June 13, 2024 • 46 mins
Hard Truths About Soft Skills and Challenging People with Tommie Jo Brode
In this episode, Shane Dawson of Dinsmore and Shohl, LLP and Steve Armstrong of Armstrong Peake PLLC interview Tommie Jo Brode of Venice Solutions Group regarding soft skills and how to deal with challenging people in challenging situations.
Tommie is an attorney and consultant who focuses on workplace communication often between management and employees. Good communication can reduce litigation and costs for employers, both in the workers' compensation context and in the employment law context. Tommie graduated from Capital University Law School in Columbus, Ohio, and she works with clients regionally. Tommie represents clients regionally from offices in Ohio and Florida. She has defended employers in workers' compensation claims, along with EEOC, ADA, FMLA and other claims. She has also managed workers' compensation programs as well. You can find Tommie on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/tommie-jo-brode-469b1194/.
To learn more about DRI and the Workers' Compensation Committee visit www.DRI.org.
#DRILawyer
#DRICommunity
In this episode, Shane Dawson of Dinsmore and Shohl, LLP and Steve Armstrong of Armstrong Peake PLLC interview Tommie Jo Brode of Venice Solutions Group regarding soft skills and how to deal with challenging people in challenging situations.
Tommie is an attorney and consultant who focuses on workplace communication often between management and employees. Good communication can reduce litigation and costs for employers, both in the workers' compensation context and in the employment law context. Tommie graduated from Capital University Law School in Columbus, Ohio, and she works with clients regionally. Tommie represents clients regionally from offices in Ohio and Florida. She has defended employers in workers' compensation claims, along with EEOC, ADA, FMLA and other claims. She has also managed workers' compensation programs as well. You can find Tommie on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/tommie-jo-brode-469b1194/.
To learn more about DRI and the Workers' Compensation Committee visit www.DRI.org.
#DRILawyer
#DRICommunity
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:18):
Welcome everyone. Welcome to Conversations thatpodcast developed through dri I to explore topics
relating to workers' compensation, including workinjuries and the resulting litigation, as well
as future trends in every aspect inbetween. My name is Steve Arnstrong and
I'm licensed in the state of Kentucky. And our co host today is Shane
Dawson from Dinsmore and Show in Columbus, Ohio, and we are excited to
(00:43):
introduce our speaker today, Tommy JoeBrode, who's going to speak with us
about soft skills and how to dealwith people, including our own coworkers and
clients. Shane, how are youdoing today? Not bad? It's you
know, other than the immense amountof pollen that I seem to be inhaling
and sneezing out all the time rightnow. But I'll take this over thirty
(01:04):
five degrees any day. Same here. And Tommy, how are you doing?
I'm doing even better than that,not highly susceptible to Paulin and I'm
having a fantastic day so far.Thanks for asking. We'll try and keep
it fantastic. Well. Thanks forbeing on our podcast, and can you
tell our listeners about yourself, yourhistory, and what you're doing these days.
(01:26):
Sure, absolutely so. I aman Ohio attorney by trade. I've
been involved, specifically working full timein workers compensation almost continuously since I started
in nineteen ninety six. So mypath has included the ciding disputed workers complaims,
being a workers compensation defense attorney,practicing employment law, and elected county
(01:53):
commissioner, running some in house programsincluding disability and workers compensation. And then
in twenty twenty one, I foundedVenice Solutions Group and joined my own company
full time in twenty twenty two,and so now I do teaching, coaching,
(02:13):
consulting in the general areas of workerscompensation, occupational health, and human
resources. Very good, Tommy.I've seen you speak before about like hard
conversations and soft skills, and I'mcurious if you could tell us a little
bit about what the origin of thatidea was for you, and how do
(02:38):
you how do you broadly see thisapplying to folks like us, folks that
work in workers' compensation and defense.Sure, sure, good questions. So
I'm eternally looking for a way that'ssomewhere between clever and interesting to characterize things
that really are very important that Isee lacking. So I passed the bar
(03:02):
in nineteen ninety eight, and Iwas a traditional attorney for a very long
time doing some of the things Ijust talked about, and over and over
and over again, the pattern ofthings that came across my desk was similar,
and it was this, rarely isit the underlying problem. So for
example, the work injury itself orthe original EEOC infraction itself. Mostly it's
(03:29):
the response up to that. It'show it's handled. And you hear lots
of things in depositions that both ofyou know at least as well as I
do, like nobody paid attention tome, nobody cared about me. I
worked there for eleven years and Igot hurt and nobody even cared. And
so those kinds of things, andone hundred other examples made me say,
(03:52):
hmm, there's a better way todo this. We certainly need in the
way of help the attorneys that wecurrently have and the processes that we have,
but we can do better. Weas professionals, we as a group,
we need to focus more on whatwe historically called soft skills. It's
probably not a helpful name now becausethey're really critical skills. So I just
(04:15):
started calling it the hard truth aboutsoft skills, because the hard truth is,
don't call them that anymore. They'renecessaryss unless your business's success, your
organizational success is not a big deal. These skills are important than they are.
Well, and Tommy, I onlygraduated a couple of years ahead of
(04:36):
you in law school, but Idon't remember being taught anything about what you
would call soft skills in law school. Yeah, me, neither. Maybe
they do that now, but Idoubt it. Yeah, I also don't
remember that. So we had aclass called like counsel Negotiation that at least
(05:00):
alluded to the possibility that you mightnot be in a courtroom all day,
every day of your life. It'skind of the first time I heard of
the concept. But I think thesethings are not taught. But the good
news is, while there's some coachingand teaching to do, if we've gone
through the eighth grade, these reallyare skills that we have. But there
are things that we don't think about, we're not intentional about because we're busy.
(05:27):
So I mean, let me giveyou and let me give you a
real easy example. So we're talkingon zoom now, right, and if
during this call, if everyone couldsee me during this podcast, and I'm
still talking, but I immediately turnmy head away from the camera, and
you hear clicking sounds that sounds likeI'm typing all laptop. But I assure
(05:48):
you keep talking now. It's fine. I'm listening. My words tell you
that I'm paying attention, but everythingelse about my presentation says she could care
less. Her brain is somewhere else. And so those are the kinds of
things that really make problems expensive andreally on the human level, just trip
(06:09):
us up and move things in atrajectory that you may or may not be
able to recover from those simple behaviors. Yeah. The only thing that I
recall from law school being told abouthow to communicate was our first year being
told say it like a lawyer,which we all took to be mean,
and say it loud with your chestin an aggressive manner. Right, And
(06:33):
that's about it. Yeah. Yeah, I had a professor who I won't
mention. Somebody would give an answerin ordinary, everyday English, and he
would say, well, you can'tbuild for that. Say it better so
you know the folk, And Imean, I'm not disrespecting our profession.
But let's be honest with ourselves andour colleagues and our and our clients.
(06:56):
We are taught and encouraged to makethings sound complicated, and there's there can
be if we're not careful, areal arrogance about that. There's a fine
line between when do I sound smart? Which I sort of half jokingly call
shiny, But I'm only half jokingbecause we need to stop that when the
(07:17):
goal of clear communication is just that, it's to communicate. And so if
we start using a lot of technicalwords, let's assume that we know what
they mean, right, I hopewe do. But you know, you're
we're counselor, right, So whatdoes that mean? We're supposed to be
helping people? So all right,our mission is not as good as the
(07:38):
Red Cross, but we are supposedto help people. Are we helping people
if we're intentionally using jargon that theydon't understand, whether we're in litigation or
an administrative hearing, and it's tooyou know, we're to the person that
we are, a person that we'reopposing. Is that helpful if they don't
understand your question? Probably not.If you're talking to your client and you're
(08:01):
using a bunch of technical words thatthey don't understand. Maybe they're a younger
professional and they're reluctant to say,hey, Shane, time out. You're
super nice, but I don't havea clue what you're saying. You know,
everybody won't say that, and sowe haven't done anybody any good.
And then to follow our lead.You know, our clients are HR managers,
(08:24):
they are owners, they are EHSprofessionals, operations people. We need
to set that tone and show themby example what clear communication means. And
then part of my is mission isthat too strong of our word? See
if I call it my little missionhere. Part of that is to remind
(08:46):
attorneys or teach attorneys. Hey,look, yes you practice law right,
yes you give them legal advice,but you also have to teach your clients
how to interact with their employees.So if your client, the person that
you're dealing with, is a humanresource manager and they are abrupt and unclear,
(09:07):
and not only do they not havegood policies, but they write emails
that just give you a migraine atthe idea of it being your exhibit,
you need to tell them right becausethe news slash they don't that's not instinctive
to people. They don't know howto fix that unless you pull them aside.
And for the love of all that'sholy, please don't do it in
an email. There's a little freeadvice. But talk to them and tell
(09:31):
them, hey, look, Inoticed you use these word choices. Your
tone here could be construed as whatever, condescending, rude, like you've never
been to third grade, whatever,whatever it is, and help them clean
it up. It's rarely in myexperience, and I'm sure both of yours,
(09:52):
it's rarely about. Hey, thiscompany mail the hard copy, certified
letter to the employee that said youare horrible and we don't like you.
But where does this stuff happen?Where does this sort of culture breakdown happen?
Well, I think it happens alot in emails, happens a lot
in text messages. People get busy. They're not bad people, they're not
(10:13):
even unskilled people most of the time, but they're not intentional and they're not
focused on who is my reader?How will this come across? So you
know, if we know that afirst report of injury is maybe by shorthand
called a freud, at least ina lot of a lot of places,
a lot of states. If theEHS manager sends a text message to an
(10:37):
hourly operative person that just got hurtand says, did you complete the freud?
And that's the whole text. Thatis a fair question. That is
an important document. It's not thefirst question. It's not appropriate by text
message. You know, do theyeven know you? Do they know what
freud means? You know, letthem know that you were like acknowledging.
(11:01):
I guess at least, Hey,you got hurt. I'm sorry that you
got hurt at work. Sorry tohear that. I hope you're doing better.
I'm your contact. I'm going towalk you through this, you know,
very simple, like the opposite ofwhat Shane was just mentioning that we're
taught in law school, and that'sfor our clients, that's for us,
that's for anybody and everybody that interactswith this process. Those are the saft
(11:24):
skills that I think you'd be hardpressed to say this is not really an
issue, right, that everybody's doingthis well. But there's not right And
tell me, I think your missionis a great mission and it's perfect for
the day and age that we havehere. I will tell you. I
had a witness given deposition last week. She's an HR manager at a factory,
(11:48):
and she did great. The mainthing was on the front end of
the claim, she exhibited empathy forthis claimant plaintiff, injured worker. He
really did have an injury. Shedrove him to the er, and so
that that is, you know,very empathetic, very helpful, as part
of their policy, part of theirculture. I thought that was great,
(12:09):
as opposed to some people who say, well, they expected me to work
the rest of the day, theywouldn't take me, they refused this,
that and the other. You startout with that as the opening of the
claim. The HR manager drove theguy to the er because he had a
bad shoulder because he fell down atwork. That's there, you know,
(12:31):
that's great. And then of courseshe had the texts, she had emails
beyond that, but the main thingwas she exhibited empathy on the front end.
And to go back to your discussionon email and text it's like the
guy who hired me from my firstlawyer job said, you can expect anything
in writing to be blown up ontoa sheet of paper and then paraded in
(12:54):
front of a jury, blown ontoa poster board sized paper and prayed in
front of a jury in the courtroom. So you better watch what you
say and how you said exactly right, that's exactly right. How you know
what? What did? What didyou say? And do you want lots
of other people down the road,your boss, their boss, colleagues,
the newspaper, because once you putit writing, you lose control of it.
(13:18):
And that sounds dramatic, but it'strue, and it's probably a good
time to pause and confess that Iuh in in the trial once. I
actually did make poster board size,like the spongy background, so that it
won't wiggle when the juries look atjury trials. Five days took a series
of employment applications where she gave differentinformation on different ones. I did highlight
(13:39):
them giant size. So I'm justgoing to confess that right now. Me,
I'm those people right, We're awful. I don't know what to tell
you. So so in the samevein this uh in this very same case
last week the other side, youknow, I introduced some of the texts
(14:03):
in the emails as exhibits. Herequested all of those previously. So that's
the first thirty days at the claimyou know, a couple of months ago
that he requested everything inviting that hadbeen sent to the claimant and so we
already had to give those items up. Fortunately, all those texts were very
(14:24):
helpful, very positive. But youknow, text is a text is a
new thing to relatively a new thingto me as in only been doing it
in the past ten years. Today'skids are going up with text as the
main thing. I just think youmissed so much communication with text, especially
in the legal world where you canexpect to have that requested through discovery.
(14:48):
What are your thoughts on that?Yeah, So I think that's a great
point. And I have had occasiona couple of times recently to conduct workshops
that were captioned something like professional writing. And I had a really bright,
capable attorney who attended, which is, you know, a little bit unusual,
(15:09):
and she says, okay, Ihave to tell you. Uh.
Inside, I was sort of rollingmy eyes that what can anybody teach me
about, you know, written communicationand professional writing? Like I'm a lawyer
and this lady is really super smart, and she says, uh, I'm
paraphrasing, but she says, Ireally didn't think about like emails and text
messages. She says, I mean, I know that's that's written, But
(15:30):
she says, when I think aboutwritten communication, I'm thinking a court order,
a brief of you know, atraditional letter, but that that's a
big way that people communicate in theworkplace, particularly interactions with hourly operative workers.
Manufacturing and construction and road construction comeimmediately to mind. Right when you're
(15:52):
you're dealing with a lot of people, and supervisors might have bigger teams.
Somebody's calling off or may or maynot be you know, a recorded line
where we get all the information.That's great when we have that, but
a lot of times people are justtexting their supervisor won't be in today,
you know, So then we're goingback seven months later trying to find that
text and they called off and whyand what did they say and what did
(16:15):
they report? And you know,it might be tough to believe, just
sort of sitting in the comfort ofone's office listening to this genius podcast and
my dad, thanks for having me. What you know, why is a
text message important? But it isimportant and clients don't think of that,
and so that's our role to makesure that they understand. Hey, look
(16:37):
when we tell you to be nice. We don't just mean write a good
policy. You know, I wantyou to walk the walk. I want
you to call them. I seea lot of younger professionals that are way
better faster than me at a textmessage. And I'll give credit where credit's
due. But the fact of thematter is, when somebody is hurting,
(17:00):
whether that's physically or emotionally or whateverthe problem is, pick up the phone
and call that it is free.Please do it when we're interacting with people,
you know, in a compassionate way. You know you mentioned a minute
ago about just paying people, youknow, paying for the rest of the
(17:22):
day. I can't tell you howmany times I've had conversations about, well
do I have to pay them forthe rest of the day. Here's the
thing, I tell you, what, how many hours do you think you
would get out of one of thethree of us for what you could just
pay that person the rest of theday, call it two days, right,
I mean, it's just at somepoint, what are you doing here?
(17:44):
I get saving money. I likesaving money, you know, in
my life and in my business.I really try to be smart about that
because we all work hard for moneyand that's how good businesses run. But
at some point it's just foolish tosay I didn't want to pay them for
the rest of the day. Sureyou did. And if anybody's listening and
(18:04):
you don't have an attorney that youregularly work with, here's another free tip.
The first thing they'll tell you isjust pay them quit asking me this
stuff. So that's my two cents. So, Tommy, when you come
across somebody, whether it's a person, a team, maybe the entire organization,
(18:26):
and they don't even recognize that theircommunication skills or processes are deficient or
that that's the problem, how doyou How do you first identify this and
make them aware that this is somethingthat they need to look at and work
on. Sometimes it's easy to sayand hard to do. But here's usually
(18:49):
what I try. I start withtalking about, you know, what's our
policy versus what's our procedure? Andif people have some kind of policy or
hand book on any topic, theycan usually tell you where what dusty shelf
that lives? You know, hereit is and I say, okay,
that's great. So is that alsoyour practice? In other words, is
(19:10):
that how it goes? Oh?Yeah, we follow the policies. Well,
okay, great. So if Iwalked out to the shop floor or
the construction site right now and Iasked your team, hey, how does
this go? What happens when you, you know, get injured? Here?
Would the people tell me the samething that you're telling And then that's
when I often get an answer thatstarts with well, And of course we
(19:34):
all know if it starts with well, that's probably not good, right,
Nothing good ever follows that hesitation.So okay, maybe maybe there's some opportunity
for improvement in your culture. That'sa nice way. I try to say
it when I'm not all rouled up. That's how I say it. So
I have a little list that Ilike to show, maybe in a power
(19:56):
point or you know, a handout. I have a list of ways that
people traditionally communicate in the workplace.And it says an email, a text
message, post it note, telephone, call, in person call ways that
you communicate. And it's a prettygood list. And I say, is
this how you communicate in your workplace? Have I left off anything? Being
(20:21):
Typically people look at Nope, that'sa good list. That's a good list,
And so I show them the nextslide or the next page, and
it's that same list. And thenI have another column that says, tone,
glance, tears, body language,you know, all of these nonverbal
communications. And I say, doyou use any of these things in your
(20:42):
workplace or do you never see them? And usually a hush goes over the
room or the crowd. Oh yeah. And then I encourage people to think
about when something has gone really wrongat work. Forget just workers compensation for
a minute, any of us,any workplace, when something really goes sideways,
(21:02):
it's possible that it is a telephonecall where someone said you're awful and
I called to tell you why.Yeah, that stuff happens, but that's
a one off. Usually when thingsgo sideways, it's start with a whisper,
a tone, somebody didn't get invited, somebody said that, somebody said
I didn't like how he looked atme. Maybe I just take the depositions
(21:26):
of crazy people. But I've heardthat a lot, you know, And
I've heard it from clients a lot, and I've seen it in written witness
statements a lot. So those kindsof things, those are a huge component
of how we build culture, goodor bad. So I think it starts
with just awareness that we are prettymuch you know, if you're interacting with
(21:49):
a human, you are communicating.You may or may not be saying a
word, but you are absolutely communicatingsomething. So what you know, what
message do you want to here?If you're talking to somebody, are you
making eye contacts? And one ofthe things. And this is not super
popular, but you know, wehave a lot of teams in zoom,
(22:10):
which I think is great. Right, it's an efficient way. But people
don't turn their camera on. NowI get, but occasionally there's a reason
for that, right, you're you'reat a weird location, or you're sick
and under the weather. Okay,I get that, but most people,
most of the time, it's theworkday. Why is the camera off?
Why aren't you looking? Because ifI don't see you, I don't know
what you're doing. And then mymind begins to wonder, are you interested
(22:33):
in this? Are you doing somethingelse? What are you doing? Simple
example? And you know, forour listeners who are sticking with us through
this whole time, here, howmuch of your money have we spent with
any of these suggestions and tips sofar? None? Right? All these
things are they? They take time? And attention, and it's it's some
(22:55):
detail, but these are things thatare pretty free or key, right,
be intentional communicate with people. Soso Tom, okay, so what I
hear you saying this is so we'vedone a lot in that just to get
people or teams organizations to kind ofbuild, like you said, build that
(23:15):
awareness right where it's like, Okay, there's a lot of different ways that
we need to communicate and a lotof different opportunities and ways that that can
happen, some better than others.Once they have that awareness, though,
I they must have to identify,okay, well where are our holes,
(23:38):
where are the places that we're notdoing so well? And then how do
we how do we build that up? How do we improve that that area
or that skill? Any any advicethere? Yeah, I think it probably
depends on what what is the area, Like, is it a whole team
that's toxic? Is it one person? More often than not, I don't
(24:00):
think it's a bunch of personalities.But it's tough to find the emotional courage
sometimes to just prune the tree,you know. And sometimes if you have
an individual that's just they're just toxic. They may even be skilled, they
may be an otherwise good performer,but someone that's a chronic complainer. I
(24:23):
hope everybody deserves a chance like atalking to the phrase I heard when I
was growing up, Right, hey, look, you know your attitude is
not helpful, it's not appropriate.So starting with is it a person or
a couple people that are giving usa toxic work environment, we have to
find a courage to move them eithersomewhere else or out of our workplace,
(24:47):
those kind of things, and thenI think from there it's a matter of
rebuilding that team. People do muchbetter in terms of here's how I want
you to perform if you tell themwhat you want, right, Okay,
I want you to follow this.I want you to do that. So
and then the flip side of thatis we do better as those of us
(25:08):
who are handling workplaces when we understandwhat people need. So I think I
think meeting just to meet is mineand I don't think we want to do
that. But some meaningful conversations withour work teams, some well placed one
on one because people will talk oneon one differently than they will in a
group setting. Group setting, youhave one or two people that always talk.
(25:30):
Maybe they're brilliant. Maybe they're awful, but they're the people that always
talk, right. So if youhave a one on one, it gives
people a voice and you say like, how's it going? You may or
may not get a great answer.So you're a lawyer, so follow up,
right, well are you feeling stressedat work? How are you doing
with your colleagues? Do you seeanybody else in trouble that's struggling with their
(25:53):
workloads? You'll get all kinds offun answers to that one. And it
might be you know, not susieque because he doesn't do anything, you
know whatever, But just ask someopen ended questions. And it's not like
the Wizard of Oz, right,I'm here to grant your wish and give
you a pay Rick, No,it's just honest, earnest conversation. Fifteen
(26:14):
minutes goes a really long way,and I think we can have those types
of conversations with clients. You know, Hey, we're midway through the litigation
here, how are you feeling aboutthis? Have I answered your questions?
How are you doing? We arenot, as attorneys, taught to do
that, and I think many ofus, if we're honest, we're hesitant
(26:37):
to ask a client because if theysay anything other than here's my big,
long, wiggl question, we don'tknow what to say. I'm sorry,
you're not okay, but I'm notyour priest. You know, okay,
But but they're human beings, soI know my style a little flippant.
I don't know what to say you. But so we have to get better
at asking those things. And thereforeour clients as managers, you know,
(27:00):
the people that we're interacting with,we have to help them. Look at
you got to say to your team, what's going on, how's it going?
Here's what I expect you to do, and be specific and be clear,
teach them if they don't know,hold them accountable if they don't do
it. But then ask your staff, ask your team, how's it going,
what's going on out there? Youknow? I had a team for
(27:22):
a long while, a great teamthat I love working with. By the
way and the way my office wasconfigured, they were right outside my office,
but I couldn't physically see any ofit. There was a big window
and then a big wall, andI used to joke that I can't see
over the wall. I can't seeor hear over the wall, So I
only hear what I hear. Ionly know what you tell me. And
(27:42):
you know, I tried my bestto do a good job of saying what's
going on on the other side ofthe wall and just give people an opportunity
and be open, right, right, And so what I hear you saying
is, you know, developing relationships, you know, communicating with people one
on one also in group settings isvery important. And then that leads to,
(28:10):
uh, then bringing the problem toyou and being open and honest about
any problems that there may be.Are we on the right track there?
Yes, yes, I think so. And and when we have we have
those good processes, good good communicationpathways set up. You know, if
they're used to telling you whether theyhad a good weekend or a bad weekend
(28:30):
casually, right, I'm not sayingthe best friends and hey I got a
new puppy. And you know,if we have some civil interaction, people
are more likely to come and sayhere's a problem, or you're more likely
to notice maybe there's quiet, maybeit's what they're not saying. We see
that a lot as well. Allof a sudden, somebody's excluded, you
(28:52):
know. Unfortunately, I think it'smaybe this is a little bit beyond the
scope of workers comp report, butyou know, if you see some equal
opera tunity type infractions, that quietis something bad, and certainly that could
be because of a disability or youknow, post injury. This person's not
pulling their weight, and then everybodyquits talking to them. He's not helping
us anymore. Those you know,so, somebody's quiet and the team leader's
(29:17):
paying attention. Hey, this isnot normal for Stee. You know,
he's a little usually a little morepatty. What's up with that so and
so to go back to you know, the client setting with HR managers and
or you know, safety risk managersat the location. I like to go
there in person rather than doing zoombecause you get to me at least twice
(29:38):
as much information. When you showup and meet somebody in person at their
location. It makes them feel comfortable. People when I call them on the
phone, they tend to want toNobody wants to be on a phone with
the lawyer for a long time,right secon The second best, not the
second worst, thing is zoom,But really, to me, the best
(29:59):
thing is to go in person andmeet with them in any other witnesses on
one Fell swoop is so I canfigure the thing out. I agree.
So that is uh that com medicationin person, I think it's the best
way to go. Let me switchgears on. You. Have you seen
with claims representatives or employer representatives somepeople who are just not able to communicate
(30:22):
or just not able to do thejob. And if so, you know,
let's say you have do you advisean attorneys, specifically a young attorney
on how to deal with them?You know, what if the claims rep
or the employer rep is just notcalling them back? I think I know
this age. But yeah, that'shappening workers' compensation after other attorneys, not
us, not our clients. I'veseen this one or a thousand times.
(30:48):
Yes I have, And in factI've been the person. Not only have
I seen it, like you know, pretty recently when i'm sort of the
in between helping people and through processconsultant type, I've also been the attorney
that's banging my head against a walltrying to get other team members to cooperate.
And I think this is this issomething that it's pretty easy for me
(31:14):
to sit here on a podcast andsay here's what I think you should do.
But I want to start my answerby acknowledging how very hard it is
to do. And for me,and I think for other colleagues that I've
talked to, what makes it hardis you're balancing that reality of I don't
want to look like the one whocan't get along with their team. You
(31:34):
know, they hired me to bethe attorney. They didn't hire me to
quarterback their in house staff or toprovide employee evaluations on their GPA. You
know, they didn't ask, youknow, and I want to keep a
good relationship with clients. So wesort of feel like we should just keep
our head down and not cause aruckus and email out some brilliant legal advice.
(32:00):
The problem with that is, youknow, rightly or wrongly, as
attorneys we're kind of at the topof that food chain sometimes in terms of
expectations. You're a lawyer, youfigure it out. I mean, everybody
listening, raise your hand if you'venever heard that. I mean, we
hear that a lot. I don'tknow that it's fair, but we do.
So if things go sideways, besure that we will be blamed.
(32:22):
And so I don't think we wantto be harsh, but I think the
realistic approach. And if we're playingthe long game with clients, we have
to say to ourselves, you knowwhat, if it's a personality conflict,
Okay, I'll just deal with it. Maybe I don't like this person.
You know, if I'm the TPAand Shame's the attorney, he finds me
(32:45):
annoying, but I'm capable. Okay, he's just stuck with me. But
if it's the same scenario and I'mthe TPA and I don't ever return his
phone call, I don't ever givehim the information he wants. You know,
he has to drag me through themud to get me to do anything.
He has to copy the client everysingle time, and they're just uncooperative.
(33:06):
And he sees the work up ofthis. And it's not a TPA,
right, it's a person. Let'ssay it like it is. TPA
is a legal entity. They don'tdo anything if a claims person who's either
good or averager or at their drawat some point, if Shane doesn't say,
look, I'm here for you,I'm your attorney, I appreciate your
(33:28):
business. Your TPA is a goodTPA. But this Tommy person that they
have assigned. She's just not gettingthe job done. So I'd be happy
to come along beside you and helpher improve, if you think that's appropriate.
But I'm concerned that she's causing somechallenges that you and I won't be
able to get past. That's trickyto say, but if we don't,
(33:52):
I mean, if a ghost sideways, it's all Shane. He's bad.
He's a bad lawyer. That's justhow it goes. So that's my suggestion.
And I think, Tommy, whatyou're you're touching on something that I
mean, we've probably all of ushave dealt with that in one way or
another, you know, at differentpoints in our career. I guess as
(34:16):
we get towards the end of ourtime here, I'm curious, like specifically
for younger lawyers, whether it's it'sadvice like that about how to deal maybe
with a difficult claims adjuster or evenmore generally, but what specific advice in
(34:37):
the in the realm of this communicationwould you give to somebody who's relatively young
in terms of what things can theyfocus on that are they're going to get
the most return on investment. That'sa good question. I think you want
to make sure before you jump thegun, make sure you really are seeing
(35:00):
a pattern right, make sure it'snot your bad day or that it's not
just a bad case. But Ithink the more specific in terms of what
we're asking for. If we're goingto take something to a client and say,
hey, this is this person's notworking, think of it almost like
a deposition. How would you wantthat to read? So when you write
(35:22):
your and I'm not trying to playa gotcha game, but when you're writing
an email to them, be veryspecific, succinct, here's what I need,
here's when I need it. Sothat if you can put a couple
of those together and share them withyour client, then it's less about you
having the narrative and more about look, here's what I had. I wanted
to share this with you, SoI'm not you know, I'm just bringing
(35:45):
you the message. The content iswhat your person did or did not say,
because I think we get kind ofkind of pinned in the middle there.
Sometimes that's difficult and there's I mean, to be fair, most times
people do a great job. Weknow that there are partners we work with
them, but there are some thatthat that don't do a good job,
(36:05):
and do drop a ball, andI have as counsel and as an in
house administrator, I've worn both hats. I have asked to be reassigned clams
people. So as counsel, I'veflat out said to people, there's no
problem here that that you're going tofix unless you get rid of this person.
And as an in house person,I've said, like, look,
(36:28):
she's very nice. I try tomake it soft, right, I like
her, but but blah blah blah, got to get rid of this.
And I've just and i've and I'vealways given specific examples because I don't want
anybody to have the opportunity to sayit's just a personality conflict or you don't
like to appreciate this person's style.That's fair. In this claim, I
(36:49):
asked for this on this date.I didn't get it. In this claim,
I looked for this. I specificallyneeded whatever wages or whatever it was.
I didn't get it. I didn'tget an answer. I got an
answer eight days late, very veryspecific. So then, although I'm the
messenger, the content of what I'msaying isn't subjective words like they're unprofessional,
or they're unreliable, or they're unhelpful. I'm saying very specifically in this claim,
(37:14):
I didn't get information. In thisclaim, I got the information too
late, and then it sort ofspeaks for itself. I mean, that's
that's good. That's probably good,not just for the younger lawyers who are
out there. I mean that's somethingall of us should be listening to,
but certainly something for younger practitioners tothink about. Can you can you think
(37:37):
is there anything in particular for thoseof us a little more seasoned lessing maybe
to raise our level of awareness orthings where maybe we should we should be
concentrating that you've you've observed that weshould be thinking about in terms of improving
communication skills. Yeah, I thinkthat in in many fields, including all
(38:00):
of ours, being comfortable and becomingcomplacent is not our friend. And so
what I mean by that is sometimeswe forget or just don't think it's important
to ask questions because in our mind, we've seen this one hundred times.
I know the answer to that.You're probably right, and you probably do,
(38:23):
but you're a lawyer asks the question. Otherwise you're giving advice based on
something that you assume and you think, and then that takes a really long
time to unpack or unravel. Sothat's one suggestion I have, you know,
and I'm talking to myself when Isay that, Right, there's nothing
uninteresting about the work we do inoccupational health and workers' compensation. But it
(38:46):
does feel routine when you do itday in and day out. But they're
real people with real injuries, they'rereal business owners, and they're feeding their
very real family based on the revenueof this business. So we have to
remind ourselves to not take any ofthose things for granted. And then the
rest of it is, you know, we see young professionals coming behind us,
(39:09):
and maybe they are reluctant, solet's help them out. Let's ignore
that crazy game that we were toldin law school of being smart looks like
this, No, being smart meansjust being a good person sometimes just be
helpful, you know, if wedon't have to get credit for every single
thing, and if you observe asituation that maybe you have the confidence or
(39:34):
the skill or the moxie to beginto lead, or if you can pull
somebody aside and say, hey,here's just a suggestion for you, let's
do that. We don't need aformal mentor program to just be a decent
human. And I mean, don'tlook now, but there's not tons of
young people that want to do thejobs that we're all doing. I can't
imagine in light of all the glamour, but there's not. So let's just
(39:58):
try to do that, you know, Let's try and make it more appealing,
because it is a deal, becausewe are good people that look after
each other and behave professionally, andthen when we leave our computer there for
the day, we say, youknow what I did, good honest work,
and tell me that's great. Mynext question was going to be how
do we train young lawyers or youngclaims professionals? But I think you covered
(40:22):
it there. One thing I wantto come back to is one thing I'll
never forget from my law school graduationwas the commencement speaker. I don't know
what he was, the Kentucky BarAssociation president at the time. I can't
remember anything else he said, buthe did say one salient thing, which
was return phone calls, which hasbeen so true and so good for my
(40:45):
practice and really everyone I deal withwhen they return your phone call. Can
you think of anything else along thoselines that has stuck out in your memory
about what you learned as a youngerlawyer or even recently that a young attorney
or a young claims professional should knowsomething like that. Yeah, don't over
(41:06):
promise, don't over commit, Andthat probably goes for everybody, not just
young lawyers, but especially I thinkthe tendency is we want to please our
clients and we want to do agood job, right. We all want
to, especially me. I havea very competitive nature and I like winning
a lot, unapologetically, But youcan't get so rawled up in their story
(41:28):
that we're going to do this andwe're going to do that. It's not
a pep rally. It should notsound like one. And we want to
be very realistic and on the conservativeside of what an outcome will mean.
So for example, you know,we might all think of something as a
win if we won this claim,okay, but what does a win look
(41:51):
like If winning means they get theprivilege of fighting for twenty six months about
something and they spend the one hundredand eighty three thousand dollars in litigation fees,
But we won, I mean tomost business owners, not much of
a win, right, So Ithink we need to be clear about well
(42:12):
look, if we win, here'swhat winning will look like. This is
what you're going to go through.This is your time commitment, this is
your potential financial commitment. Here's someother options that I have for you.
And I'm not a fan of settling, just to you know, create a
lottery culture, particularly in workers compensation. I don't I really don't like settlements
with current employees. But depending onthe jurisdiction you're in. Frankly, some
(42:37):
of the jurisdictions for workers compensation,you're the employer. There is no one
Even if you win, it's aloss. I mean, it's just how
it is. Hat to be negative, but it's true. I think we
need to be realistic and set veryrealistic expectations with our clients of what I
can potentially accomplish. What are theother factors here, right, The claims
person how do they weigh in?The state makers? How do those play
(43:00):
in those kind of things? Tommy, one last question here. So we
talked about a bunch of different typesof communication. You talked about, you
know, the order attorney was like, well, I'm thinking about it in
terms of drafting a letter or abrief or something that's much more formal and
(43:22):
we've got a phone calls and thenwe're dealing with text and we're communicating today
over Zoom and this was something noneof us were doing five years ago.
Right, What do you see asbeing some of the biggest challenges to not
just individual lawyers but organizations in termsof kind of this evolving landscape of communication.
(43:45):
How do we do this well whenit seems like, you know,
the ground keeps shifting beneath us,and how we communicate? Yeah, that's
that's a really good question. AndI won't be arrogant enough to say why.
I'm glad you asked. Here's allthe answers, but I think some
of the answers are similar to inperson. It's to Steve's point, it's
(44:07):
never as good, right, Zoomwill never be as good as in person.
But it starts with turn on yourcamera, try your best to limit
weird background sounds, and you know, barking dogs if possible, you know,
those kinds of things, just toshow that we're feeling like work mode
here. And then when we canfollow up with people individually. I think
(44:34):
we don't want to sort of leavea Zoom meeting thinking, well, I
just talked to her I mean thatthat'd be like you know me, just
assuming the two would be well,I just talked to things. No,
the three of us had a conversationfor a particular fun but work related purpose.
We haven't talked about anything here abouthow's your job going, you know,
things in your personal life. Solet's don't blur those lines. You
(44:57):
know, I haven't seen you today, I haven't talked to you or participating
in a work meeting, and that'svery different. So in terms of keeping
channels open and building good human relationships, let's keep in mind that those are
different. And sometimes it might youknow, maybe you're in different cities.
I work with lots of people thatare in there. I mean, you
know, hundreds or thousand miles awaykind of stuff. But at least pick
(45:21):
up the phone and say, hey, you seemed a little quiet in that
zoom today. Everything okay? Orsend them an instant message. I'm just
following up. That was a lot, you know, another meeting that could
have been an email. But areyou doing okay? Do you have any
questions about that? I didn't meanto put you on the spot in that
meeting. Whatever the issues are,let's follow up with people and make sure
(45:44):
they're good. Tell me we've deperated. Well, yeah, tell me we've
got to wrap up. And canyou tell the listeners where and how they
can reach you if they want toreach out to you. Sure, absolutely
so. The website is Venice SolutionsGroup dot com or they can email me
(46:04):
anytime. Tommy T O, M, M, I E at Venice Solutionsgroup
dot com and find me on LinkedIn. Be happy to meet other people and
follow their journey and see what they'redoing out there. Thank you, Tommy,
Thank you so much for being withus today. Thanks for having me.
It was a lot of fun.Appreciate it.
Welcome everyone. Welcome to Conversations thatpodcast developed through dri I to explore topics
relating to workers' compensation, including workinjuries and the resulting litigation, as well
as future trends in every aspect inbetween. My name is Steve Arnstrong and
I'm licensed in the state of Kentucky. And our co host today is Shane
Dawson from Dinsmore and Show in Columbus, Ohio, and we are excited to
(00:43):
introduce our speaker today, Tommy JoeBrode, who's going to speak with us
about soft skills and how to dealwith people, including our own coworkers and
clients. Shane, how are youdoing today? Not bad? It's you
know, other than the immense amountof pollen that I seem to be inhaling
and sneezing out all the time rightnow. But I'll take this over thirty
(01:04):
five degrees any day. Same here. And Tommy, how are you doing?
I'm doing even better than that,not highly susceptible to Paulin and I'm
having a fantastic day so far.Thanks for asking. We'll try and keep
it fantastic. Well. Thanks forbeing on our podcast, and can you
tell our listeners about yourself, yourhistory, and what you're doing these days.
(01:26):
Sure, absolutely so. I aman Ohio attorney by trade. I've
been involved, specifically working full timein workers compensation almost continuously since I started
in nineteen ninety six. So mypath has included the ciding disputed workers complaims,
being a workers compensation defense attorney,practicing employment law, and elected county
(01:53):
commissioner, running some in house programsincluding disability and workers compensation. And then
in twenty twenty one, I foundedVenice Solutions Group and joined my own company
full time in twenty twenty two,and so now I do teaching, coaching,
(02:13):
consulting in the general areas of workerscompensation, occupational health, and human
resources. Very good, Tommy.I've seen you speak before about like hard
conversations and soft skills, and I'mcurious if you could tell us a little
bit about what the origin of thatidea was for you, and how do
(02:38):
you how do you broadly see thisapplying to folks like us, folks that
work in workers' compensation and defense.Sure, sure, good questions. So
I'm eternally looking for a way that'ssomewhere between clever and interesting to characterize things
that really are very important that Isee lacking. So I passed the bar
(03:02):
in nineteen ninety eight, and Iwas a traditional attorney for a very long
time doing some of the things Ijust talked about, and over and over
and over again, the pattern ofthings that came across my desk was similar,
and it was this, rarely isit the underlying problem. So for
example, the work injury itself orthe original EEOC infraction itself. Mostly it's
(03:29):
the response up to that. It'show it's handled. And you hear lots
of things in depositions that both ofyou know at least as well as I
do, like nobody paid attention tome, nobody cared about me. I
worked there for eleven years and Igot hurt and nobody even cared. And
so those kinds of things, andone hundred other examples made me say,
(03:52):
hmm, there's a better way todo this. We certainly need in the
way of help the attorneys that wecurrently have and the processes that we have,
but we can do better. Weas professionals, we as a group,
we need to focus more on whatwe historically called soft skills. It's
probably not a helpful name now becausethey're really critical skills. So I just
(04:15):
started calling it the hard truth aboutsoft skills, because the hard truth is,
don't call them that anymore. They'renecessaryss unless your business's success, your
organizational success is not a big deal. These skills are important than they are.
Well, and Tommy, I onlygraduated a couple of years ahead of
(04:36):
you in law school, but Idon't remember being taught anything about what you
would call soft skills in law school. Yeah, me, neither. Maybe
they do that now, but Idoubt it. Yeah, I also don't
remember that. So we had aclass called like counsel Negotiation that at least
(05:00):
alluded to the possibility that you mightnot be in a courtroom all day,
every day of your life. It'skind of the first time I heard of
the concept. But I think thesethings are not taught. But the good
news is, while there's some coachingand teaching to do, if we've gone
through the eighth grade, these reallyare skills that we have. But there
are things that we don't think about, we're not intentional about because we're busy.
(05:27):
So I mean, let me giveyou and let me give you a
real easy example. So we're talkingon zoom now, right, and if
during this call, if everyone couldsee me during this podcast, and I'm
still talking, but I immediately turnmy head away from the camera, and
you hear clicking sounds that sounds likeI'm typing all laptop. But I assure
(05:48):
you keep talking now. It's fine. I'm listening. My words tell you
that I'm paying attention, but everythingelse about my presentation says she could care
less. Her brain is somewhere else. And so those are the kinds of
things that really make problems expensive andreally on the human level, just trip
(06:09):
us up and move things in atrajectory that you may or may not be
able to recover from those simple behaviors. Yeah. The only thing that I
recall from law school being told abouthow to communicate was our first year being
told say it like a lawyer,which we all took to be mean,
and say it loud with your chestin an aggressive manner. Right, And
(06:33):
that's about it. Yeah. Yeah, I had a professor who I won't
mention. Somebody would give an answerin ordinary, everyday English, and he
would say, well, you can'tbuild for that. Say it better so
you know the folk, And Imean, I'm not disrespecting our profession.
But let's be honest with ourselves andour colleagues and our and our clients.
(06:56):
We are taught and encouraged to makethings sound complicated, and there's there can
be if we're not careful, areal arrogance about that. There's a fine
line between when do I sound smart? Which I sort of half jokingly call
shiny, But I'm only half jokingbecause we need to stop that when the
(07:17):
goal of clear communication is just that, it's to communicate. And so if
we start using a lot of technicalwords, let's assume that we know what
they mean, right, I hopewe do. But you know, you're
we're counselor, right, So whatdoes that mean? We're supposed to be
helping people? So all right,our mission is not as good as the
(07:38):
Red Cross, but we are supposedto help people. Are we helping people
if we're intentionally using jargon that theydon't understand, whether we're in litigation or
an administrative hearing, and it's tooyou know, we're to the person that
we are, a person that we'reopposing. Is that helpful if they don't
understand your question? Probably not.If you're talking to your client and you're
(08:01):
using a bunch of technical words thatthey don't understand. Maybe they're a younger
professional and they're reluctant to say,hey, Shane, time out. You're
super nice, but I don't havea clue what you're saying. You know,
everybody won't say that, and sowe haven't done anybody any good.
And then to follow our lead.You know, our clients are HR managers,
(08:24):
they are owners, they are EHSprofessionals, operations people. We need
to set that tone and show themby example what clear communication means. And
then part of my is mission isthat too strong of our word? See
if I call it my little missionhere. Part of that is to remind
(08:46):
attorneys or teach attorneys. Hey,look, yes you practice law right,
yes you give them legal advice,but you also have to teach your clients
how to interact with their employees.So if your client, the person that
you're dealing with, is a humanresource manager and they are abrupt and unclear,
(09:07):
and not only do they not havegood policies, but they write emails
that just give you a migraine atthe idea of it being your exhibit,
you need to tell them right becausethe news slash they don't that's not instinctive
to people. They don't know howto fix that unless you pull them aside.
And for the love of all that'sholy, please don't do it in
an email. There's a little freeadvice. But talk to them and tell
(09:31):
them, hey, look, Inoticed you use these word choices. Your
tone here could be construed as whatever, condescending, rude, like you've never
been to third grade, whatever,whatever it is, and help them clean
it up. It's rarely in myexperience, and I'm sure both of yours,
(09:52):
it's rarely about. Hey, thiscompany mail the hard copy, certified
letter to the employee that said youare horrible and we don't like you.
But where does this stuff happen?Where does this sort of culture breakdown happen?
Well, I think it happens alot in emails, happens a lot
in text messages. People get busy. They're not bad people, they're not
(10:13):
even unskilled people most of the time, but they're not intentional and they're not
focused on who is my reader?How will this come across? So you
know, if we know that afirst report of injury is maybe by shorthand
called a freud, at least ina lot of a lot of places,
a lot of states. If theEHS manager sends a text message to an
(10:37):
hourly operative person that just got hurtand says, did you complete the freud?
And that's the whole text. Thatis a fair question. That is
an important document. It's not thefirst question. It's not appropriate by text
message. You know, do theyeven know you? Do they know what
freud means? You know, letthem know that you were like acknowledging.
(11:01):
I guess at least, Hey,you got hurt. I'm sorry that you
got hurt at work. Sorry tohear that. I hope you're doing better.
I'm your contact. I'm going towalk you through this, you know,
very simple, like the opposite ofwhat Shane was just mentioning that we're
taught in law school, and that'sfor our clients, that's for us,
that's for anybody and everybody that interactswith this process. Those are the saft
(11:24):
skills that I think you'd be hardpressed to say this is not really an
issue, right, that everybody's doingthis well. But there's not right And
tell me, I think your missionis a great mission and it's perfect for
the day and age that we havehere. I will tell you. I
had a witness given deposition last week. She's an HR manager at a factory,
(11:48):
and she did great. The mainthing was on the front end of
the claim, she exhibited empathy forthis claimant plaintiff, injured worker. He
really did have an injury. Shedrove him to the er, and so
that that is, you know,very empathetic, very helpful, as part
of their policy, part of theirculture. I thought that was great,
(12:09):
as opposed to some people who say, well, they expected me to work
the rest of the day, theywouldn't take me, they refused this,
that and the other. You startout with that as the opening of the
claim. The HR manager drove theguy to the er because he had a
bad shoulder because he fell down atwork. That's there, you know,
(12:31):
that's great. And then of courseshe had the texts, she had emails
beyond that, but the main thingwas she exhibited empathy on the front end.
And to go back to your discussionon email and text it's like the
guy who hired me from my firstlawyer job said, you can expect anything
in writing to be blown up ontoa sheet of paper and then paraded in
(12:54):
front of a jury, blown ontoa poster board sized paper and prayed in
front of a jury in the courtroom. So you better watch what you
say and how you said exactly right, that's exactly right. How you know
what? What did? What didyou say? And do you want lots
of other people down the road,your boss, their boss, colleagues,
the newspaper, because once you putit writing, you lose control of it.
(13:18):
And that sounds dramatic, but it'strue, and it's probably a good
time to pause and confess that Iuh in in the trial once. I
actually did make poster board size,like the spongy background, so that it
won't wiggle when the juries look atjury trials. Five days took a series
of employment applications where she gave differentinformation on different ones. I did highlight
(13:39):
them giant size. So I'm justgoing to confess that right now. Me,
I'm those people right, We're awful. I don't know what to tell
you. So so in the samevein this uh in this very same case
last week the other side, youknow, I introduced some of the texts
(14:03):
in the emails as exhibits. Herequested all of those previously. So that's
the first thirty days at the claimyou know, a couple of months ago
that he requested everything inviting that hadbeen sent to the claimant and so we
already had to give those items up. Fortunately, all those texts were very
(14:24):
helpful, very positive. But youknow, text is a text is a
new thing to relatively a new thingto me as in only been doing it
in the past ten years. Today'skids are going up with text as the
main thing. I just think youmissed so much communication with text, especially
in the legal world where you canexpect to have that requested through discovery.
(14:48):
What are your thoughts on that?Yeah, So I think that's a great
point. And I have had occasiona couple of times recently to conduct workshops
that were captioned something like professional writing. And I had a really bright,
capable attorney who attended, which is, you know, a little bit unusual,
(15:09):
and she says, okay, Ihave to tell you. Uh.
Inside, I was sort of rollingmy eyes that what can anybody teach me
about, you know, written communicationand professional writing? Like I'm a lawyer
and this lady is really super smart, and she says, uh, I'm
paraphrasing, but she says, Ireally didn't think about like emails and text
messages. She says, I mean, I know that's that's written, But
(15:30):
she says, when I think aboutwritten communication, I'm thinking a court order,
a brief of you know, atraditional letter, but that that's a
big way that people communicate in theworkplace, particularly interactions with hourly operative workers.
Manufacturing and construction and road construction comeimmediately to mind. Right when you're
(15:52):
you're dealing with a lot of people, and supervisors might have bigger teams.
Somebody's calling off or may or maynot be you know, a recorded line
where we get all the information.That's great when we have that, but
a lot of times people are justtexting their supervisor won't be in today,
you know, So then we're goingback seven months later trying to find that
text and they called off and whyand what did they say and what did
(16:15):
they report? And you know,it might be tough to believe, just
sort of sitting in the comfort ofone's office listening to this genius podcast and
my dad, thanks for having me. What you know, why is a
text message important? But it isimportant and clients don't think of that,
and so that's our role to makesure that they understand. Hey, look
(16:37):
when we tell you to be nice. We don't just mean write a good
policy. You know, I wantyou to walk the walk. I want
you to call them. I seea lot of younger professionals that are way
better faster than me at a textmessage. And I'll give credit where credit's
due. But the fact of thematter is, when somebody is hurting,
(17:00):
whether that's physically or emotionally or whateverthe problem is, pick up the phone
and call that it is free.Please do it when we're interacting with people,
you know, in a compassionate way. You know you mentioned a minute
ago about just paying people, youknow, paying for the rest of the
(17:22):
day. I can't tell you howmany times I've had conversations about, well
do I have to pay them forthe rest of the day. Here's the
thing, I tell you, what, how many hours do you think you
would get out of one of thethree of us for what you could just
pay that person the rest of theday, call it two days, right,
I mean, it's just at somepoint, what are you doing here?
(17:44):
I get saving money. I likesaving money, you know, in
my life and in my business.I really try to be smart about that
because we all work hard for moneyand that's how good businesses run. But
at some point it's just foolish tosay I didn't want to pay them for
the rest of the day. Sureyou did. And if anybody's listening and
(18:04):
you don't have an attorney that youregularly work with, here's another free tip.
The first thing they'll tell you isjust pay them quit asking me this
stuff. So that's my two cents. So, Tommy, when you come
across somebody, whether it's a person, a team, maybe the entire organization,
(18:26):
and they don't even recognize that theircommunication skills or processes are deficient or
that that's the problem, how doyou How do you first identify this and
make them aware that this is somethingthat they need to look at and work
on. Sometimes it's easy to sayand hard to do. But here's usually
(18:49):
what I try. I start withtalking about, you know, what's our
policy versus what's our procedure? Andif people have some kind of policy or
hand book on any topic, theycan usually tell you where what dusty shelf
that lives? You know, hereit is and I say, okay,
that's great. So is that alsoyour practice? In other words, is
(19:10):
that how it goes? Oh?Yeah, we follow the policies. Well,
okay, great. So if Iwalked out to the shop floor or
the construction site right now and Iasked your team, hey, how does
this go? What happens when you, you know, get injured? Here?
Would the people tell me the samething that you're telling And then that's
when I often get an answer thatstarts with well, And of course we
(19:34):
all know if it starts with well, that's probably not good, right,
Nothing good ever follows that hesitation.So okay, maybe maybe there's some opportunity
for improvement in your culture. That'sa nice way. I try to say
it when I'm not all rouled up. That's how I say it. So
I have a little list that Ilike to show, maybe in a power
(19:56):
point or you know, a handout. I have a list of ways that
people traditionally communicate in the workplace.And it says an email, a text
message, post it note, telephone, call, in person call ways that
you communicate. And it's a prettygood list. And I say, is
this how you communicate in your workplace? Have I left off anything? Being
(20:21):
Typically people look at Nope, that'sa good list. That's a good list,
And so I show them the nextslide or the next page, and
it's that same list. And thenI have another column that says, tone,
glance, tears, body language,you know, all of these nonverbal
communications. And I say, doyou use any of these things in your
(20:42):
workplace or do you never see them? And usually a hush goes over the
room or the crowd. Oh yeah. And then I encourage people to think
about when something has gone really wrongat work. Forget just workers compensation for
a minute, any of us,any workplace, when something really goes sideways,
(21:02):
it's possible that it is a telephonecall where someone said you're awful and
I called to tell you why.Yeah, that stuff happens, but that's
a one off. Usually when thingsgo sideways, it's start with a whisper,
a tone, somebody didn't get invited, somebody said that, somebody said
I didn't like how he looked atme. Maybe I just take the depositions
(21:26):
of crazy people. But I've heardthat a lot, you know, And
I've heard it from clients a lot, and I've seen it in written witness
statements a lot. So those kindsof things, those are a huge component
of how we build culture, goodor bad. So I think it starts
with just awareness that we are prettymuch you know, if you're interacting with
(21:49):
a human, you are communicating.You may or may not be saying a
word, but you are absolutely communicatingsomething. So what you know, what
message do you want to here?If you're talking to somebody, are you
making eye contacts? And one ofthe things. And this is not super
popular, but you know, wehave a lot of teams in zoom,
(22:10):
which I think is great. Right, it's an efficient way. But people
don't turn their camera on. NowI get, but occasionally there's a reason
for that, right, you're you'reat a weird location, or you're sick
and under the weather. Okay,I get that, but most people,
most of the time, it's theworkday. Why is the camera off?
Why aren't you looking? Because ifI don't see you, I don't know
what you're doing. And then mymind begins to wonder, are you interested
(22:33):
in this? Are you doing somethingelse? What are you doing? Simple
example? And you know, forour listeners who are sticking with us through
this whole time, here, howmuch of your money have we spent with
any of these suggestions and tips sofar? None? Right? All these
things are they? They take time? And attention, and it's it's some
(22:55):
detail, but these are things thatare pretty free or key, right,
be intentional communicate with people. Soso Tom, okay, so what I
hear you saying this is so we'vedone a lot in that just to get
people or teams organizations to kind ofbuild, like you said, build that
(23:15):
awareness right where it's like, Okay, there's a lot of different ways that
we need to communicate and a lotof different opportunities and ways that that can
happen, some better than others.Once they have that awareness, though,
I they must have to identify,okay, well where are our holes,
(23:38):
where are the places that we're notdoing so well? And then how do
we how do we build that up? How do we improve that that area
or that skill? Any any advicethere? Yeah, I think it probably
depends on what what is the area, Like, is it a whole team
that's toxic? Is it one person? More often than not, I don't
(24:00):
think it's a bunch of personalities.But it's tough to find the emotional courage
sometimes to just prune the tree,you know. And sometimes if you have
an individual that's just they're just toxic. They may even be skilled, they
may be an otherwise good performer,but someone that's a chronic complainer. I
(24:23):
hope everybody deserves a chance like atalking to the phrase I heard when I
was growing up, Right, hey, look, you know your attitude is
not helpful, it's not appropriate.So starting with is it a person or
a couple people that are giving usa toxic work environment, we have to
find a courage to move them eithersomewhere else or out of our workplace,
(24:47):
those kind of things, and thenI think from there it's a matter of
rebuilding that team. People do muchbetter in terms of here's how I want
you to perform if you tell themwhat you want, right, Okay,
I want you to follow this.I want you to do that. So
and then the flip side of thatis we do better as those of us
(25:08):
who are handling workplaces when we understandwhat people need. So I think I
think meeting just to meet is mineand I don't think we want to do
that. But some meaningful conversations withour work teams, some well placed one
on one because people will talk oneon one differently than they will in a
group setting. Group setting, youhave one or two people that always talk.
(25:30):
Maybe they're brilliant. Maybe they're awful, but they're the people that always
talk, right. So if youhave a one on one, it gives
people a voice and you say like, how's it going? You may or
may not get a great answer.So you're a lawyer, so follow up,
right, well are you feeling stressedat work? How are you doing
with your colleagues? Do you seeanybody else in trouble that's struggling with their
(25:53):
workloads? You'll get all kinds offun answers to that one. And it
might be you know, not susieque because he doesn't do anything, you
know whatever, But just ask someopen ended questions. And it's not like
the Wizard of Oz, right,I'm here to grant your wish and give
you a pay Rick, No,it's just honest, earnest conversation. Fifteen
(26:14):
minutes goes a really long way,and I think we can have those types
of conversations with clients. You know, Hey, we're midway through the litigation
here, how are you feeling aboutthis? Have I answered your questions?
How are you doing? We arenot, as attorneys, taught to do
that, and I think many ofus, if we're honest, we're hesitant
(26:37):
to ask a client because if theysay anything other than here's my big,
long, wiggl question, we don'tknow what to say. I'm sorry,
you're not okay, but I'm notyour priest. You know, okay,
But but they're human beings, soI know my style a little flippant.
I don't know what to say you. But so we have to get better
at asking those things. And thereforeour clients as managers, you know,
(27:00):
the people that we're interacting with,we have to help them. Look at
you got to say to your team, what's going on, how's it going?
Here's what I expect you to do, and be specific and be clear,
teach them if they don't know,hold them accountable if they don't do
it. But then ask your staff, ask your team, how's it going,
what's going on out there? Youknow? I had a team for
(27:22):
a long while, a great teamthat I love working with. By the
way and the way my office wasconfigured, they were right outside my office,
but I couldn't physically see any ofit. There was a big window
and then a big wall, andI used to joke that I can't see
over the wall. I can't seeor hear over the wall, So I
only hear what I hear. Ionly know what you tell me. And
(27:42):
you know, I tried my bestto do a good job of saying what's
going on on the other side ofthe wall and just give people an opportunity
and be open, right, right, And so what I hear you saying
is, you know, developing relationships, you know, communicating with people one
on one also in group settings isvery important. And then that leads to,
(28:10):
uh, then bringing the problem toyou and being open and honest about
any problems that there may be.Are we on the right track there?
Yes, yes, I think so. And and when we have we have
those good processes, good good communicationpathways set up. You know, if
they're used to telling you whether theyhad a good weekend or a bad weekend
(28:30):
casually, right, I'm not sayingthe best friends and hey I got a
new puppy. And you know,if we have some civil interaction, people
are more likely to come and sayhere's a problem, or you're more likely
to notice maybe there's quiet, maybeit's what they're not saying. We see
that a lot as well. Allof a sudden, somebody's excluded, you
(28:52):
know. Unfortunately, I think it'smaybe this is a little bit beyond the
scope of workers comp report, butyou know, if you see some equal
opera tunity type infractions, that quietis something bad, and certainly that could
be because of a disability or youknow, post injury. This person's not
pulling their weight, and then everybodyquits talking to them. He's not helping
us anymore. Those you know,so, somebody's quiet and the team leader's
(29:17):
paying attention. Hey, this isnot normal for Stee. You know,
he's a little usually a little morepatty. What's up with that so and
so to go back to you know, the client setting with HR managers and
or you know, safety risk managersat the location. I like to go
there in person rather than doing zoombecause you get to me at least twice
(29:38):
as much information. When you showup and meet somebody in person at their
location. It makes them feel comfortable. People when I call them on the
phone, they tend to want toNobody wants to be on a phone with
the lawyer for a long time,right secon The second best, not the
second worst, thing is zoom,But really, to me, the best
(29:59):
thing is to go in person andmeet with them in any other witnesses on
one Fell swoop is so I canfigure the thing out. I agree.
So that is uh that com medicationin person, I think it's the best
way to go. Let me switchgears on. You. Have you seen
with claims representatives or employer representatives somepeople who are just not able to communicate
(30:22):
or just not able to do thejob. And if so, you know,
let's say you have do you advisean attorneys, specifically a young attorney
on how to deal with them?You know, what if the claims rep
or the employer rep is just notcalling them back? I think I know
this age. But yeah, that'shappening workers' compensation after other attorneys, not
us, not our clients. I'veseen this one or a thousand times.
(30:48):
Yes I have, And in factI've been the person. Not only have
I seen it, like you know, pretty recently when i'm sort of the
in between helping people and through processconsultant type, I've also been the attorney
that's banging my head against a walltrying to get other team members to cooperate.
And I think this is this issomething that it's pretty easy for me
(31:14):
to sit here on a podcast andsay here's what I think you should do.
But I want to start my answerby acknowledging how very hard it is
to do. And for me,and I think for other colleagues that I've
talked to, what makes it hardis you're balancing that reality of I don't
want to look like the one whocan't get along with their team. You
(31:34):
know, they hired me to bethe attorney. They didn't hire me to
quarterback their in house staff or toprovide employee evaluations on their GPA. You
know, they didn't ask, youknow, and I want to keep a
good relationship with clients. So wesort of feel like we should just keep
our head down and not cause aruckus and email out some brilliant legal advice.
(32:00):
The problem with that is, youknow, rightly or wrongly, as
attorneys we're kind of at the topof that food chain sometimes in terms of
expectations. You're a lawyer, youfigure it out. I mean, everybody
listening, raise your hand if you'venever heard that. I mean, we
hear that a lot. I don'tknow that it's fair, but we do.
So if things go sideways, besure that we will be blamed.
(32:22):
And so I don't think we wantto be harsh, but I think the
realistic approach. And if we're playingthe long game with clients, we have
to say to ourselves, you knowwhat, if it's a personality conflict,
Okay, I'll just deal with it. Maybe I don't like this person.
You know, if I'm the TPAand Shame's the attorney, he finds me
(32:45):
annoying, but I'm capable. Okay, he's just stuck with me. But
if it's the same scenario and I'mthe TPA and I don't ever return his
phone call, I don't ever givehim the information he wants. You know,
he has to drag me through themud to get me to do anything.
He has to copy the client everysingle time, and they're just uncooperative.
(33:06):
And he sees the work up ofthis. And it's not a TPA,
right, it's a person. Let'ssay it like it is. TPA
is a legal entity. They don'tdo anything if a claims person who's either
good or averager or at their drawat some point, if Shane doesn't say,
look, I'm here for you,I'm your attorney, I appreciate your
(33:28):
business. Your TPA is a goodTPA. But this Tommy person that they
have assigned. She's just not gettingthe job done. So I'd be happy
to come along beside you and helpher improve, if you think that's appropriate.
But I'm concerned that she's causing somechallenges that you and I won't be
able to get past. That's trickyto say, but if we don't,
(33:52):
I mean, if a ghost sideways, it's all Shane. He's bad.
He's a bad lawyer. That's justhow it goes. So that's my suggestion.
And I think, Tommy, whatyou're you're touching on something that I
mean, we've probably all of ushave dealt with that in one way or
another, you know, at differentpoints in our career. I guess as
(34:16):
we get towards the end of ourtime here, I'm curious, like specifically
for younger lawyers, whether it's it'sadvice like that about how to deal maybe
with a difficult claims adjuster or evenmore generally, but what specific advice in
(34:37):
the in the realm of this communicationwould you give to somebody who's relatively young
in terms of what things can theyfocus on that are they're going to get
the most return on investment. That'sa good question. I think you want
to make sure before you jump thegun, make sure you really are seeing
(35:00):
a pattern right, make sure it'snot your bad day or that it's not
just a bad case. But Ithink the more specific in terms of what
we're asking for. If we're goingto take something to a client and say,
hey, this is this person's notworking, think of it almost like
a deposition. How would you wantthat to read? So when you write
(35:22):
your and I'm not trying to playa gotcha game, but when you're writing
an email to them, be veryspecific, succinct, here's what I need,
here's when I need it. Sothat if you can put a couple
of those together and share them withyour client, then it's less about you
having the narrative and more about look, here's what I had. I wanted
to share this with you, SoI'm not you know, I'm just bringing
(35:45):
you the message. The content iswhat your person did or did not say,
because I think we get kind ofkind of pinned in the middle there.
Sometimes that's difficult and there's I mean, to be fair, most times
people do a great job. Weknow that there are partners we work with
them, but there are some thatthat that don't do a good job,
(36:05):
and do drop a ball, andI have as counsel and as an in
house administrator, I've worn both hats. I have asked to be reassigned clams
people. So as counsel, I'veflat out said to people, there's no
problem here that that you're going tofix unless you get rid of this person.
And as an in house person,I've said, like, look,
(36:28):
she's very nice. I try tomake it soft, right, I like
her, but but blah blah blah, got to get rid of this.
And I've just and i've and I'vealways given specific examples because I don't want
anybody to have the opportunity to sayit's just a personality conflict or you don't
like to appreciate this person's style.That's fair. In this claim, I
(36:49):
asked for this on this date.I didn't get it. In this claim,
I looked for this. I specificallyneeded whatever wages or whatever it was.
I didn't get it. I didn'tget an answer. I got an
answer eight days late, very veryspecific. So then, although I'm the
messenger, the content of what I'msaying isn't subjective words like they're unprofessional,
or they're unreliable, or they're unhelpful. I'm saying very specifically in this claim,
(37:14):
I didn't get information. In thisclaim, I got the information too
late, and then it sort ofspeaks for itself. I mean, that's
that's good. That's probably good,not just for the younger lawyers who are
out there. I mean that's somethingall of us should be listening to,
but certainly something for younger practitioners tothink about. Can you can you think
(37:37):
is there anything in particular for thoseof us a little more seasoned lessing maybe
to raise our level of awareness orthings where maybe we should we should be
concentrating that you've you've observed that weshould be thinking about in terms of improving
communication skills. Yeah, I thinkthat in in many fields, including all
(38:00):
of ours, being comfortable and becomingcomplacent is not our friend. And so
what I mean by that is sometimeswe forget or just don't think it's important
to ask questions because in our mind, we've seen this one hundred times.
I know the answer to that.You're probably right, and you probably do,
(38:23):
but you're a lawyer asks the question. Otherwise you're giving advice based on
something that you assume and you think, and then that takes a really long
time to unpack or unravel. Sothat's one suggestion I have, you know,
and I'm talking to myself when Isay that, Right, there's nothing
uninteresting about the work we do inoccupational health and workers' compensation. But it
(38:46):
does feel routine when you do itday in and day out. But they're
real people with real injuries, they'rereal business owners, and they're feeding their
very real family based on the revenueof this business. So we have to
remind ourselves to not take any ofthose things for granted. And then the
rest of it is, you know, we see young professionals coming behind us,
(39:09):
and maybe they are reluctant, solet's help them out. Let's ignore
that crazy game that we were toldin law school of being smart looks like
this, No, being smart meansjust being a good person sometimes just be
helpful, you know, if wedon't have to get credit for every single
thing, and if you observe asituation that maybe you have the confidence or
(39:34):
the skill or the moxie to beginto lead, or if you can pull
somebody aside and say, hey,here's just a suggestion for you, let's
do that. We don't need aformal mentor program to just be a decent
human. And I mean, don'tlook now, but there's not tons of
young people that want to do thejobs that we're all doing. I can't
imagine in light of all the glamour, but there's not. So let's just
(39:58):
try to do that, you know, Let's try and make it more appealing,
because it is a deal, becausewe are good people that look after
each other and behave professionally, andthen when we leave our computer there for
the day, we say, youknow what I did, good honest work,
and tell me that's great. Mynext question was going to be how
do we train young lawyers or youngclaims professionals? But I think you covered
(40:22):
it there. One thing I wantto come back to is one thing I'll
never forget from my law school graduationwas the commencement speaker. I don't know
what he was, the Kentucky BarAssociation president at the time. I can't
remember anything else he said, buthe did say one salient thing, which
was return phone calls, which hasbeen so true and so good for my
(40:45):
practice and really everyone I deal withwhen they return your phone call. Can
you think of anything else along thoselines that has stuck out in your memory
about what you learned as a youngerlawyer or even recently that a young attorney
or a young claims professional should knowsomething like that. Yeah, don't over
(41:06):
promise, don't over commit, Andthat probably goes for everybody, not just
young lawyers, but especially I thinkthe tendency is we want to please our
clients and we want to do agood job, right. We all want
to, especially me. I havea very competitive nature and I like winning
a lot, unapologetically, But youcan't get so rawled up in their story
(41:28):
that we're going to do this andwe're going to do that. It's not
a pep rally. It should notsound like one. And we want to
be very realistic and on the conservativeside of what an outcome will mean.
So for example, you know,we might all think of something as a
win if we won this claim,okay, but what does a win look
(41:51):
like If winning means they get theprivilege of fighting for twenty six months about
something and they spend the one hundredand eighty three thousand dollars in litigation fees,
But we won, I mean tomost business owners, not much of
a win, right, So Ithink we need to be clear about well
(42:12):
look, if we win, here'swhat winning will look like. This is
what you're going to go through.This is your time commitment, this is
your potential financial commitment. Here's someother options that I have for you.
And I'm not a fan of settling, just to you know, create a
lottery culture, particularly in workers compensation. I don't I really don't like settlements
with current employees. But depending onthe jurisdiction you're in. Frankly, some
(42:37):
of the jurisdictions for workers compensation,you're the employer. There is no one
Even if you win, it's aloss. I mean, it's just how
it is. Hat to be negative, but it's true. I think we
need to be realistic and set veryrealistic expectations with our clients of what I
can potentially accomplish. What are theother factors here, right, The claims
person how do they weigh in?The state makers? How do those play
(43:00):
in those kind of things? Tommy, one last question here. So we
talked about a bunch of different typesof communication. You talked about, you
know, the order attorney was like, well, I'm thinking about it in
terms of drafting a letter or abrief or something that's much more formal and
(43:22):
we've got a phone calls and thenwe're dealing with text and we're communicating today
over Zoom and this was something noneof us were doing five years ago.
Right, What do you see asbeing some of the biggest challenges to not
just individual lawyers but organizations in termsof kind of this evolving landscape of communication.
(43:45):
How do we do this well whenit seems like, you know,
the ground keeps shifting beneath us,and how we communicate? Yeah, that's
that's a really good question. AndI won't be arrogant enough to say why.
I'm glad you asked. Here's allthe answers, but I think some
of the answers are similar to inperson. It's to Steve's point, it's
(44:07):
never as good, right, Zoomwill never be as good as in person.
But it starts with turn on yourcamera, try your best to limit
weird background sounds, and you know, barking dogs if possible, you know,
those kinds of things, just toshow that we're feeling like work mode
here. And then when we canfollow up with people individually. I think
(44:34):
we don't want to sort of leavea Zoom meeting thinking, well, I
just talked to her I mean thatthat'd be like you know me, just
assuming the two would be well,I just talked to things. No,
the three of us had a conversationfor a particular fun but work related purpose.
We haven't talked about anything here abouthow's your job going, you know,
things in your personal life. Solet's don't blur those lines. You
(44:57):
know, I haven't seen you today, I haven't talked to you or participating
in a work meeting, and that'svery different. So in terms of keeping
channels open and building good human relationships, let's keep in mind that those are
different. And sometimes it might youknow, maybe you're in different cities.
I work with lots of people thatare in there. I mean, you
know, hundreds or thousand miles awaykind of stuff. But at least pick
(45:21):
up the phone and say, hey, you seemed a little quiet in that
zoom today. Everything okay? Orsend them an instant message. I'm just
following up. That was a lot, you know, another meeting that could
have been an email. But areyou doing okay? Do you have any
questions about that? I didn't meanto put you on the spot in that
meeting. Whatever the issues are,let's follow up with people and make sure
(45:44):
they're good. Tell me we've deperated. Well, yeah, tell me we've
got to wrap up. And canyou tell the listeners where and how they
can reach you if they want toreach out to you. Sure, absolutely
so. The website is Venice SolutionsGroup dot com or they can email me
(46:04):
anytime. Tommy T O, M, M, I E at Venice Solutionsgroup
dot com and find me on LinkedIn. Be happy to meet other people and
follow their journey and see what they'redoing out there. Thank you, Tommy,
Thank you so much for being withus today. Thanks for having me.
It was a lot of fun.Appreciate it.
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