Some companies are wise enough to seed teams with people who have this talent and inclination. Others even make teams entirely focused on this function; their job is generally to “grease the wheels” of everyday work so that little frictions don’t slow the company to a halt.

Unfortunately, since these people don’t directly bring in revenues, they are often first on the chopping block in tough times. Sadly too few companies realize that by firing force multipliers, they have done *far* more damage to the company than firing the same number of individual earners, since the latter have only an additive effect on profits, rather than a multiplicative one.