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WORK TITLE: Transforming the Clunky Organization
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE: 12/8/1945
WEBSITE:
CITY: New York
STATE: NY
COUNTRY: United States
NATIONALITY:
http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/directory/sb22/
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born December 8, 1945.
EDUCATION:New York University, B.A., 1968; University of Wisconsin, M.S., 1970, Ph.D., 1974.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Labor management expert and educator. Cornell University, Ithaca and New York, NY, School of Industrial and Labor Relations, assistant professor, 1974-76, associate professor, 1978-83, professor of organizational behavior, 1983—, McKelvey-Grant Professor of Labor Management Relations, 1998—, director of Smithers Institute for Alcohol-Related Workplace Studies, 1992—, director of Institute for Workplace Studies, 1998-2017; Bacharach Leadership Group, New York, NY, cofounder and director of program development, 2009—. Hebrew University, Israel, visiting professor, 1983; Comenius University, Bratislava, Slovakia, visiting professor, 1995;
AWARDS:Lady Davis Scholar, Israel Institute of Technology, 1997.
WRITINGS
Research in the Sociology of Organizations, editor, 1981-2002; Monographs in Organizational Behavior and Industrial Relations, editor, 1992—. Administrative Science Quarterly, member of editorial board, 1975-82, book review editor, 1976-80; Negotiation Journal: On the Process of Dispute Settlement, member of advisory board, 1986-90.
SIDELIGHTS
Samuel B. Bacharach a business and labor management expert and educator. He serves as the McKelvey-Grant Professor of Labor Management Relations in the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University. He has been a member of the faculty at Cornell since 1974. He has also been the director of the Cornell-based Smithers Institute for Alcohol-Related Workplace Studies since 1992. Bacharach holds a B.A. from New York University and an M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin.
Bacharach’s research is “focused on bridging theory and practice,” noted a writer on the Cornell University website. “Integrating his earlier work on politics, negotiation, and complex organizations into his studies of the workplace, he has re-examined the role of leadership,” the writer continued. His perspective on leadership focuses on the skill of execution and how to motivate all levels of an organization to direct their efforts toward action and execution of the company’s agenda. This concept is prevalent in all of Bacharach’s books.
In Get Them on Your Side, for example, Bacharach examines the conditions surrounding resistance to a new idea or a management initiative and how to overcome objections. He stresses that each person’s agenda has a tremendous effect on how a new idea will be received and whether or not resistance to that idea will result. From this framework, the book helps readers “understand co-workers’ and bosses’ approaches and shows you how to create coalitions that get meaningful backing for your initiatives,” commented Leigh Rivenbark, writing in HR magazine.
Bacharach notes that persons at all levels of the organization can succeed in putting their ideas forward and getting them accepted by developing what he calls political competence, which is the ability to see what can’t be controlled, to anticipate resistance to an idea, to decide when it is appropriate to take action, and to identify allies in establishing and executing the idea. He suggests that it is vital to map the political terrain by assessing the goals and approaches of others who can affect, or can be affected by, the new idea. He explains how to determine the agendas of others and how those agendas can influence either acceptance or rejection of a new idea. With knowledge of agendas, anyone in the organization can identify potential allies or opponents. Perhaps most importantly, “Bacharach coaches readers on how to talk with others to get buy-in and how to talk with resisters,” Rivenbark stated.
Bacharach revisits the importance of individual and institutional agendas in The Agenda Mover: When Your Good Idea Is Not Enough. Here, he makes it clear that effective leaders know how to move their ideas and agendas forward. He explains that leaders must know where they want the organization to go, what they want it to accomplish, and whose support will be needed to get the organization to the point of success. In the book, he presents “practical strategies that are critical to advancing your agenda,” commented Desda Moss in an HR magazine review. He explains, for example, how important it is to know other people’s intentions, how to get their support, and how to negotiate mutual benefits that ensure continued support. He also provides suggestions on how to overcome challenges that will no doubt occur.
In Transforming the Clunky Organization: Pragmatic Leadership Skills for Breaking Inertia, Bacharach addresses what he considers a major challenge in most organizations: institutional inertia, or the inability or unwillingness to adopt new ideas, implement new programs, and essentially take action to move forward rather than stay bound in the familiar and comfortable. Leaders must understand why their organization is influenced by inertia. They must know what other options exist to transform and energize the organization and what can be done to make that happen. They also have to recognize and engage the support of allies in any program intended to thwart inertia and get the company moving again. A Publishers Weekly writer concluded, “This work offers well-thought-out methods for transforming struggling businesses.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
HR, September, 2005, Leigh Rivenbark, review of Get Them on Your Side, p. 159; November, 2016, Desda Moss, review of The Agenda Mover: When Your Good Idea Is Not Enough, p. 18.
Publishers Weekly, May 7, 2018, review of Transforming the Clunky Organization: Pragmatic Leadership Skills for Breaking Inertia, p. 58.
ONLINE
Bob Morris website, https://www.bobmorris.biz/ (July 16, 2018), Bob Morris, review of Transforming the Clunky Organization.
Cornell University, ILR School website, http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/ (October 16, 2018), biography of Samuel Bacharach.
San Francisco Review of Books, http://www.sanfranciscoreviewofbooks.com/ (September 14, 2017), Robert Morris, review of The Agenda Mover.
SAMUEL BACHARACH
McKelvey-Grant Professor
Director, Smithers Institute
Organizational Behavior
Overview
Samuel Bacharach is the McKelvey-Grant Professor of Labor Management and the Director of the Smithers Institute. He received his BS in economics from NYU. His MS and Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin.
Upon joining the Cornell faculty in 1974, he spent most of his time working on negotiation and organizational politics, publishing numerous articles and two volumes (Power and Politics in Organizations and Bargaining: Power, Tactics, and Outcome, both with Edward J. Lawler). In the 1980s he continued working on negotiation, but shifted emphasis to the study of complex organizations, with the empirical referent being schools. Besides his academic articles, he published a number of books on school management and leadership, such as Tangled Hierarchies (with Joseph Shedd) and Education Reform: Making Sense of It All.
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Research Statement
For the last ten years, working in New York City, Professor Bacharach has focused on bridging theory and practice. Integrating his earlier work on politics, negotiation, and complex organizations into his studies of the workplace, he has re-examined the role of leadership. Working closely with practitioners from various corporations and non-profits and conducting workshops, training sessions, and open discussions, he has developed his own leadership perspective, emphasizing the skills of execution. This work culminated with the publication of Get Them on Your Side: Win Support, Convert Skeptics, and Get Results (2005), Keep Them on Your Side: Leading and Managing for Momentum (2006), and The Agenda Mover: When Your Good Idea is Not Enough (2016). His newest book on the topic of the clunky organization will be published in 2018. He has created leadership workshops and developed a series of online courses based on this material. He is a regular columnist at Inc.com and has been a keynote speaker at many national meetings and conferences, including Cornell-sponsored events.
In the late 1980s, Professor Bacharach took over the directorship of the Smithers Institute. In this role, he launched a number of empirical studies such as: blue-collar workers in New York City, a study of New York City firefighters after 9/11, a study of transport workers in New York City, and a ten-year longitudinal study of retired workers. Currently he is principal investigator on a NIH-funded study that is examining changes in drinking behavior of graduating seniors into their first few years in the full-time workforce. With his colleagues Peter Bamberger and William Sonnenstuhl he has published numerous articles on blue-collar workers, with emphasis on substance abuse in the workplace. His collaboration with Bamberger and Sonnenstuhl resulted in two books: Member Assistance Programs: Labor's Role in the Prevention and Treatment of Substance Abuse (1994) and Mutual Aid and Union Renewal: Cycles of Logics of Action (2001). He is coauthor with Bamberger of the volume, Retirement Hidden Epidemic: The Complex Link Between Aging, Work Disengagement and Substance Misuse—and What To Do About It (2014). His publications with his Smithers colleagues have appeared in journals such as Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, and Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs.
1
SAMUEL B. BACHARACH McKelvey-Grant ProfessorDepartment of Organizational Behavior School of Industrial and Labor Relations, Cornell UniversityEDUCATIONPh.D., 1974, University of Wisconsin.Dissertation Topic: Structure of and Processes in Organizational Power.M.S., 1970, University of Wisconsin.Thesis Topic: Organizational Recruitment.B.A., 1968, New York University. ACADEMIC POSITIONSMcKelvey-Grant Professor of Labor Management Relations, School of Industrial and Labor Relations, Cornell University. 1998-present.Professor, Organizational Behavior, School of Industrial and Labor Relations, Cornell University, 1983-present.Associate Professor, Organizational Behavior, School of Industrial and Labor Relations, Cornell University, 1978-1983.Assistant Professor, Organizational Behavior, School of Industrial and Labor Relations,Cornell University, 1974-1978.ADMINISTRATIVE POSITIONSDirector, Smithers Institute for Alcohol-Related Workplace Studies, Cornell ILR, 1992-present.This New York City-based institute is dedicated to the pursuit of research and education in the field of alcoholism in the workplace by pursuing research trying to identify predictors of alcoholism in the workplace, workplace alcohol intervention and prevention programs, and best practices. The institute competes for and has been awarded academic grants from NIAAA, NIDA, and Lilly Foundation. Current research tracks the college-to-work transition and drinking behavior.Director, Master of Professional Studies, Cornell ILR, 2000-2016. Director, Institute for Workplace Studies, Cornell ILR, 1998-2016.Faculty Member, Advisory Council, Cornell ILR. The Council includes eminent Cornell alumni interested in the School’s future.
2Member, Dean’s Advisory Committee on Distance-Learning Strategies, 1998. This committee developed a strategy that allowed the ILR School to deliver courses using emerging technology.Member, Board of Advisors, Cornell-PERC (Foundation for the Prevention and Early Resolution of Conflict), Institute on Conflict Resolution, 1996-2002. Chairman, Special Subcommittee on Establishing ILR Graduate Education in New York City, 1994-1995. Strategic planning for the implementation of a new Master’s Program to be offered in New York City, beginning in the Spring 2000, to be offered to practitioners.Chairman, Department of Organizational Behavior, School of Industrial and Labor Relations, Cornell University, 1982-1985.Chairman, Academic Standards Committee, 1981-1984.School of Industrial and Labor Relations Extension Program Committee, 1979-1981.School of Industrial and Labor Relations Planning Committee, 1976-1978.PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES Member, Executive Council, National Council on Alcoholism & Drug Dependence. January 2005-2006.Lady Davis Scholar, Israel Institute of Technology (Technion), Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Management. Fall 1997.Visiting Professor, School of Business, Comenius University, Bratislava, Slovakia. Spring 1995.Editor, Research in the Sociology of Organizations, JAI Press, 1981-2002.Editor, Monographs in Organizational Behavior and Industrial Relations, JAI Press, 1982-present.Member, Industrial and Labor Relations Review, Editorial Board, 1981-1994.Senior Scholar in Residence, Sackler Institute, Center for Advanced Studies, University of Tel Aviv, Israel, Spring 1991.Member, Advisory Board, Negotiation Journal: On the Process of Dispute Settlement, 1986-1990.Visiting Professor, School of Management, Hebrew University, Israel, Spring 1983.
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Print Marked Items
Transforming the Clunky Organization:
Pragmatic Leadership Skills for Breaking
Inertia
Publishers Weekly.
265.19 (May 7, 2018): p58+.
COPYRIGHT 2018 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Transforming the Clunky Organization: Pragmatic Leadership Skills for Breaking Inertia
Samuel B. Bacharach. Cornell Univ., $17.95 trade paper (210p) ISBN 978-1-50171-003-2
Bacharach (The Agenda Mover), a professor of labor-management relations at Cornell University, offers a
no-nonsense, straightforward approach to surmounting what he sees as the primary organizational challenge
for business leaders, namely inertia. This condition can have two sources: the "clunky tendency," when
companies are disorganized, and the "myopic tendency," when organizations ate organized in outmoded
ways. The result of both these problems is that a business isn't able to deliver goods or services as flexibly
and capably as in the past. In response, he contends, leaders must address five questions, including why the
organization is sluggish, what other options exist, what can be done, what support is needed, and how
should the chosen solution be implemented. Bacharach's advice centers on the complementary processes of
"robust discovery," a period of openness to new ideas, and "focused delivery," the methodical execution of
the chosen idea. With both processes, he stresses the importance of reading "signals" from the market, citing
as a successful example PepsiCo's diversifying its product line into "fun for you," "good for you," and
"better for you" categories in response to greater consumer concern with health. Through this and other
useful, real-world examples, this work offers well-thought-out methods for transforming struggling
businesses. (July)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Transforming the Clunky Organization: Pragmatic Leadership Skills for Breaking Inertia." Publishers
Weekly, 7 May 2018, p. 58+. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A538858716/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=fbe06c34.
Accessed 30 Sept. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A538858716
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The Agenda Mover: When Your Good
Idea Is Not Enough
Desda Moss
HRMagazine.
61.9 (Nov. 2016): p18.
COPYRIGHT 2016 Society for Human Resource Management
http://www.shrm.org/publications/hrmagazine/pages/default.aspx
Full Text:
The Agenda Mover: When Your Good Idea Is Not Enough
(Cornell University Press, 2016)
By Samuel B. Bacharach
To become a leader, you have to know where you want to go and whose support you'll need to get there.
This book, written by professor of organizational behavior Samuel B. Bacharach, focuses on practical
strategies that are critical to advancing your agenda. The key to realizing your vision is knowing how to
anticipate other people's intentions, mobilizing their support, negotiating mutual benefits and sustaining
your efforts to overcome inevitable obstacles along the way. In the final analysis, leaders are only as good
as the ideas they execute, Bacharach concludes. "If you cannot move your agenda, you are not a leader," he
writes.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Moss, Desda. "The Agenda Mover: When Your Good Idea Is Not Enough." HRMagazine, Nov. 2016, p. 18.
General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A472003148/ITOF?
u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=9f21a721. Accessed 30 Sept. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A472003148
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Get Them on Your Side
Leigh Rivenbark
HRMagazine.
50.9 (Sept. 2005): p159+.
COPYRIGHT 2005 Society for Human Resource Management
http://www.shrm.org/publications/hrmagazine/pages/default.aspx
Full Text:
Get Them On Your Side
By Samuel B. Bacharach, Platinum Press, 2005, 234 pages
List price: $19.95, ISBN: 1-59337-278-7
Jason figured out that by giving large supermarkets and big-box retailers a 5 percent discount on his
company's breakfast cereals, company sales would increase 15 percent.
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
A good, simple idea, he thought.
Then the production manager said that a jump in sales could end up costing the company money if it had to
buy a new factory. The technology specialist said that adding the discount to invoices would require major
programming. The product manager insisted that other customers would demand the same discount. All of
them told Jason to back off.
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An idea that seemed to have only positive outcomes wouldn't seem so negative to those who would be
affected, however, if they had different agendas.
In Get Them On Your Side, Samuel B. Bacharach, director of Cornell University's Institute for Workplace
Studies, helps you understand co-workers' and bosses' approaches and shows you how to create coalitions
that get meaningful backing for your initiatives.
Even someone who is "not obviously powerful in the organization" can succeed by developing political
competence--the ability to see what can and can't be controlled, to anticipate resistance, to decide when to
act, and to identify allies, Bacharach says.
First, "map the political terrain." Analyze people's goals and approaches to help anticipate what they'll do
when you present an idea. Are they tinkerers--people who prefer incremental change? Or are they
overhaulers, who go for broader goals and fundamental change? Are their approaches focused on planning,
with well-defined roles, plans and statistics? Or do they improvise, assessing what others do and then
reacting?
Bacharach looks at how goals and approaches can mesh. Traditionalists, for instance, combine tinkering and
planning in their cautious, experience-based ways. Adjusters see change as inevitable, and they combine
tinkering with improvisation, reacting to change as it comes. Developers focus on keeping operations
efficient, and they combine an overhauling outlook with a planning style; they are proactive but keep to
specific goals.
Once you unlock people's agendas, you can identify potential allies and resisters. You need to determine
your own agenda, list key stakeholders affected by your idea, identify their possible goals and find those
with approaches similar to yours.
Next, get the right people on your side. Bacharach gives four steps:
* Create your coalition, which can help you overcome resistance and keep up support as your idea
progresses.
* Establish your credibility--your trustworthiness and ability to make a suggestion.
* Get initial support through techniques such as co-opting leaders who can advocate for you.
* Justify your action with scenarios that help make your case. You can appeal to listeners' rational sides with
numbers, or show them that "everybody's doing it," which can diminish perceived risk.
Now, make things happen. Bacharach coaches readers on how to talk with others to get buy-in and how to
talk with resisters. Tips cover how to work out differences within your coalition, spread your ideas beyond
the initial coalition, deal with "counter-coalitions" that may form to resist your ideas, and prevent your own
coalition from becoming too insular.
Rivenbark, Leigh
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Rivenbark, Leigh. "Get Them on Your Side." HRMagazine, Sept. 2005, p. 159+. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A136388155/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=87b266e3.
Accessed 30 Sept. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A136388155
Transforming the Clunky Organization: A book review by Bob Morris
July 16, 2018
Transforming the Clunky Organization: Pragmatic Leadership Skills for Breaking Inertia
Samuel B. Bacharach
Published in Association with Cornell University Press (July 2018)
“Sacred cows make the best burgers” Robert Kriegel
In one of the most valuable business books written in recent years, The Upside of Turbulence: Seizing Opportunity in an Uncertain World published by HarperBusiness, Donald Sull describes what he characterizes as active inertia: “the tendency of well-established organizations to respond to changes by accelerating activities that succeeded in the past. As turbulent markets throw out new opportunities and threats, organizations trapped in active inertia do more of what worked in the past – a little faster, perhaps, or tweaked at the margin, but the same old same old.”
Isaac Newton defined inertia as his first law in his Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, which states: “The vis insita, or innate force of matter, is a power of resisting by which every body, as much as in it lies, endeavours to preserve its present state, whether it be of rest or of moving uniformly forward in a straight line.”
This is what Samuel B. Bacharach has in mind when asserting that only pragmatic leaders have the temperament and the skills to avoid or overcome organizational inertia. There are two kinds: “the clunky tendency and the myopic tendency. The clunky tendency emerges when the organization has unintegrated structures, diffuse authority, overlapping goals,,, and a general sense of organized anarchy. The myopic tendency is reinforced by outdated practices and old business models.”
With regard to pragmatic leadership, I am reminded of when Anne Mulcahy was elected president of Xerox, the first woman to hold that position in the corporation’s history. What was the most valuable she received? From Albert C. Black, Jr., a “plainspoken, self-made, streetwise guy” who was president of a small management firm: “When everything gets really complicated and you feel overwhelmed, think about it this way: You gotta do three things. First, get the cow out of the ditch. Second, find out how the cow got into the ditch. Third, make sure you do whatever it takes so the cow doesn’t go into the ditch again.”
Pragmatic leaders insist on knowing what works and why, and, what doesn’t work and why not. As Bacharach explains, pragmatic leaders attack inertia by making sure that their organizations engage in discovery and delivery. That is, “robust discovery by constantly reading the environment, picking up new ideas, and translating those ideas into concrete innovations, changes, and agendas. They then focus on delivery, making sure these the new ideas gain support in their organization, are implemented, and become an integral part of the organization’s agenda rather than fall into the abyss of unfulfilled aspiration.”
Presumably Bacharach agrees with me is that one of the defining characteristics of a healthy organization is that almost everyone involved thinks and behaves in terms of first-person PLURAL pronouns. Clunky organizations invariably have clunky leaders and are ill-prepared to succeed in a global marketplace that is more volatile, more uncertain, more complex, and more ambiguous than at any prior time that I can remember. A high percentage of their people are passively engaged (“mailing it in”) and remain convinced that “good enough” is acceptable, indeed exemplary.
I commend Samuel Bacharach on the abundance of information, insights, and counsel that can help prepare each reader to become a much more pragmatic leader. However, there are some organizations in which inertia cannot be broken. It is the result of what James O’Toole so aptly characterizes as “the ideology of comfort and the tyranny of custom.” Those who find themselves in such an organization should continue to make a best effort and, meanwhile, discreetly seek better opportunities elsewhere. Check out an earlier work, The Agenda Mover. Bacharach’s material will help to set new priorities that will focus on personal growth and professional development. Lodi wisdom is appropriate: “When you find yourself on a dead horse, get off.”
Thursday, September 14, 2017
Book Review: 'The Agenda Mover' by Samuel Bacharach
As I began to read this book, I was again reminded of the fact that, for decades, those enrolled in a Dale Carnegie course shout out this mantra: ‘'I know people in the ranks who are going to stay in the ranks. Why? I'll tell you why. Simply because they haven’t the ability to get things done.’' There is no shortage of talkers. There is always a shortage of doers.
To what does this book’s title refer? Samuel Bacharach explains: “The leadership challenge of moving an agenda can present itself at any level of an organization, from the president’s office to the mail room. If you have a project that needs to happen, if you’re backing an innovation that is meeting resistance, if you want to push change in your organization, then you are called upon to lead. And to lead, you have to [be or have] an agenda mover, being mindfully aware of the intentions of others and mastering the pragmatic skills necessary to execute.”
In football, “moving the chains” is a term used when a team with the ball is gaining ground to score with a series of first downs. That can be done with a long pass completion, of course, but usually with a series of plays that gain first downs only a few yards at a time. That’s the agenda and the quarterback is usually the agenda mover. Businesses also need people who are results-driven, who have a knack for making steady (seldom dramatic) progress toward achieving a goal. It could be meeting a deadline. It could mean avoiding or responding to a major crisis. It could mean solving a serious problem or answering an especially important question. You cannot move the chains without teamwork and that is usually true in business, also. An agenda mover not gets others involved; he gets them [begin italics] engaged [end italics]. Achieving high-impact results is the essence of what Bacharach characters as “pragmatic leadership.”
What about charisma? ”The nineteenth century sociologist Max Weber was the first to emphasize the importance of charisma as a key leadership attribute. For Weber, charisma is a deeply rooted personality trait that enables certain individuals to command others by the sheer power of their presence. Charisma suggests a mystical bond between leader and followers, with the latter defining their aspirations and in some cases their values by those of the former. As such, charisma, for Weber is a crucial ingredient in the mix of qualities that make for successful, productive leaders.”
Quite true but not all great leaders are charismatic nor do all charismatic leaders possess admirable qualities of character, such as decency and compassion. Agenda movers know that in the final analysis, charisma on its own doesn’t get a lot done. Leadership comes down to execution.” More specifically, to collaborative execution. This is probably what Martin Luther King Jr. had in mind when observing, “Ultimately, a genuine leader is not a searcher but a molder of consensus.” His most famous speech is “I Have a Dream,” not “I Have a Plan.”
I commend Samuel Bacharach on the abundance of valuable information, insights, and counsel he provides in support of the core message in The Agenda Mover: “Try to be mindful of where you want to go and whose support you will need to help get you there. There is an implicit message throughout this book — an agenda mover knows that he or she cannot do it alone.”
However different the healthiest organizations may be in most respects, all of them have pragmatic leadership at every level and in every area of the given enterprise. Also, their people think and communicate with first-person plural pronouns. “I” may have a dream but only “We” can overcome.