Building Moral and Professional Resilience

KEVIN MALONEY: Leadership in today’s world is difficult enough. Now imagine being responsible for the literal safety and security of thousands of staff providing lifesaving services in some of the most dangerous places on Earth.

Our guest today is Gilles Michaud, under-secretary-general for safety and security at the United Nations. Together we talk about his multi-decade career across law enforcement, international relations, and how his commitment to values-based leadership has served as a north star throughout his career.

I hope you enjoy this episode. Let’s get right to it.

On the Values & Interests podcast we like to get into the geopolitical angle, dig deep, and think about the values & interests equation, but we don’t disconnect individual personal values from the action of politics or geopolitics, so I always like to ask my guests to give their “values CV” for the listeners. Maybe we could start with hearing a bit about your own values formation and how that shifted and changed over time and then talk about your own moral framework, but I would love to “start at the beginning,” as they say.

GILLES MICHAUD: Thanks, Kevin, for the opportunity.

I guess values for me were instilled at an early age. I think the parenting that I received was the start of that journey. Through the teaching of my parents and learning through their actions, the notion for me of respect, the element of accountability, and also I would say being down to earth, so humility, has always been important. The other piece is always looking for the greater good. I think those are four elements that started at a young age.

Like I said, my parents stood up for what was right. They did not hesitate to express how they felt, and they made decisions that sometimes my two brothers and I would question, “Yeah, but, Dad, we would like to do that,” but there was always a principle behind the decision: “No, boys, I know it would be good for you, but based on previous decisions this is not the right message to send.”

I think that was the beginning of that journey, and it evolved I would say through osmosis, being exposed to good and not-so-good leaders—you learn as much from the bad as you do from the good—a lot of practice, I would say failures in the sense of learning from my own mistakes, and then education. I have always been interested in being better, a better manager, better leader, and researching this topic of leadership and what it means.

Coming through an organization like the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) offered me a lot of those elements and guided and informed this notion of leading by example. I still remember when I was a junior constable, so the lowest rank in the RCMP, and one of my corporals truly had a positive impact on me. He would never ask us to do anything that he would not do himself, including rolling in the dirt to catch a better observation point while we were on surveillance. For me that was impactful. That is how leaders behave.

Then, there was standing for what is right. As you know, in Canada we have this language issue in parts of the country. In the RCMP at that time you would grow up through the ranks and then become part of the officer corps. You did not come in directly at the officer level, and being a very junior officer and seeing a senior manager during a meeting where he was asked a question by someone who spoke French, and he replied to him in French, even with the RCMP being a very Anglo-Saxon type of organization. That was like, “You know what? This feels good. This is what it is all about.”

I think that journey for me has been a learning experience. I still learn to this day. You never stop learning about your own gaps or growth areas, but that is my leadership journey.

KEVIN MALONEY: You spent decades in Canadian law enforcement. There is an ethos of your ethical or moral responsibility while you are doing very dangerous work or while you are having to deal with very difficult decision making. I suspect this is some of the best training for going into your role at the United Nations, but I would love to explore a little more the formative years when you trying to zig and zag through the ethical gray area that can be law enforcement sometimes. What helped you navigate that and who were the mentors or what were the lessons that helped tether you to your moral framework while still being the officer you needed to be?

GILLES MICHAUD: That is a great question, Kevin. When I started in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, an organization that was formed in 1873, there was a lot of tradition and a very deep culture inside the organization. I remember at the academy during my initial training they would tell us, “There is the right way, there is a bad way, and there is the RCMP way.”

That was the beginning of, “Okay, well what does this mean?” and I came to realize that there might have been some ethical dimensions to that that for me did not sit well. It was only in the late 1990s when then-Commissioner Phil Murray introduced this notion of mission, vision, and values in the organization, and for me that was a shift. It resonated so that I could see that there was finally across the organization an alignment between my own personal values and the values of the organization.

As you can imagine, that cultural environment does not change overnight, but it allowed me to really grow. That was a guide, a boussole, a “compass,” basically an anchor for me around, “Okay, well, that fits, and this is how I should navigate decision-making.” It was at a time when I was becoming a very young officer, and dealing with the notion of ethical decision-making around balancing, for example, the politics.

I remember one of my commanding officers said, “Gilles, you need to be political now that you are an officer.” I always equated politics to people who were self-serving and/or people who were serving just one ideology, and for me that was a bit of a struggle, to the point where, when I went to the Federal Bureau of Investigation National Academy for ten weeks, that was part of my research while I was there, looking at how politics and leadership mesh together.

For me, as long as it is not self-serving, you are good to go. You need to have that type of political awareness and you need to engage, but only as long as you are doing it for the greater good. That truly allowed me to progress my leadership style and my influence. Bringing that to the United Nations, especially in these times, negotiating with Member States, and so on in very challenging times I think that was very helpful.

KEVIN MALONEY: It is the equation of pragmatism that is always the most difficult one to solve for a lot of people: “When do I stay? When do I walk away? Is it worth having more of an impact being in the game than out of the game, and where are those ethical red lines or where does it not align with my values and interests?”

It is interesting to hear you talk about the mission, vision, and values. That is an interesting framing, but what I took away from it was what you alluded to, that an abstract version of that would have done significant harm in terms of not aligning and really giving a north star to you and your fellow officers in terms of dealing with these very difficult situations and difficult trade-offs. This goes back I think to the importance of leadership. This could have been written on a board somewhere, but an individual who you trusted looking you in the eye and telling you that this is the vision that is attached to it makes it real, makes it usable, and grounded in daily life and something you can relate to.

I am sure you have experienced that in your role as a leader, but I would love to lay the groundwork first and give our listeners a sense of your role today as under-secretary-general at the United Nations and what you are focused on in terms of safety and security. Maybe we could start there and then get into what the day-to-day work looks like and some of the trade-offs that we laid the groundwork to talk about.

GILLES MICHAUD: Far was I to truly understand what my role would be when I joined almost seven years ago. First of all, the United Nations Department of Safety and Security (UNDSS) is responsible for, as the moniker goes, safety and security for UN personnel, UN operations, buildings, and assets globally, so it is quite a significant remit when you consider that we have close to 180,000 staff, down after the financial hit we took, deployed in over 130 countries worldwide.

It is less about safety and security and more about risk management. What I mean by that is that the accountability for safety and security of UN personnel is linked to the UN Charter, and it starts with host governments. In any specific country the host government is to provide a safe and secure environment for us to operate in. However, as you can imagine not every country has the same capabilities, or when the country is in conflict, internal or external, and you quickly realize that there might be gaps that exist, and the job of my department is to fill those gaps. I proffer advice to decision-makers within the United Nations based on analysis. I have some technical expertise as well that is available.

My role in all of that is to make sure we enable program delivery. When I came into the system, my department was struggling with this notion of enabling. It was referred to by many as a department of “no,” because when it comes to risk management if you don’t go anywhere and you limit the movements of our people, then you mitigate risks and prevention measures. I realized within six months of arriving in the job that it goes back to this notion of the greater good.

What is the purpose of the United Nations? The purpose of the United Nations is to basically help people in need, and if the United Nations is not taking risks in a smart way, how can we help these people because in most instances where people are in need is where there is insecurity. I tried to bring a mind shift to the department and focus on accountability: Who are we accountable to? We are accountable to UN personnel and making sure that we keep them safe and secure, but mostly we are accountable to the people out there who need our help.

For me the journey has been finding ways of doing that, limiting exposure yet making sure that we deliver. That is the role of the department and that is how it fits, but in that context it also exposes us to some very complex decisions.

KEVIN MALONEY: There is a weight on my chest just thinking about this in terms of its ethical dimension. As you say, it is easier to take a hedge-risk-at-all-costs approach, but then you are not enabling the resources that you need to deliver.

How do you think of the dynamic in terms of the people you are responsible for and putting them literally in harm’s way, thinking about their own agency as professionals who have chosen to do this work combined with your responsibility to maybe even step in when they might have blinders on in terms of risk? I don’t know if there are examples of recent areas where you have worked, but this seems like a classic ethical conundrum for a leader, where physical safety is literally on the line but pulling back or hedging risks might not produce outcomes that you want for other people who need help.

GILLES MICHAUD: One of the great dimensions of the United Nations is the people we have. Their dedication and altruism is so inspirational. Sometimes I have found myself in situations where insecurity was too high, and people still wanted to stay, and I told them, “No, it’s enough.” It is a bit like you say. They become so involved in the mission and they have been in that environment for so long that they have blinders on and don’t realize the risks they are exposing themselves to.

I will give you an example as well where we have taken additional risks for again the greater good but also understanding the implications more broadly, Gaza being one. One thing I and the United Nations are proud of is that we never left Gaza. When you imagine the size of Gaza, the population that is there, and the kinetic activity of that conflict since October 2023, that has never existed anywhere else in this world, not even Ukraine. Ukraine is a bigger country and more dispersed.

Gaza, at least for me, always had the tension between leaving and staying. I came to realize that the notion of community acceptance is one of our risk-mitigation measures. That is why we have never left. We have reduced our footprint to a manageable level with ebbs and flows, a little bit more, a little bit less, but we have never left because if we had, I think we could have never come back because the perception would have been, “Well, the United Nations is leaving us behind.”

The other consideration was that if we did leave, in addition to the Palestinians, how would other countries in the region view the United Nations, and what does that mean for the safety and security of UN personnel in those countries? That level of reflection has informed decisions along the way.

Unfortunately, we have lost some of our colleagues, and I can say we lost one of our UNDSS colleagues. We have lost a lot of locally engaged staff from United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East, but I can tell you I have been in Gaza at least four times since October 2023, and I have seen that the inspiration of our people there is that they want to stay. They see what the needs are, and they are willing to take those risks.

For me, it has been, “Let’s make sure that they understand the risks they are taking. We will provide them as much protection as we can, but at the end of the day if we leave, people will die.” So we have never left.

That is something we can replicate in other settings, in Sudan, for example. At this time, that is another area where there is a lot of pressure for us to serve the Sudanese people, but the conflict that is going on, especially in Darfur and Kordofan, is again where we are trying to move as much as we can into those areas, but there we are facing—and that speaks to some of the work that I need to do—limitations imposed by Member States and by parties to the conflict, and then it heads into this notion of international humanitarian law, accountability, and so on.

KEVIN MALONEY: At the center of all of these conflicts is something that is very personal and human. Lives are literally being lost. It is interesting to think about these conflicts in that way but also dispassionately in terms of what is happening and how to hedge risks, but it is jarring to me in terms of the description of Gaza when you think about the variables of just how small the area is, the volume of kinetic means being deployed, and the population concentration. You might have to deal with one of those factors historically or in other parts of the world, but with all of these factors it is a nightmare.

When looking at that situation, one of the things we are trying to grapple with at Carnegie Council is this nihilism or apathy that is attached to seeing that happen from a political perspective but also from an individual perspective. Go back to Darfur, for example. Twenty years ago a single picture of a child used to move political action or outrage in states in the West or America, and now there is almost a numbness to what is happening. This is an ethical conundrum to try to get our heads around: Why isn’t that moving political action or action from a polity at the grassroots level? It is to some extent, but not enough to have that sea-change moment.

We are in an odd, kind of nihilistic environment right now, and I am sure it is something you think about. Even if you are not working in it day-in and day-out, I am sure there is a bit of that in terms of dealing with local governments and local populations in these conflict areas also.

GILLES MICHAUD: Kevin, I think we could have a separate podcast just on that. Two things: It is not necessarily just the local governments. I say that because, yes, we have seen in the last six years where the threat to humanitarian workers and UN personnel has shifted from terrorist groups and non-state armed groups, and now the biggest threat we have is state or state-sponsored groups that are threatening us.

Unfortunately, we have “superpowers,” countries that could influence but are not exercising it when it comes to protection of humanitarian workers. For me that has been a disappointment.

KEVIN MALONEY: This is the demarcation line from a geopolitical, grand-strategy foreign policy analysis, where those used to be labeled as “rogue states,” and now you have Member States themselves committing some of these actions. I want to define that for the listeners, because I have seen a lot of writing lately in terms of what a rogue state even is anymore. Is it a phrase, and can you attach it to some of the Security Council members or great powers as we have alluded to? I think it is important to listeners to understand the difference between the Rwandan genocide and how we thought about that as a civil war/rogue state potentially, but now as you are alluding to, great powers acting in ways that are very antithetical to the Charter.

GILLES MICHAUD: Exactly. The other element from the framing of your question is the apathy you talked about. For me, seeing the suffering that many of these conflicts, climate change, and so on, has been one of my drivers. I have visited places and been to many countries throughout the last six years. Not many of them were on my bucket list, but I have seen the suffering, and that has been a driver for me. Every time I come out of those places, it tells me that I need to do more and do better.

I think that comes back to this notion of my values, the greater good, and trying to find solutions so that these people can get the services that they deserve.

KEVIN MALONEY: Joel Rosenthal, our president at Carnegie Council, a few months ago wrote a piece on moral resilience, and he gave an image: “You have to imagine Sisyphus happy in terms of rolling the rock up the hill. That is my job. My job is to get the rock to the top of the hill and keep going.”

I don’t think a lot of people can relate to the situation you are in currently in terms of your job. I want to pull on that thread a bit more because it seems you are alluding to moral and professional resilience when you see the suffering but there is more to be done.

I also want to avoid the “superman” moniker. For so many people who are living their lives in terms of what is happening in the world there is so much anxiety and doubt, but maybe we can pull on that thread a bit more in terms of your mindset when you see something, process it, not letting it overwhelm you, but still wanting to “keep rolling the rock.”

GILLES MICHAUD: Let’s say that I spend many nights thinking about that: How can I do things better? What should I do differently?

I have to admit that although we are talking about my job, it is others who are really doing the hard work, and some of my responsibility is toward those who are receiving our services but also the staff of the United Nations and the staff within my own department and team. They are the ones who are doing the grunt work. They are the ones who are living amongst the population in the same or similar conditions and see their families every four, six, or eight weeks. For me that has been another type of motivational factor.

It goes back to this notion of balancing those different dilemmas that you refer to. I think it is easier from that perspective. I am being motivated by both my own staff and the sacrifices that they make for others and the populations that deserve our support.

Then you head into a situation where, “Well, I have to make this decision knowing that some UN personnel will be at very high risk.” You try to build a mechanism or a process into this because there is an accountability factor that comes in: If something goes wrong, did we do everything right? Did we do everything that we were supposed to do?

I think that has informed also some of the evolution of the work that I have been doing and the work of my department around lessons learned because we have had incidents unfortunately and had too many of our staff and even humanitarian workers lose their lives along the way.

This goes back to the value of humility, and this is something I have tried to instill in my department, that we might be good but we are never good enough, and we have to reach for excellence, excellence being a standard that you never reach. We have to learn from our mistakes, and that has been a dimension I have tried to instill in my workforce. We always have to look for opportunities to improve.

KEVIN MALONEY: We were having an internal conversation the other day here at Carnegie Council and discussing the strike on the Iranian school where all the schoolchildren were killed. There has been so much analysis: Was international law followed? How was the target chosen? What munitions were deployed?

For us, that is an in-the-weeds argument which is incredibly important to have, but the big argument is the choice to use force or the choice to use violence, and we were discussing that. As soon as that choice was made, the data showed that civilians will be killed. It does not matter how responsible or irresponsible you are being, there will be “innocent” lives lost—I am not saying “innocent” from a not-innocent perspective, but as the way people are framing it right now in terms of rhetoric—so it is the ethical or moral choice in making the decision to use violence or going into an area to attempt to alleviate suffering.

These are choices with severe consequences that are sometimes almost out of your control to hedge against, and this goes back to the big question of peace and security by what means. Are you doing it through reciprocity, are you doing it through diplomacy, or are you choosing a kinetic means to attempt to achieve your goals? This has been a big internal discussion here over the last few weeks in terms of the decision to use force, what that means, and the consequences.

GILLES MICHAUD: I find that we have walked away from truly giving diplomacy a chance to work. Resolving conflicts through force has shown, from my perspective, direct and indirect consequences, and we pay the price for them. When I say “we,” it is the population usually that pays the price for years to come.

I have found impatience with diplomacy. Diplomacy is not easy. It is hard, especially in the context that we are in. I see more and more decision making that is based on what I would call “self-interest” or “national interest.”

If you look at when the United Nations was created 80 years ago under the principles of greater good and binding together, I think we are at a place now where I hear and I see more and more discussions, speeches, and whatnot all about national interests and less about what is in the best interests of the world and others. I think that is disappearing a bit these days.

KEVIN MALONEY: That is a great point, and I want to return to that, but I want to touch on the diplomacy point that you raised.

You have been on the ground in places where diplomacy was either not considered or failed, and you have seen the consequences of that. For our listeners, I think we need to understand from your perspective what the consequences are when people think it is something to be pushed aside or not something in the toolbelt to be used.

As I mentioned before, there is access to information like never before and there is almost a numbing effect, so I think we need these first-person discussions beyond doomscrolling on social media. Within that framework, could we dig in a little bit more?

GILLES MICHAUD: I have visited refugee camps. Like I said, I have been to Gaza, Ukraine. I have been near the frontlines. I have been to Sudan and Haiti, and I am going back to Port-au-Prince in a few weeks.

I have seen the impact of instability. I have seen the impact of diplomacy failing. The impact is on human beings, the conditions in which they live, the notion of no access to medical care, no education, the schools are closed, so in some of these places there is an entire generation of kids not getting the education that they deserve. This is not even talking about food insecurity and so on.

One of the examples that was most impactful for me was in the Cabo Delgado province in Mozambique, where a non-state armed group, ISIS, took over the province. I visited a refugee camp and met a 19-year-old lady, six or seven months pregnant, and she explained to me that she had seen her mom and dad slaughtered by ISIS and now she was living in this camp with and in charge of her two younger siblings, and she became pregnant because of the lack of lighting going to the bathroom in the refugee camp.

I asked her, “What can we do for you?”

The only thing that she asked for was a mattress to sleep on because she was sleeping on the dirt inside a tent.

For me that was an expression of what these conflicts mean. Replicate that hundreds and thousands of times, and you are looking at over 200 million people who are in this category of needing humanitarian aid globally. I think that is one of the impacts.

The other piece, though, to be more hopeful is that I have seen the resilience of humanity. In these places where there is so much suffering there is always a ray of light. There are people who are going on with their lives, they are making the best with what they have, children are playing, children are laughing, they have nothing on their feet, they sleep in a tent if they even have cover, and yet they find ways to go about their lives. For me that is also inspirational. So there is suffering, but out of the suffering there is the resiliency of human beings, and for me that has been impactful.

KEVIN MALONEY: I think this goes to the value proposition of the United Nations in a very human way. There is not really a floor in terms of inhumanity—you know this in your job and history has shown this—but there is also incredible resilience, and if people are given a little bit of support, there is a massive opportunity to take that spark of humanity, nurture it, and let it grow.

I think this goes to the bigger conversation right now, and you have illuminated it in terms of the value proposition. Dag Hammarskjöld in his 1952 speech says, and I am paraphrasing: “The United Nations was not created to deliver us to heaven but to save us from hell.” It is to use diplomacy to pursue security through peace and not just to devolve into interstate and intrastate conflict using machines and technology with the consequences.

We have ended up seeing the consequences of that, but I think we are at another point in the geopolitical cycle today. The United Nations is feeling pressure. The United Nations is not looked upon well from a U.S. perspective; just look at polling. Financing is being pulled.

How are you thinking about the United Nations, its future right now, given the choppy geopolitical waters we are in? I know that does not describe it with enough angst, but this is quite the moment to be doing this work and thinking about what the next year or five or ten years are going to look like for the United Nations.

GILLES MICHAUD: We are going through that process right now, and I think there is this element of the UN80 Initiative where it is a process looking at efficiencies, overlap, and mandates, and I think that is welcome. I think the United Nations needs a reset, but I can tell you that there is no other organization that can do what the United Nations does.

Can the United Nations do it better? Yes. I think this is a moment in time when the United Nations needs to not necessarily reinvent itself but reimagine reality now and into the next 40 or 50 years because as you mention geopolitics has changed significantly since the United Nations was created post-World War II. Now we are looking at a multipolar world compared to what I would a more “bipolar” world.

We are looking at an environment where the Global South now has a voice. They want to be heard. They want to have influence, so that is a new dynamic.

You talked about technology and the speed at which technology is evolving and being used for good and bad. The United Nations was created 80 years ago not to solve the problems of 2025, and this is why I think it needs to reinvent itself.

One thing about the United Nations is that it should not lose its compass. I think its values, the principles that are enshrined in the Charter, are still the ones required now. Maybe Member States need to “renew their vows” in relation to their commitment under the Charter. Instead of trying to dismiss it, I think we just need to fix it. Fixing it is a better proposition than trying to totally reinvent it or create something new.

There are elements of what the United Nations does that nobody else can do. Even with this notion of the creation of a Board of Peace, a Board of Peace cannot replace the United Nations, but it is a signal; for a Member State to create that and others to join onboard is a reflection that when it comes to peace and security the United Nations is failing.

However, you have to view the United Nations not through the lens of the Security Council. I think this is where, when you talk about the narrative that is out there about the ineffectiveness of the United Nations, too many people view it through the lens of the Security Council. That is what we hear about. Yes, it is an important part of the United Nations, but that is not the only thing the United Nations does.

I spoke at length about what we do in humanitarian settings. There is also what we do for sustainable development. That is one element that I believe through the United Nations and supporting Member States in the Sustainable Development Goals is not just an ideal thing; that is smart. If we can invest more there, I think we are going to avoid the notion of “putting out fires” through humanitarian assistance. I think those are some of the elements that are still alive and well for the United Nations, and we just need to invest more into it.

KEVIN MALONEY: I grew up in the 1990s here in the New York area, and from my perspective I always saw the United Nations as this timeless thing, and I have woken up from that in the past ten years. No, it was not there; it was created, and it is possible for that to happen again. It goes back to agency and decision-making in terms of what kind of world and what kind of institutions you want in the world.

I am going to go a bit meta here, which we do sometimes at Carnegie Council. I had a conversation a few years ago with a senior UN official. We had started to think at Carnegie Council about the clashing of values that was happening around the world. I asked the official, “How do you deal with this?”

He said: “Well, we deal with it. These are the UN values enshrined in our Charter.”

I remember thinking to myself, Yes, but it wasn’t fit for purpose. It wasn’t pragmatic for the political moment that we are in.

I want to bring this back to your work in going to these different places around the world, because politically a lot of the talking points are about liberal values or universality being culturally dependent. I want to give you a chance to respond to that or talk about your own experience, whether in a refugee camp or another place, in terms of values not as something that is written in international law or in an op-ed in The New York Times, but how you see values and what people value within those concepts on the ground and what your experience has been.

GILLES MICHAUD: I have to say that some of these values are guided by international humanitarian law, for example, and within the UN Charter. I refer here to the notions of neutrality, impartiality, humanity, and independence. Those elements have guided my engagement in the field, my engagement with “sensitive” issues, negotiations with Member States, and negotiations with de facto authorities that has allowed me to navigate this notion of disconnect between values that are not shared and connecting as well to my own personal values to say, “You know what? By acting this way it remains part of me around integrity and my own self-respect, the accountability I have for myself and others, and this notion of the greater good.”

I can even say that in many Executive Committee meetings, the meeting with the secretary general and his Executive Committee team, in some of these conflicting dimensions the secretary-general himself has finished the meetings understanding that the United Nations is struggling and is being criticized. He finishes many of those meetings saying, “We stick to our principles, and that is our guide.”

I think that is true for me and has allowed me to navigate those tense moments, remembering what those principles are. I think it has even opened the door in many instances because trust can be built through this notion: “Listen, I’m impartial. I talk to all sides in the conflict, and basically I am neutral.” I think that has allowed for some of these discussions and negotiations to proceed in a positive way.

KEVIN MALONEY: I think this is a moment to bring it back up for the audience. You have hit on this point that I think is lacking in political decision-making or discourse today, that values can either be very strongly held or they can be performative, but when they are executed upon you have a principle informed by that value, and the principles are the things that can last over decades or a career, so when you have a decision to make in an ethically gray or non-zero-sum environment that is your safety net and that is informed by a specific set of values.

Oftentimes, in politics, for example, and I will use the American example right now, my own research is looking at the value systems of certain people in power but being chameleons when it comes to their principles over certain amounts of time. A lot of times you will get this disconnect between values and principles, and principles become a political mask for a certain value system.

Thank you for so eloquently laying that out in terms of the need to connect the personal values with the principles of political action. I think a lot of the narrative battle we may be losing right now, those of us who care about these values, is that we are not showing them to be pragmatically political but also principled.

It has been great to talk to you today to naturally hear about how that comes to life. I appreciate you coming and speaking with us here at Carnegie Council.

GILLES MICHAUD: Thank you so much, Kevin. It was a pleasure.