Nobility in Times of Crisis, with Louai Al Roumani
Graham Allcott 0:04
Hello, and welcome to another episode of The temporarily badly titled beyond busy podcast, the show where we talk productivity, work life balance and finding happiness and success in a world where nobody's rushing around being busy, although you might be busy at home. My name is Graham Allcott, I'm your host for the show. And on this episode, I'm talking to the amazing Louai Al Roumani. Blue, I was the head of planning for one of the biggest banks in Syria during the war there and has written a book. It's called lessons from a warzone how to be a resilient leader in times of crisis. And really, some of the stories in the book are just so fascinating and insightful. And not that we can belittle what happened in Syria by even comparing it to what's going on right now. Where our main job is to just stay in our houses and you don't have ISIS 20 minutes down the road likely I did. But I think there is some real lessons that you can transfer from one crisis to another. And there's just so much value in the book. And do I shares a lot of that in this episode, so that you're going to really get a lot from this conversation. We're usually on a two week cycle, as you probably know. And I just thought, as we recorded this last week, I just thought we just need to get this out quickly. So this is out pretty much as soon as we could, as soon as we have a little break in the schedule. And the idea is that it helps people right now with things that you're dealing with right now. Either in your business and your personal life home. Yeah, we're obviously living through times, which just makes us think about some of those much more fundamental questions in life. You know, what our purposes what we're doing one question Success Factors in all of that and just a lot of stuff that you're going to get into here during this episode so let's get straight into it. I'll talk to you at the end but let's get straight into the conversation with who I am I'm here with Lou I'll Romani and we are recording this virtually via Zen caster. Lou How you doing?
Louai Al Roumani 2:22
I'm very good, very good.
Graham Allcott 2:27
So where are you in the world right now?
Louai Al Roumani 2:29
I'm in London now. I'm in central London working from home for the past month or so.
Graham Allcott 2:37
And I'm going to talk to you about your book and what you used to do But should we start with what are you what are you doing at the moment? Sure thing so
Louai Al Roumani 2:45
yeah, so so I work for UNICEF, UK. I'm a finance business partner. So so I do a lot, a lot of the financial planning and analysis and really helping the teams with their with their financial Planning and modelling.
Graham Allcott 3:01
And with UNICEF. So are you UNICEF UK as opposed to UNICEF worldwide?
Louai Al Roumani 3:07
Ah, yeah. So the way your UNICEF is set up there's there are a country offices around the world that mostly deliver programmes on the ground. And the way it's set up in the UK is that it's referred to as a national committee. So so it's more of a charity.
Graham Allcott 3:27
And so what's interesting about your previous role is that so you were the head of finance and planning for a bank called BBSF. Yeah. Based in Syria. Yes. And so you've written this just incredible book that it's just full of these little vignettes of interesting stories, and it's called lessons from a warzone. How to be resilient how to be a resilient leader in times of crisis. So I guess the first most obvious question to ask you is how has been what's been your personal reaction to COVID-19? And have you noticed any difference in your personal reaction to it, and that the people around you based on the fact that you live through the war in Syria in a very difficult role? Yeah.
Louai Al Roumani 4:16
Well, I mean, I can start off by saying that, yes, the context, they are very different going through for worse on in Syria and going through the COVID-19 in the UK, and maybe elsewhere in the world. I mean, they're very different triggers very different contexts. But having said that, there are many resemblances. Like, just like in Syria, we felt that the crisis almost came out of nowhere and just magically affected you know, everyone and now, back then that affected everyone within Syria. Now it's more more of a much wider circle, but there's that feeling of, you know, just a, you know, a grey cloud coming out of nowhere and that no one had foreseen. Yeah. And so, so this was probably something that that I also felt happening now. And one other thing is really that, you know, a feeling of uncertainty like, just like the war back then when it first started, people had no idea when this would end how this would really unfold. And same thing with COVID. Like, you know, people don't really know how much longer this will last will it will it be a two day thing two weeks, two months, two finger two year thing. I mean, what are really the the implications? So I mean, there, I mean, there is that common feeling of just having a lot of uncertainty. And, and one, you know, interesting thing I noticed So, so so in the book, I mentioned that the perfect bearer barometer of crisis, like I mean, the early sign of crisis really is seeing queues of people. Now when Syria, which, which is a very cash based society, people killed in a bank, like, I mean, everyone was worried about their savings. So the first queues, you will find where we're at banks, whereas, you know, in the UK, which is not a cash base, society people were queuing for for other reasons. So, so I mean, that was, you know, interesting to notice that early on, people always panic and people tend to queue. Yeah. Yeah. And I also the businesses,
Graham Allcott 6:33
so, I mean, quite what it says about the UK that the biggest queues with a toilet roll in the early crisis, like, you know, that seemed like a bit of a bonkers,
Louai Al Roumani 6:42
yeah. Not really effective. But yeah,
Graham Allcott 6:46
but you do hear a lot of politicians talk about the the the war analogy, right. So this is a war, we're at war. You know, and you get the sense that some politicians They're actually quite enjoying being able to evoke a sense of war. But do you think that's crass? Or do you think there is genuine similarities?
Louai Al Roumani 7:09
Okay, very interesting. So, so, so I think I mean, the, the aim of these polar positions really is to, like, I would think that there I mean, by, by evoking that wartime, you know, sentiment, the, the, the aim is really to to make people, you know, understand, you know, the, the colossal challenges of this crisis. So, so, so I think that really depends, you know, on the way it's being raised, if it's been raised, to evoke that feeling of that, you know, this is really a cause for the challenge that will require all of us to really change the way we do things for for a for a short time. And in order to beat this, then, then this could be could be a positive way, way of looking at it, but, you know, but if it's said, and maybe the This way, maybe maybe in a way that signals like very negative and pending Doom sort of feeling, then the suit could really backfire, because because I think really the mindset is essential at the outset of a crisis. The overriding voice should be one that, you know, that record the nicest that that I mean, yes, times will be tough. That's nicer is that? Yes. I mean, it is very tempting to fixate on the negatives, but one should be one that should also always recognise that I mean, regardless of the impending doom things, I mean, we will be able to go through this and that there are positives and and opportunities to be found. Even amidst the grim contexts.
Graham Allcott 8:52
Yeah, yeah, for sure. You took a couple of times, in different parts of the book about the idea of stress testing? Yes. And I really liked there was this thing where you talked about how it's possible, particularly in financial terms in banking terms, to come up with lots of pretty graphs and models and Excel spreadsheets and kind of model various different scenarios. But actually, that doesn't prepare you for actual stress. And so the way to stress test is to put the organisation through, you know, actual stress and you talked about the idea of if you worked in a shop, and you you found a way to turn off the power to the shop for an afternoon. How would the employees react to that? Would they shut the shop down? Would they find a way to still service their customers and so on and so forth? And I just wonder what your own reflections have been recently. Obviously, you've been through this process of writing this book and and thinking a lot about Your time in Syria in a very stressful situation. Do you feel like you're personally more stress tested for, for this scenario based on that? And yeah, just really interested to hear your, your personal reflections on that.
Louai Al Roumani 10:15
Yeah. So, so So I mean, the thing about stress testing, like I had mentioned in the book, and I, and I make sure that I caveat that by saying that when one should never just, you know, I mean, stress test everything haphazardly, like you know, you, you don't need to over stress system for for no reason, just for the, for the sake of it, but I mean, maybe maybe in our particular context, where we really operated in tough times, and we had, you know, lots of our systems were in constant threat of being suppressed and you know, in the most radical way of a possible and so we realised that, you know, doing a lot of model modelling analysis which which really builds on satirical figures which, which are extrapolated to the future, but when the past doesn't really resemble the future outlook anymore than these models don't necessarily work. So so. So in the book I talk about, you know, and tenses, where we actually found that useful to, to to actually test the systems and shock them and in reality to, to really prepare them more for for things which might take place. So, so So, so. So, I mean, one of the things we talk about is hacking our own IT department. I mean, they know you know, this was, you know, this was becoming a real threat. So so it was a better for us to do like a very strong friendly hack tested, you know, I mean ourselves. I mean, this really enabled us to identify anomalies. And I identify weaknesses that may be, I mean, regular, you know, textbook style tests don't don't really might not really identify your head for you. I mean, the the the overriding, you know, idea of muster was to somehow rewire our thinking from textbook rules to, to, to thinking to do always to do the right thing, always and not to do things right. So, so maybe doing things right would be abiding by certain textbook rules. But, but really, we're now in a context where, where you no longer have this alignment between between operational realities between policies and procedures, and the challenges that you were facing. We we started to evolve our monster to always get driven by doing the right thing. No matter what, even if it meant doing things like hacking over on systems, you know, in order to really identify the vulnerabilities,
Graham Allcott 13:11
yeah, I want to talk about doing the right thing, versus doing things right in a minute. But just on that the hacking the IT system, I was curious to know how the senior manager of a bank in Syria finds a friendly hacker, like how do you find somebody to do that? And how do you build trust with them so that you know that the hack that they're going to do is going to be friendly, like they're not sort of double crossing or something?
Louai Al Roumani 13:38
I mean, like, I wouldn't think that it's a hard thing, you know, anywhere they're like, you know, what people you know, organise positions when you deal with certain organisations, and you know them and you work with them for like a long time. And there's this feeling of trust. Yeah. Come to work on Monday anyway, this friendly hug service would be a service done, you know, even by core permissions in the UK and worldwide, so it's not something Yeah. Okay. Carry on thought of. Yeah.
Graham Allcott 14:15
And the other thing that struck me about that you said something really is like a throwaway line in that whole section around the hacking thing, and it has to do with I come up with the exact wording you use. But the basic premise of it was that when you ask the IT department to stress test their own systems, there's like an inherent bias towards reassurance. And that, like everybody has a stake around that table to feel reassured because it's just easier. Yeah. And I felt like I really learned something from that. It was just like this little throwaway line in between the main points you're making was that Oh, that's so interesting that, you know, we're all biassed in that way. Right? You
Louai Al Roumani 14:59
Yeah, yeah. So, so actually like, like I still sometimes find myself propelled to act this way so, so So, I mean, there's, you know, I mean people tend to be you know, inherently you know, reassuring So, when men are in crisis one when managers will you know, come bombarding people with doing lots of the questions seeking reassurances because they I mean they are pressured them selves from people even like you know more more senior to them people will feel that like the easiest way is to just you know, we reassure you know and say that no I mean things are things are working, don't worry. No, no, it's fine. I mean, have you really tested this? Yes. Don't worry things are fine. Yes, I have seen this authority. So So yeah, and I did see this happen like you know, a lot and when I say that, I also felt myself doing good A lot, and even now, so but now maybe I'm much more mindful to it, because because because I've seen it happening a lot more, you know, in the past I've seen and how, maybe in crisis, the, the implications could be more more significant than maybe a normal other times have sort of trained myself to be much more, you know, I mean, aware of it when it does happen.
Graham Allcott 16:28
And I was really struck by a couple of stories about doing the right thing, versus doing things right. Particularly that pertained to different stories about bank notes, the sort of idea of people having fraudulent bank notes, and then the idea of when there's a run on the bank, everyone wants their money out, and, you know, it becomes this sort of cat and mouse game of when they can get their their funds or not. So just tell us about that idea of doing the right thing. Yes.
Louai Al Roumani 16:56
All right. So So I mean, we had the lucky back to what I was saying earlier that you know earlier I mean the one of the early signs of any crisis usually would would be a queue and Syria people and the first two weeks actually started queue Queuing outside banks wanting to withdraw their money usually about businesses like usual the people lining outside their doors before working hours, not so far. banks don't queue outside a bank usually is supposed to have trouble. And we were you know, I mean, initially faced that dilemma of a bank like I mean, we've seen banks elsewhere in the world, you know that this is not something new. A bank run on has happened for so many reasons around the world. You've heard stories about it from from Argentina from Cyprus. Greece, triggers might be a different Yes, but you know, I mean, eventually there is queue of people, people want to withdraw their money a decision needs to be taken. Now,
Graham Allcott 18:06
most people think this is some kind of firm, you know, tail from a far off land. I mean, it's worth remembering that here in the UK, Northern Rock cattle run on in, I think it was maybe 2017, doesn't it? Yeah, early part of the 2008 crisis,
Louai Al Roumani 18:20
right. So
Graham Allcott 18:22
and there were pictures on the news. And if you're too young to remember this, people literally Queuing outside the bank. Yeah. Wanting to go in at 9am and say, I want all my money.
Louai Al Roumani 18:33
So yeah, so so but I mean, what we did back then, I mean, we're not behavioural scientists, very far from that, but I mean, what, what I realised that you know, is that people are panicking. And just like, you don't mean if you're not relaxed, and I tell you, hey, relax. It's very unlikely to actually make you blocked. So So I mean, telling people not to panic wouldn't really help them not panic. I mean the best you know anything, they would have maybe a panic more. And people were not, you know, queuing to buy non essential goods. I mean, these people have their lifelong savings with a soul so it was something really dear and valuable to them. So, yeah, yeah. And to somehow show them that we knew something about the crisis that they didn't know with maybe evoke this feeling of you know, I groundless sense of no at all, which people really hate the most and a crisis. So so so when you try to outsmart people like you know, normal times, they might politely resist you, whereas if you do it in a time of crisis, they might actually come to hate you. Especially when it revolves around something as valuable as savings. So, what we did back then we, we actually went beyond, we probably did something I mean, which which, which is not always, you know, in line with, with with, with our insurance policies, we actually stuck banknotes across I mean, like, you know, across our windows across our hotels, we wanted people to know that we had a lot of money and there was nothing to hide. People came in, don't know, no matter what they wanted, we gave them up their money. I mean, we simply gave them what they wanted, there was no point and you know, trying to, to outsmart them to delay them to you know, I mean, tell them not to panic. I mean, who are you who are we to tell people not to panic, you know, this is a crisis that's so much bigger than, than everyone. It really would have shown you know, and then and an arrogant sensor people don't really stand so. We gave money, we gave it up. people what they wanted. And, of course, we did reassure them that they could come back to us when I mean, I mean whenever they felt more and more comfortable to do so. And what we realised happening is that most other banks started to do to employ techniques such as delaying withdraws, say you wanted 1000 pounds in like I gave you 200 now, and delayed the other is to like, you know, a few weeks later but but I mean, what this did was really just let the people panic more, and almost everyone per system until they took everything that they wanted, and what happened like in the next few months, I mean, people start to bring money back to us, they, they saw our stock banknotes, they saw that we were not, you know, willing to outsmart them and that we basically gave them what they wanted and for us This was doing the right thing, really. And eventually, most other banks have their liquidity levels dropped between the required ratios, whereas ours dropped, you know, initially, and it did stay below before the pre war levels. But a few months later, they actually, you know, improved and it was one of the best
Graham Allcott 22:27
liquidity ratios across the country. So, somebody's doing the right thing eventually pays off. And the other story was about people coming in with bank notes that were forgeries.
Louai Al Roumani 22:40
Yeah. So, yeah, so I mean, the mean just a little bit, you know, context before. So. Usually in normal times, there, there tends to be you know, alignment between laws between operational challenges between your policies. Under procedure, so not a lot of, you know, cases where, where you might be inclined to have the Lamas nor like really big trade offs. But what's happened in Syria is that, you know, this was, you know, a crisis which somehow corrupted a lot of these dilemmas. So, so on. On one end, the law told us that you need to report, you know, anyone bringing in $1, which was fraudulent, but in reality, if we knew that many of these people really weren't aware that these were frozen. So, so as you know, a decision had to be taken.
Now doingthings right would have maybe meant that, I mean, we just, you know, I mean, adhere to the law, which is, you know, the more common sense thing to do, but then we realised that, you know, there were certain fences were where we actually need to we're, we're not, you know, abiding by that particular regulation might have been the right thing to do.
Graham Allcott 24:11
Hmm. And so you end up in this. I mean, it's just such an interesting dynamic, because like you say, I mean, usually there's such a strong alignment between obeying the law and doing the right thing. But actually, if you know, someone has just come back from the baker, and they've just been given this one note as part of their change, and they're trying to pay in along with lots of legal notes. They're not going to be you know, fraudulent criminal. Yeah, at the same time, they're going to be treated in a very harsh way.
Louai Al Roumani 24:41
Yeah. Yeah. No, yeah. So
Graham Allcott 24:44
yeah. And so I mean, and in both of those situations, I wonder like, what was the so you can look at those situations in hindsight and say, that's a really smart piece of thinking that maybe is a little bit counterintuitive or goes if it goes against certain conventional wisdom, but it ends up being the right thing to do and the and the right way to act in though in that crisis and you end up in both those scenarios, building trust with customers, right, which is a really important thing. Yes. But there must have been loads of people as you sat in meetings, arguing for exactly the opposite. And like, there must have been tension. So how, yeah, just describe that scene and how how did you? How did you and other people managed to sort of advocate for things that did seem counterintuitive or controversial or a bit weird as as a decision to make but you know, you had such belief in it, but other people didn't? How do you How did you persuade people in some of those situations?
Louai Al Roumani 25:47
Yeah, I mean, like, there will always be, you know, opposing camps. And, you know, I don't want to villainize You know, one company over the other but it's actually healthy to always You know, now these these two camps being, you know, I mean challenging each other all the time because people view things differently. parities get shifted. And and when you're talking about doing the right thing really it becomes an, you know, an abstract, almost philosophical notion that not not all people see, see eye to eye. So, whereas, you know, you I mean, you and I might view you know, certain things to be the right thing to do what someone else might not deal with. And yes, there is I mean, there is that, you know, argument there is that debate where, which might really, I mean evolve into a philosophical debate but really just having that conversation, fishing in the first place is really essential and then just going to every camp, presenting their I mean their own personal effectives and They're only new applications and really just always keeping having, like, you know, sight of the long term effects. Yeah. So So yeah, maybe sending you know, someone to jail over $1 might, you know, seem seem like doing things right and and safe guarding your position now, but but in the long term like, I mean, how does this you know affect trust and how does this you know i mean affect your British trip with with customers so so all of these questions really need to be an astronaut and the challenge there and it's not easy like you know at all you know lots of dilemmas and then for bankers that are used to, to you know, abide by, by, by certain law by policies by procedures like almost everything is really governed by by by an almost mechanical suffer dramatically. process so wasn't really easy factoring all of these and
Graham Allcott 28:05
yeah, as anyone who's self employed and tried to get a mortgage in the UK will tell you very, very stringent and against Eddie sort of notions of trust, or one thing that really struck me was you talk about how time changes and your perception of time changes during a war. And there was this, you know, this whole interesting bit about in the early days of the war, all the questions around the meeting room table, where when is the war going to end? And will the US intervene and what's going to happen and all this stuff, and then, as you sort of got further into the war itself, you stopped asking those questions and time changed and I was really expecting you to say that time changed in a way where you lived. Really day to day and hand to mouth. And actually, your conclusion was the opposite that actually you take a much more long term view. So do you want to tell us about why and, and, and sort of how that develops? Because that that just really fascinated me as something that I just would not have expected?
Louai Al Roumani 29:16
So yes, initially, the outset of the war, the most tempting thing to do was to in danger, and a lot of speculation on when the war will end, and how the crisis will will be evolving. But I mean, this was nine years ago, and the questions that we asked nine years ago Initially, I mean, even today, we we don't have to really have, you know, an answer to almost all of them. Like, I mean, the words are still not technically over there. So nine years ago, the questions we get asked, no one really has the answer to almost all of them and with and we realised the time that this was Really, I mean, a few times the attempt to really formulate our corporate strategy and our actions, that it was actually more useful to focus on the things that we do have control on. And that's a lot of questions on on these things, rather than on the things that we did not have control on. So So we started this process of really asking like, you know, in the bank, regardless of whether the war lasts for one day, one year or five years or 100 years, what are the critical success factors of this industry? Like, what does a bank need to do needed to get right, regardless of the timeline of the war, and really, we reached the conclusion that a bank needed to really accent three things Regardless of the timeline of the work, so so but, you know, a bank needed to have the trust of the people and maybe more so in times of war and yes war a war is epically this destructive but you know, even war as the horrendous you know as the war in Syria doesn't necessarily destroy an industrial dynamics. So, so yes, the the bankable population has decreased, but I mean people with banking needs that could use our services it will still interest trust. So, so so we inserted shifted our mindset to the from, you know, asking the questions on things which we have, which we have no control on to really, you know, asking questions on things which which, you know, enabled us to take immediate action to to act upon them. So so we realised that we needed to really act on you know, I mean, always ensure that, that, that we upheld trust that we, we were we always had the cheapest cost of funds and that we were always liquid. So, so something just really, you know, arriving to that conclusion of these three things which we need to do, regardless of when the war will end. We, we really have to some sort of liberated us from, you know, from sort of, you know, sinking into a business and just, you're getting swept away by by that feeling of general this belief, and, and, and certainty. So, going back to your question, you know, about the long term, you know, I don't think that what you said, like like from focusing on day to day activities, Contrast this with with having a long term. But what what I tried to say in the book is that the long term should shape your your actions today, and not the other way around. Because you don't mean if you don't think, think about the long term, if you're not really driven by that long term vision, then what you do on a daily basis might end up you know, shaping your long term vision because it will just, you know, evolve into a matter of fact, whereas by by in gauging initially at the outset in the long term, you know, thinking approach, and then you're agreeing on the things which you need to focus on then letting go all of the shape your, your your actions today. So, so, this was really the year the model of thinking of that I was talking
about in in the And I mentioned as well, in the chapter on situational leadership that one of the most important traits is to always be strategic yet on the ground. And it's very difficult to do so. And I mentioned you know, an example of, of a mistake, which which I did in the bank, because I was not so close to the ground.
It's about the time that I was asked to do certain studies on cash counting, and the time it took and just like, maybe you would make an assumption that that 1 million pounds like, you know, withdrawal of 1 million pounds with with come price of banknotes of 50 pounds. I the same thing with with with you know, assuming certain power metres for for, let's say a withdrawal of a million pounds, the highest But banknote was 2000 pounds. So so I assume there were, no it was mostly 2000 pounds. But they later on I learned that, you know, in the, you know, in reality even the most junior teller knew that the 2000 pounds were, were actually we're now on that most banknotes being served culated where we're actually owes the 200,000 pound banknotes which, which means that you have much more money to count, right, really rendering my mice who somehow use so so this was you know, I mean a point, you know, which was really like, you know, in the food's been just really reinforced that feeling of being Yes, being strategic yet not losing sight of the realities happening on the ground.
Graham Allcott 35:54
And that's one of those challenges that you know, all kinds of leaders in all kinds of industry. face, right, you know, your, your pressures, the higher up the chain you go to be more and more strategic and more and more high level in your thinking. And yet, that automatically means spending less time at the coalface less time really thinking about those ground realities? Did you did you? Did you learn anything about how to square that circle? Or how to how to sort of link the two together?
Louai Al Roumani 36:25
Yeah, well, well, I mean, it's very tough. I mean, just like you were saying a man really the way the way I see it, there isn't really like a very clear, you know, formulaic you know, answer to that really, people should get both things, right. Both planning and execution, like I mean, both things matter in a crisis now. Now, now, the challenge becomes even more colossal because as does, things really become much more difficult. On the ground, literally, it becomes easier to think along the lines of, of not doing the dirty work or, you know, I mean, keeping it to, I mean, leaving it to someone else. And then again, you know, there's that other side Where, where, I mean, you have so much daily challenges are happening, and we're sort of in this firefighting mode, that you find your cells really I mean, unable to take that step back to really, really think think about the long term. So, so, yeah, there's a very difficult dilemma. And I don't think that to trade off is like, you know, easily managed, but, but, but I do think that you know, I mean, it is one that one should be mindful of, and just, you know, I mean, keeping it at the back of their mind that one should, you know, never lose sight of the, of the long term strategy, but you know, at the same time, not to get sort of drowned by the person good challenges on the ground.
Graham Allcott 38:05
So this thing about the critical success factors. And so you talked about, obviously a bank needs trust. A bank needs liquidity. So you know, basically a high level of cash that you can do things with, and then the cost of capital. So how much you have to pay an interest? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And so those are like the three critical success factors. So I wanted to just ask you a couple of things about that. The first question was, I was quite, you talked about it in the book, but I was quite surprised that profit was not one of the three critical success factors. So tell us about that.
Louai Al Roumani 38:40
So yes, I mean, we were, you know, inclined, we were sorry, tempted to maybe take certain decisions to improve our profit ability in the short run, such as increasing rates on deposits. But yes, I mean, that could improve certain short term targets, but I mean that would erode our customer base, that would mean that you know mean in the long term people might not come to us with their deposits, it might mean that we end up losing some liquidity. And we really saw this happening with you know, other banks that did employ certain techniques to to fulfil short term profitability targets that maybe he gave them a cost for for solo operation, but, but in the long run, it's sort of cripple their, their their ability to really compete competitively, because what happened a year later, is the they ended up losing a large portion of their customers. Their deposits were shrinking. They had lower quiddity lower costs a higher cost of deposits, meaning that they were far less position and place to be able to really compete effectively with us, whereas, our outlook was different. Yes, I mean, maintain liquidity levels, even if we do lose, maybe, you know, for make less money this year, but you know, in the long term that will end up being an hour, in the long term, it would end up being actually better for us so, so really, like, you know, I mean, assessing the long term effect before any action took precedence over the short term, you know, effective and it is a very hard thing to do. Because I mean, people and like stakeholders, and maybe more so in a crisis, many stakeholders will be under pressure to really improve proof of stability in the short run, without scrutinising at all times the real Mino effects of these decisions in the long run, whereas with us, we really ensured that, that everything we did should stem from understanding the long term effects of those the decisions that men really are having these cheaper our goals, even if it meant that in a certain year, we lost some money. But we knew that the decisions taken in that year would build a capacity to generate maybe even more money in the next two or three or four years.