they figured out who was answering the phone. So, and because I had worked with C-Shift and spent so much time with them, I had some deeply profound relationships with several of them and I thought I own your board now. So I'm going to start building stations where I will be there two hours later, because I know there will be a personnel situation that must be taken care of.
Speaker 3:And there were two people that I worked with on C-shift and one of them had been there a really long time and knew them all. So she was like the mother hen to C-shift. So I got up one morning, first morning there, and started moving magnets around and she looked and saw what I did and then she got. She didn't even say a word. She got up and moved them back and I looked at her and she said please don't do this. And we both knew and I thought she was right. I thought okay, she gets to be in charge. She's the adult. And what do you want me to do? She says there's plenty for you to do here. We get three to four no's every day in the morning. You take care of that and we'll take care of you.
Speaker 2:And I said okay, what does that mean? Getting a no?
Speaker 3:Like somebody calls in and they said you're going here today and they no, I'm not. Oh, okay, hang on.
Speaker 1:And I picked the phone up Because we need you to be a captain on engine 12. No, I'm not going there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so, for whatever reason, they're not going. So they'd say they wouldn't even argue, they'd just put them on hold. And every day there was two or three people in the morning, from five to seven. Whenever we did that, and I would listen and see active listening, and I'm because I know what the answer is going to be when I pick it up 90 of times you're going there, that's what you're going to do. Well, maybe 80, because, like 20, they would tell you why they couldn't go there and you're like move them, yeah, no, move them, no. I, you know what you told me move them, okay.
Speaker 3:Well, then they figured out well, no, it was, I wanted to get even too. And so it was like no, we're all gonna follow the same rules then, and that's what we're gonna do, so that's so. That's what I did basically. But they would come in sometimes and wake me up, like it'd be three or four in the morning and they'd say somebody's on the phone and I would get up and, okay, what's going on? And they were usually intoxicated somehow and they had had enough of whatever it was, and so you would hear it was like Real Housewives of of like Salt Lake City level, shit, some of it and you're like you are kidding me, and he says no, and I'm like, wow man, I don't know what to tell you. That's a tough one. I ain't got a shovel for that one pal Call.
Speaker 1:Dr Phil.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's the last person you want to talk to. It's crazy. The doctors that Oprah's given us I don't think she goes to any of them because she's healthy. Yeah, I don't get that.
Speaker 2:And are they real?
Speaker 3:doctors. You know celebrity is a toxic thing anymore in this society. But that's enough of that, vance.
Speaker 1:I had a guy tell me no, I don't work, I'm a ladder engineer. I don't work on paramedic engine companies.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, I got something for him.
Speaker 1:I wasn't kind to him. I sent him where we had an opening for the next several months, which was on a paramedic engine company. You know, that's just what you did. At the end of the day, we had the power to do what I mean. You can abuse that power or you can use it for good or evil, but setting the board and deciding where rovers, because about one-third of our organization will call in and where do you go?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's a big dynamic.
Speaker 1:You had a, so you know, most of the time I would just set them where I needed to set them. But, like you say, every once in a while it's like I can't go there because this guy's wife and I and this happened.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean there's reasons.
Speaker 1:It's like, okay, thank you for that, because you're going to have a much bigger problem by about 8, 15 than you ever thought you were going to have.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there's see, and it's crazy have. So, yeah, there's a see, and it's crazy, like the higher you go, the more your leadership affects systems, like you say, of how you deliver service and things like that. But every day there's also the personal things that come in through the side doors, where people are having human issues because they're human beings, and so it's like no, we and we have all these rules and these are in place to keep general order. And so we's like no, we and we have all these rules and these are in place to keep general order, and so we all have common expectations of one another.
Speaker 3:But every now and then somebody gets upside down and, like the example we used, all the time is like, uh, attendance and being on time. Well, okay, you got a guy who's late. What are you going to do? Well, okay, here's my thing, and you know you don't think enough of the crew and the customers to be here on time, and blah, blah, blah, blah, and you think, ok, so you're going to take this action, I'm going to suspend him and do this, that and the other thing. And then they tell him well, the guy be an hour late because of whatever was going on. And it's like, well, and then they feel horrible.
Speaker 3:No, I know that I won't do that and then you're like well for them. You're going to take this to help fix that situation. If it's Jimmy, the 24 year old, recently divorced, I'm going to go out and drink until four in the morning and then come in at seven. That's a whole different. This you're going to support and help him get through a bad time. You're going to do the same thing with Jimmy, but he's he's going to learn personal responsibility. This person already knows he just has too many things he's responsible for now.
Speaker 3:Jimmy is not responsible for Jimmy. So that's the problem. So sometimes we have to raise people who just didn't get that. See, and that's why the hiring process becomes so important. See, like a year after I got hired, they started fingerprinting candidates when they put their test in, and so the reason they did that is because reading comprehension was on the test. Well, the guys who couldn't read usually could do very well physically. So there was a guy that we both know and he went and got a little Throckmorton to take his test. So he got the highest written score he gets in the academy and he can't pass EMT because he can't read.
Speaker 1:he's illiterate right, he can't spell EMT he can't.
Speaker 3:Yeah, he did the vowel. Now he could lift the building, the library, but he can't read a book in it and I would never say to him what I just said.
Speaker 1:Well, you're going to have to die to do that because he died early.
Speaker 3:They all do.
Speaker 1:But he would have crushed you. Yeah, he would have. Just he could squeeze your heart out.
Speaker 3:It's okay to be afraid.
Speaker 3:Yeah, he could squeeze hard, smart, but anyway. So they started fingerprinting people and they said once you're hired, we don't have the ability to teach you to read in the academy. We did it with him and it was very disruptive organizationally, yeah, and so they said we're not going to do it anymore. So if you take the test and you flunk three tests in the academy and they run your fingerprint, you're fired because you lie, you can't. So those kind of systems, there's no proxy. Yeah, they had to put in place for that reason. So I mean that kind of systems there's no proxy. They had to put in place for that reason. So I mean, that kind of becomes the thing. What was your question? Yeah, I don't know. We're all over the page now. I forgot.
Speaker 2:I don't think we're going to get 200 hits off. The record is where we got do you guys have anything else on listening?
Speaker 1:before we wrap that up, I think we talked about listening. I listened about listening.
Speaker 2:Yeah I listened about listening. Yeah, yeah, all right there's more to it in the.
Speaker 1:So just so you know there's more to it in the book oh yeah, and in the text there there's, he breaks it down even so, the way the uh amp was built, just so you know, it's kind of interesting. So when bruno was putting that together, um, he would meet with all of us, uh, he would meet with whoever wanted to show up, uh, and he would say ears, let's talk about ears what do you guys think is important with ears?
Speaker 1:and it's awesome he would write on the boards all the things that everybody 60 people in the class would say and he would do that for each body part and then he'd come back and we'd talk about it and he went and that lasted a year plus and he built that book out of input from firefighters, engineers, captains, battalion chiefs. And then he put it together and mashed it all up.
Speaker 3:He was growing with that like six months into it. And then he says, hey, I'm writing this book on leadership and it has to do with your body parts and using your body parts. And he says I need you to write a story about each of these. And he gave me a list of body parts and I said I don't know anything about your leadership ideas. He says no, I can't be, it's nothing. He says whatever pops into your head for these body parts.
Speaker 4:I just want a fire department story on that.
Speaker 3:Okay, you guys are crazy. And I wrote I don't know, let's say there's 12 of them. I wrote like 18 stories and he's like, no, I can't, but no no. I'd love it. Will you change this nine? Change it anything he left that body part. Yeah, you ain't got that yeah uh-huh, yeah, you did, it's just no, I can't okay there's some great stories in there, so anyway, I love that book.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's a great book, you know but the problem I think with it is it's not stupid or complicated enough. It's just too simplistic of it. Like don't touch dirty money. He says well, that's your hand and your foot. Don't go places where your hand can touch dirty money. He says that's. And he would tell you know this is. I said you should have got somebody else to write the stories that have more experience with what happens when you touch dirty money. Yeah, yeah, that would be like a union official that's in jail, and we knew a couple of them at the time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, before we go, speaking of another book, Timeless. Tactical Truths. It is in stock at the B Shifter store $10.
Speaker 3:It's selling too. Katie's pushing, I don't know, $40 or $50 out a week, I think.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's great.
Speaker 3:Well, get it right now. Well, they're great Christmas gifts. Yes, put it in the stocking.
Speaker 4:Stocking stuffers.
Speaker 2:Yeah, timeless to Actual Truth from Alan Brunicini. This one is good. Procedures are so simple you don't need to write them down to remember them or use a dictionary to understand them. So how do you? How do you guys in the past, especially when you're, when you're coming up with new procedures and it starts to get overcomplicated, how do you funnel that back down to something that is more simple and something that the troops are going to understand?
Speaker 1:to something that is more simple and something that the troops are going to understand and remember.
Speaker 1:Yeah, first of all, try to keep it simple on the front end. You know, whatever you're putting together, just remember that there's a lot of different personalities that have to absorb that. And I'm not saying dummy down things, because that would be terrible, but keeping something simple is different than dummying something down. But keep things simple. And if it focuses I'm going to say it again you think we're a broken record but if it focuses on the work and the customer, that keeps it pretty simple. It doesn't get much more complicated than that, right?
Speaker 1:So it is funny that when you have a thought or an idea, as it moves through the system, everybody wants to put their name on it or change it or add to it, just so they can have a part of it. And that's nice to give them that opportunity. But at the end of the day, you've got to grab all that and you've got to pull it back into something. That's nice to give them that opportunity, but at the end of the day, you've got to grab all that and you've got to pull it back into something that's simple. You're better at this than anybody. I know John is a talking point. Can you explain it? Did you call it the elevator?
Speaker 2:Yes, the elevator pitch, the elevator pitch.
Speaker 1:I think that's the key to when you have something, because organizational change is difficult. It's not about process, it's about people, and when you're ever implementing something, a procedure or something, keep it simple. You can explain it. Everybody should be able to explain it, right? So what is the elevator? Say that again Elevator pitch Elevator speech.
Speaker 2:You know, if you have 30 seconds with somebody, how are you going to explain this? That's it, yeah.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's good, john, I like that.
Speaker 2:All right guys. Thanks, it's been a been a good one. It's good getting together with. It's been a couple of months so it's nice to see everybody back together.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you had hair. Last time I saw you you had facial hair. You had hair and hair.
Speaker 2:I'm shorn now. As Austin Powers would say Thanks for listening to V-Shifter. We'll talk to you soon, bye-bye.