August 20, 2024 • 59 mins
This week on Conflict Managed we are joined by award-winning attorney Jessica Childress.
Join us as we discuss:
🏆Avoiding impulsive reactions to leaving a difficult work environment
🏆Developing courage to address difficult work situations
🏆Supporting colleagues by lending your courage to them
🏆Always leading with respect
🏆Managed conflict fuels innovation
Jessica Childress is the author of Peace: Leaving a Toxic Workplace on Your Own Terms.  Ms. Childress has practiced employment law for over eleven years, representing organizations of all sizes and individuals in employment law matters. She is the Managing Attorney of the Childress Firm PLLC, a boutique employment law firm, based in Washington, D.C.
Ms. Childress holds a Bachelor of Arts in Government and African American Studies from the University of Virginia and a Juris Doctor from the University of Virginia School of Law. Ms. Childress graduated Phi Beta Kappa and with High Distinction from the University of Virginia in 2007.
Prior to launching the Childress Firm PLLC, Ms. Childress served as an associate at two global law firms and as an attorney at the United States Department of Justice.Â
Ms. Childress has litigated retaliation, discrimination, sexual harassment, non-competition, trade secret, unfair labor practice, and whistleblower cases before various tribunals. She serves clients in general business transactions with employees and independent contractors. Ms. Childress drafts agreements such as employment agreements, consulting agreements, severance agreements, and confidentiality agreements.
She has been the recipient of several honors, including the National Bar Association’s 2018 Young Lawyer of the Year Award, the Washington Bar Association’s 2017-2018 Young Lawyer of the Year Award, the National Bar Association’s 40 under 40 Best Advocates Award, the Kim Keenan Leadership & Advocacy Award, the Greater Washington Area Chapter of the National Bar Association’s Rising Star Award, and recognition by the National Black Lawyers as one of the top 100 black attorneys. In 2022, Ms. Childress received the Women Owned Law organization’s Woman Legal Entrepreneur of the Year Award. Ms. Childress has been named to the 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023 Washington, D.C. Super Lawyers Rising Stars lists. Only 2.5% of practicing attorneys in Washington, D.C. are selected to receive this honor.
Ms. Childress is a 2022 graduate of the Aspen Institute’s Justice and Society program. Ms. Childress serves as a contributor for Arianna Huffington’s international media outlet, Thrive Global. She has been featured in numerous publications, including Forbes, Essence, the Huffington Post, Success, and Entrepreneur.
Conflict Managed is hosted by Merry Brown and produced by Third Party Workplace Conflict Restoration Services.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Music.
(00:25):
Welcome to Conflict Managed. I'm your host, Merry Brown.
This week on Conflict Managed, we welcome back Jessica Childress.
Jessica is the author of Peace, Leaving a Toxic Work Environment on Your Own
Terms, and an award-winning attorney.
Jessica has practiced employment law for over 11 years, representing organizations
of all sizes and individuals in employment law matters.
(00:47):
She is the managing attorney of Childress Firm, PLLC, boutique law firm based in Washington, D.C.
Jessica holds a Bachelor of Arts in Government and African American Studies
from the University of Virginia and a Juris Doctorate from the University of Virginia School of Law.
Prior to launching the children's firm PLLC, Jessica served as an associate
(01:08):
at two global law firms and as an attorney at the United States Department of Justice.
Jessica has litigated retaliation, discrimination, sexual harassment,
non-competition, unfair labor practices, and whistleblower cases before various tribunals.
She serves clients in general business transactions with employees and independent contractors.
(01:28):
Jessica has been the recipient of many awards, including the National Bar Association's
2018 Young Lawyer of the Year Award, the Washington Bar Association's 2017-2018
Young Lawyer of the Year Award,
the National Bar Association's 40 Under 40 Best Advocate Award,
the Kim Keenan Leadership and Advocacy Award, the Greater Washington Area Chapter
(01:52):
of the National Bar Association Rising Star Award, and recognition by the National
Black Lawyers as one of the top 100 Black attorneys.
In 2020, Jessica received the
Women-Owned Law Organization's Woman Legal Entrepreneur of the Year Award.
Jessica is a 2022 graduate of the Aspen Institute's Justice and Society Program.
Jessica serves as a contributor for Arianna Huffington's international media
(02:17):
outlet, Thrive Global. She has been featured in numerous publications,
including Forbes, Essence, Huffington Post, Success, and Entrepreneur.
Good morning, Jessica, and welcome back to Conflict Managed.
Good morning, Merry. Thank you so much for having me back. It's so great to see you.
Oh, it's wonderful to see you
again and to get to chat with you and talk about what you've been up to.
(02:39):
Some of it I know because we were both with Vanguard Voices International Summit
for Speak Up for Psychological Safety at Work.
We both spoke at that and I know we're both passionate about healthy work environments.
That's right, Merry. That was a wonderful, wonderful summit. And thank you very
much for attending my talk.
I really appreciate it. And I'm just so happy to be back with you today.
(03:01):
Absolutely. And so today, one thing I want to highlight is talking about the
course that you have delivered for people called Peace, Leaving a Toxic Work
Environment on Your Own Terms.
I think so much of when people are in difficult situations,
and we both know that people have real pain and difficulties and toxic work
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environments that rise to the level of illegal work environments.
And when people are in these environments, a lot of times they just are lost.
They don't know what to do or what to turn to.
And I've been through your course, and I think it's such a wonderful way to
start that process of figuring out what is actually going on.
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What are my next steps? What do I need to move forward? Because a lot of times,
as you know, when we're in these bad environments, we feel stuck and we just are overwhelmed.
Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, that's the reason why I created this course,
because I'm an employment lawyer.
People call my office or contact my office in some way every day.
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And the reason people call my office is because they don't know where to start.
So education is so important.
I'm a lawyer. I've been trained in this field. I've been practicing employment law since 2011.
And lawyers have to go through continuing legal education credits every year
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to keep my bar license active. Now, that allows me to dig deeply into very, very complex topics.
And that takes an investment of time and money.
And the person coming to me, they could be from any industry.
They haven't. But if they're coming to me, they're typically not lawyers or
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employment lawyers at that.
And so I wanted to provide an educational piece that really just crystallized
the key, the major employment issues and key employment issues that I see frequently.
Discrimination, harassment, retaliation. What does that actually mean under the law?
And I wanted people to be able to look at those laws and understand that what's
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retaliation under the law or discrimination under the law or harassment under the law,
it may not actually, what you're experiencing,
it may actually be violation of law, but it may just be an uncivil workplace.
So that distinction is very important when you are evaluating an employment
law claim. So the course is educational.
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It's for informational purposes only. It's not legal advice.
It is a starting point for someone to understand what are these key laws? What are how do I report?
Harassment in the workplace? What are some state distinctions?
Every state is very different in the way that their own states describe discrimination or harassment,
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but there is an overarching civil rights law in the United States called Title
VII of the Civil Rights Act, and that there are state analogs to that particular act.
So Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, I'll just give you a quick primer,
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act protects various protected identities.
And you can't discriminate on the basis of those protected activities.
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So I do workplace training and I typically ask, I do anti-harassment training,
and I typically ask my students in the audience to name some protected classes.
So the first one that people usually mention, it's race. And that's protected
universally in the United States.
I have never seen a state statute that does not protect against discrimination
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on the basis of race, sex as well.
It's another commonly mentioned and universally protected category, but there are others.
In D.C., parental status is one.
That's not a universally protected category.
So that slight nuance is important if you're living Living in Washington,
D.C., if you're discriminated against on the basis of your parental status,
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that is a violation of our D.C. Human Rights Act.
However, if you're living in Georgia, for example, I just picked a state out
of the blue, but if you're living in Georgia, parental status is not protected.
So if you're in a workplace in Georgia and someone mentions,
you know, parents are always late to work, you're always taking your kid to
daycare and you're late and you have what's called an adverse action,
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if you experience what's called an adverse action, termination.
Demotion, those are examples of adverse actions.
If you experience that on the basis of your parental status in Georgia, that may not be illegal.
It's likely not illegal if that's the only basis on which you're claiming a discriminatory act.
Now, in this discussion, I've mentioned a lot of legal words.
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And so what you'll see is that the law is very technical.
And if you are coming to a lawyer for the first time and you've never heard
these words, it can be very overwhelming.
And I think it's intimidating to call a lawyer in the first place.
It's very intimidating just to accept the fact that you may be experiencing
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a workplace violation and then to articulate that to a lawyer.
So the course is really just a way to get familiar with some of the terminology
that you may hear your lawyer discuss so that you don't feel like the process
of engaging a lawyer is overwhelming.
Overwhelming it may if you don't have the
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funds to obtain a lawyer if you can't obtain a
lawyer hopefully the course is educational enough
so that you have a starting point but you
have to analyze your own the there are no analytical tools in within the course
that does the analysis for you so you have to do your own analysis and apply
your own facts to the law but hopefully the course will give you an outline
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of what the key laws are, what you should be looking for.
Has a certain thing occurred in your workplace?
There are resources in the book. For example, there are sample reports of discrimination.
There are resources in the book that give you access to the American Bar Association's
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directory and the National Employment Lawyers Association's directory so that you can find a lawyer.
So there are resources within the course that hopefully will guide you in the right direction.
One thing I really appreciate about the course is that when we are caught in
conflict, we, a lot of times, just, we don't know what to do next.
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And we think, because it's so awful and painful to us, that certainly what is
happening is not just mean-spirited or uncivil, but it's illegal.
And I am not a lawyer, but when I talk to people and I hear their pain and I
hear how really awful it is for them, I see it's probably not illegal behavior.
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And again, it may be, but given what they say, and so I think a lot of times
just thinking through, is this illegal behavior?
Why would it be illegal? Is this just something really difficult?
Is this a one-off? What is going on? Through listening to your course,
I can see it's helping people to get some sort of categories,
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as you said, what to do next, right?
So always consulting a lawyer is, you know, if that is available to you,
you know, so that you can ask your specific targeted questions and especially
an employment lawyer who is knowledgeable in the law.
And of course, many of these, many of our listeners to Conflict Managed are
around the world. And so laws are different in different countries.
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And it might be shocking to us in one country what is or isn't illegal in another
other country, but the law is built up for many different reasons in different
cultures at different times.
And so there's always the distinction between what is legal and what is moral
and it's something to consider.
Absolutely. And it's often shocking that behavior.
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And I often say there are many terrible things that have happened in the workplace.
And I say this in the course that unfortunately are not illegal.
And I think that there are many behaviors that should be illegal.
I do think behavior that is demeaning should be illegal, but it has to be linked
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to some statute in the United States or some what's called a common law.
So negligence, for example, if there is water on the floor, just very simple
example, water on the floor, The employer doesn't, you know,
wipe it up. They know about it. They have a duty of care.
Someone slips on that on that water and they fall.
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You know, that's going to be potential negligence. So that's what's called a common law.
But statutes are actually laws that are passed by a state legislature.
So people, lawmakers coming together, deciding that something is unlawful or
should be the law, and that idea being codified into a statute.
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And that's not what's called common law, like judge, what's called common law is judge-made law.
So those are the sources. And lawyers are confined,
unfortunately, to those, or maybe fortunately in some regards,
but there are rules by which a lawyer, they're confined by which a lawyer has to argue their case.
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They are, sometimes their hands are tied, right?
Like if you have a bad manager, they're just really, really mean and awful,
but the behavior isn't tied to some protected class or some common law,
unfortunately, it's not legally actionable.
And I say, unfortunately, continually, because I don't like when people are
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working in psychologically unsafe workplaces, workplaces that make them feel bad when they walk in.
So in the course, I do have a checklist of things that someone should consider
before leaving, because there may be alternatives to suing and there may be
alternatives to even leaving your workplace.
So there it's not sue the workplace or leave the workplace.
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There are things in between that you can ask for.
And I do have a checklist of things to consider before leaving your workplace.
And also key considerations that you should be making, like,
do you have a non-compete agreement?
And right now, non-compete agreements are, they're in an ambiguous state in the United States.
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They were the FTC banned non-competes.
And now there is a court case that is litigating that FTC ruling.
And so the state of non-competes is in a bit of flux right now in the United States.
But that's still something that employees should put their thumb on.
Do you have something that prohibits you from leaving?
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If you leave, do you have to pay back some sum of money?
Often there are bonuses attached to you starting at an employer.
And if you leave before a certain amount of time, you may have to pay back that
bonus. So there are geographic restrictions.
If you leave, how long will it take you to find another job within your locality?
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Like, do you have to commute longer?
So there are many, many considerations that are not legal considerations.
They're just lifestyle considerations.
And those are things to think about as well. So the course really tries to be
as comprehensive as it can.
I don't claim to cover every single topic available or that's important,
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but I do hope that it is a starting point for people to consider some of the
considerations that commonly come across my desk.
And I try to synthesize that into this course. And I think you do it very well.
I appreciate that because as you are articulating, the problems that people
have at work are as varied as the individuals that experience them.
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And I think that best practice when you're having something very difficult at
work is to do everything you can to work on it, right?
And that is seeing your options available with the caveat, if you are being
greatly affected mentally or physically, as you say in your course,
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the biggest asset you have is your health.
And so you do need to protect that. And yet there are these real world considerations
of money, healthcare in the US and other places. There's all these things to consider.
And so it's very easy for somebody on the outside to say, just leave.
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It is never that simple. I mean, it's that simple if you don't need to work
and if you don't care about the work, but that is, 99.9%. That is not the case for people.
And also, many times we think, I'm going to leave this environment.
I'm going to go someplace else and I'll be much better. And not necessarily, Right.
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We need to figure out what are the issues, what's going on, what are the other possibilities.
And so I really appreciate that about this course is that it's not,
okay, let's leave. It's, you know.
What I appreciated about your course is anything that helps a person stop and
think and get out of that emotional space to really think, how is this action going to impact me?
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What are my next steps? And the more options you have available.
So speaking with a lawyer does not mean you are going to sue.
It means it's one option about seeing what are my different options.
Speaking with mentors, speaking with friends, trusted family members,
and maybe even trusted people at work,
you know, what are the options available so that you can continue in your professional
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capacity in whatever mission it is that you want to be doing in your work life?
Absolutely. And that is really the role of an advisor.
You know, lawyers are advisors. advisors they don't
make the ultimate decision you are in control
of in your relationship with
a lawyer the client is in control of what happens the lawyer is there to advise
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the lawyer is there to advise about risk the lawyer is there to provide what
they think in their professional judgment is the best course of action considering
all the facts available but no one has more facts,
about their situation than the client themselves.
And the company, they have all the facts about, you know, all the data in terms
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of, you know, what are the communications that happened and the documents.
The companies usually have that power and that information.
There's an information imbalance to some extent because the company does hold
that particular information. But the client themselves, the employee themselves,
if you're working with a lawyer in an employment matter.
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They know how they feel about their workplace. They know how they feel that
Sunday night before having to go in on Monday morning.
And they understand what their impetus is for leaving or staying.
And that's really important to do that level, Mary, of introspection that you
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identified and that the course really tries to bring out.
That there shouldn't be a knee-jerk reaction to leaving. Leaving sometimes can
hurt an employment discrimination claim if you leave before you've reported the conduct.
You do, as an employee, have an obligation to report conduct that you find to be illegal. legal.
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And if you then decide, if you leave before reporting and then you decide to bring an action there,
it's really hard to show that the company should have reacted in a certain way
because they will likely claim they had no idea that any unlawful conduct was occurring.
And so it's important that employees like have the courage.
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And I talk a lot about when I give talks about harassment and discrimination,
I talk about the courage that it takes to actually report.
And that's just something that can't be understated or overstated rather.
It takes so much courage when something bad is happening to say,
this is how I feel because workplaces typically don't embrace a lot of feelings.
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And it feels like, you know, you don't want to be considered a whiner.
I know I have experienced workplaces where there was conduct that I just did
not feel comfortable, you know, I just didn't feel comfortable being subjected to.
And it was really difficult for me to say something.
And when I did say something, it
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was, in one instance, it was just with a supervisor that I really trusted.
And it was in conversation and I wasn't going to say anything.
It was just in conversation where it came out and my supervisor was asking,
hey, is everything okay?
How are you liking this? And I was like, well, you know, this is,
you know, what I do like, this is what I don't like.
And I was very passive in the conversation. So I don't even think that would
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have been considered reporting.
My supervisor was just wonderful in actually responding to the conduct and having
a conversation with the person that was making me feel uncomfortable.
But at the same time, that particular, I knew what I had to do if I really wanted
to report, and I didn't do that because I was scared.
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And I think that's just a natural reaction that when you are fearful,
you're wondering, Did something actually occur?
This is why I think it's so extremely important to understand what the legal
parameters are, what the law says is illegal, what it doesn't say is illegal.
I think the biggest thing that you can do or the best thing you can do is really
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look at cases within your jurisdiction to determine, you know,
how are courts looking at this?
And so hopefully my course will give you just a starting point as to what you
should be looking, what laws should you be looking at?
What laws should you be diving deeper into so that you can do your own analysis?
And then, of course, it's so extremely important to consult with a lawyer who
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can really help you and guide you in that analysis.
I really appreciate this emphasis on courage, because what I love about conflict resolution,
if you've listened to my podcast, my listeners, you know, I say it over and
over again, is that conflict is about first and foremost, personal empowerment,
conflict resolution, dealing with it.
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And that personal empowerment, it does take a lot of courage to acknowledge
there's a problem, to acknowledge that you need help, and then to have those
difficult conversations.
Conversations and I think that
when you when you really think about
how do I have those conversations fruitfully it
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can take a lot of
the it can give us a lot of confidence and it can also make better conversations
because you're not coming in hot and escalated and accusatory but when you really
think through what exactly is the issue and you bring it to somebody and you
have a a curiosity about it. I think about this especially for young workers.
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Sometimes somebody who's new to a.
Profession or just new to the workplace might feel uncomfortable with something.
But sometimes in every job, there's stuff that we don't like and there are policies
we don't agree with, but we do them anyway. It's not illegal. It's not immoral.
We just think they're dumb or sometimes it just feels uncomfortable to reach
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out and do this or do that.
And so we feel this sort of unease, but we don't know how to talk about it.
And so there's that courage there with just getting in the habit of really understanding
ourself so that we could ask those kinds of questions like that you did with your supervisor.
You were, I imagine, testing the waters a little bit for you to decide if you
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wanted to do something else.
But also the importance here is of the listener.
So those people who are those advisors, the lawyer, the good manager and leader
should listen. Listen, when to probe, when is somebody testing the waters?
What are they trying to say?
For sure. I think that that's so important, Mary, is having the listener,
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especially supervisors.
And I say this all the time, especially when I'm giving anti-harassment training,
is supervisors, they're held
to a higher level of responsibility under the law in the United States.
And that level of responsibility that they're legally held to,
it should just be the baseline.
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They should really be allies as well.
And being an ally requires building a level of trust. And that supervisor and
I, we had a level of trust with each other. I trusted her.
I very much, you know, I thought that she was a leader and did the right thing.
And so I felt like I could say very candidly how I was feeling.
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And I didn't really expect or expect.
And I didn't think that what I was going through was harassment or discrimination.
I just felt as though the conduct that I had been subjected to just wasn't good leadership.
And I didn't want her necessarily to do anything, but she did to make her workplace
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to have a better culture. And so I appreciated that because it was scary.
I was not going to say anything to this person.
And I think that level of just listening, of taking action and building workplace
culture, it does fall on the leaders within the organization.
Organization that's just i mean that's who
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holds the the torch to create
that light within your organization like that is the
that's who people are looking at is the leader and then if but also if you are
a colleague if you do hear something and bystander intervention and i'm sure
you heard me talk about this but bystander intervention is so important you
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know you can be you can lend your courage to someone else.
If you are in a position of privilege, whatever that privilege is.
You might just have the courage privilege where you have a voice that you're not afraid to use.
And some people are just naturally more inclined to speak up.
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I think it's easier to speak up for other people. I'll say this on behalf of
myself. It's much easier for me to speak up for other people than it is for
me to speak up for myself.
I'm very keen on speaking up for injustice for other people.
When it happens to me, I'm a little bit more demure.
And so I think that if you can lend your courage to someone when you see something
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happening in a workplace, that's important too.
And in many states, you're also protected from harassment. If you're complaining
about harassment or discrimination on behalf of someone else,
you are typically protected as now Now, a protected category,
if you're complaining about harassment or discrimination on behalf of someone else,
you're protected from retaliation.
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And so it's beyond just the legal parameters.
I think the law is a baseline. What you do in the workplace to build better
culture, that's dictated by the company's values.
You know, what type of values do you want? Do you really want that high level
of that high standard of showing illegality?
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Or do you want a culture that actually is based on not what the law prohibits,
but on what you think should be the values of your company for my company, integrity,
respect, excellence, inclusion. conclusion.
And so those are really, really important just to define and to execute on a
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daily basis and make sure that everybody buys into that.
Oh gosh, I love so much of what you said. But one thing I want to focus on is
the lending your courage, right?
And at the bystander, would we see something going on?
A lot of times we don't know what to do. We know this person is in trouble or
this person is hurting and we don't know what to do.
So a lot of times we don't act. But this idea of solidarity,
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of there's so many ways we can come alongside and even just showing up and saying,
I saw that, you know, I see you, I'm here for you.
But the vision of lending your courage, that is so very beautiful and evocative
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of what we really can do for other people.
Because, I mean, I absolutely agree with you that I can definitely advocate
for other people much more than myself.
When it comes to me, it's like, did that really happen? Is it that big of a
deal? Do I want to open this can of worms?
Right, all of that. But when it's somebody else, especially if they ask for
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help, or I say, I see this, is there anything I can do?
Then, you know, to come alongside side and to do that with that person or for
that person if that is, again, what it is that they want.
Because we always want to follow the lead of the person who has been negatively impacted.
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Indeed. I think that that's absolutely right, Mary. It's very much a privilege that we do have.
And I don't think that it can be overstated in the appreciation that someone
may have when you're just listening and you validate that something has happened
that they may not think or they don't know. No.
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And that's, I don't know if you've been in situations in which something happened
and you're just sitting there like, did that really happen? Or did I imagine that?
Or is that really bad?
And so I know I have been in those situations and someone has said,
yeah, well, that actually, that wasn't okay. And that might have inspired me
just to think more deeply about it.
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Or, you know, if a person has said, yeah, we're going to say something,
you know, that that matters to people when you are an ally and you just listen.
And in some cases or in many cases, if you in the workplace,
if you do see something that's harassing, if you do see, for example,
sexual harassment, you have an obligation to report that conduct to the company
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as a bystander, even if the victim of that harassment doesn't want you to.
So that's just a small nuance in the United States.
Typically, most companies have policies in which you have to report if you see something.
If you see something, especially harassment, you have to say something because
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you are creating the culture. And, you know, there may be situations in which
the victim doesn't want you to say something, but you have to,
you can't promise confidentiality.
If you are someone who is less inclined to, you know, want to report,
it's important that you build the courage to.
And in doing this, it's not just fulfilling your.
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A policy obligation or a legal obligation, but it's that moral obligation that
you are building a better workplace.
And workplaces do create our worlds, right?
They do create, you're spending the majority of your time in this space,
whether it's a remote space or an in-person space, you are spending the majority
of your time building something within your company, building something with other people.
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And those lessons that you take or that you create, that you learn in the workplace,
you do take those things out into the world.
And so I think that employees, we make up the world.
It's important that we go out and do good things in the company because I think
inevitably you will do good things in the world with those lessons.
(31:54):
Absolutely. So as what happens in our workplaces affect our private life and
the rest of our public life.
And then, of course, what's happening in our culture and in our families also
comes into the work environment.
And so as we're recording this, this is the summer of 2024.
And in the U.S., we have had just, well, I think the world has had a very interesting past four years.
(32:20):
But in the U.S. right now, we're in the middle of a presidential election.
And in the U.S., those take a very long time. And We have had one of the nominees
was shot at a week ago and another nominee stepped down.
And there's a lot of turmoil. And we've already been dealing with incivility
and just this real shift that's going on at work since COVID and economic pressures.
(32:47):
There's just so much going on. What do you see about how we bring about respectful
workplaces that treat people really well?
Yeah, Mary, it's just so important, especially in a country that may be more
divided than it's ever been,
(33:07):
to make sure that you are bringing just a high level of respect to everybody
that you are interacting with in the workplace. place.
And so that respect is just the respect in your language, the respect in the
way that you're treating people.
Everybody's going to have a different view about anything that's going on in the world, right?
(33:31):
We all are entitled to our different opinions, but what you bring to work has to be based in respect.
Your interactions, just any microaggressions really should often,
And you should always at least be thinking, you know, am I leading or my actions
showing microaggressions?
(33:51):
Is my language showing a microaggression?
And those microaggressions can be something such as, you know,
where are you really from? Right?
Like, can I touch your hair? Those are microaggressions. And so it's important
to remember that little things, they're micro actions that can be disrespectful.
And so all of us have to just be cognizant of our behavior.
(34:15):
Because I do think that we are in an election season, so I think tensions are high.
And leading with respect, you know, saying hello to somebody,
smiling, just being pleasant, that can actually lead to just better interactions in the workplace.
And I'm not telling you just to go around like smiling, you know,
(34:37):
you don't have an obligation to smile, but just saying hello, being civil.
Is important. Just treating people with dignity, everyone with dignity in the
workplace, extremely important.
Because as I said before, workplaces do create our worlds.
So making sure that you are just leading and building a culture of safety,
(34:59):
psychological safety within your workplace.
Because in the outside world, you may not feel that psychological safety.
So the The workplace should be a place in which everybody feels like their value,
their appreciated, what they bring to the table matters.
And so we can all do that for each other by being civil to your colleagues.
(35:21):
One way that we could be civil with our colleagues is recognizing and celebrating difference.
And that can also be a political difference. And if we really embrace this idea
that we are going to be better and stronger if we don't deny the fact that we
have different backgrounds,
different gifts, different perspectives,
(35:43):
and that when there is a season of high emotion going on in a culture,
that people are going to be at different places with that.
Recently, I was on a vacation and we were having a political discussion,
which we don't typically do, just for a lot of reasons.
And everything was going relatively well, I thought, even if I was a little uncomfortable.
(36:09):
And then all of a sudden it didn't. And I really appreciated how my family members
responded to that by allowing that, you know, allowing, because the person just got up and left.
And I wasn't there, though I have been there when certain topics come up,
certain things that I think, I can't believe this person is defending this,
(36:30):
and I have escalated, but I wasn't there.
But another person was, and just realizing that when really difficult topics
come up that not everybody is thinking and processing as I am.
And I think and process at different times differently.
So I think a part of respect is having grace on people.
(36:54):
I'm not advocating yelling. Absolutely not, right? None of those.
But allowing people to...
To be at different places, because that is reality. Absolutely. Absolutely.
And I think that it's important to remember, I don't necessarily advocate talking
about politics at work because of how sensitive these topics are,
(37:19):
and they matter in people's real lives.
And so if there is an opportunity, though, for, I do believe in inclusion.
And if there is an opportunity to learn more from your colleague,
you know, that may have a different political view from you,
then civilly, you can have that discussion, right?
You can have, and I think it should take place outside of the workplace.
(37:42):
It could be a coffee where you say, hey, I'd like to like learn,
I'd like to sit down with you and just learn more.
And understanding that we all process at different paces, but the yelling,
there are ways to engage in dialogue. And Mary, you are the expert in this and
managing, right, managing conflict, managing differences of opinion.
(38:02):
But I think sitting down and having parameters to the conversation is so important.
I mean, I love mediation as a tool in general. I think there's so many things
you can bring out of mediation, just in the tactics in which it occurs and the
processes that you use to mediate.
I think taking those processes of a formal mediation and bringing that into
(38:26):
your personal life, like, hey, these are the parameters.
These are the rules of the conversation, the rules of engagement.
And then coming to a place of deeper understanding. I think that is essential.
And I think we all learn more when we hear from people with different perspectives.
I mean, there is no value in only having one perspective.
(38:49):
And I think because we have blind spots.
And I learn, you know, I learn, I may not agree with every opinion, but I do learn.
I'd learn the perspective of the other person whose opinion that I don't agree with.
I mean, that's what lawyers, we are often in conflict. I mean,
that's, I'm in conflict all the time.
(39:10):
But I do learn, right? I don't always agree with the person on the other side,
but I do learn their perspective.
I don't, I may not agree with it, but it's done civilly.
You know most of the time I think it's
a we are not you know indeed I'm not a yelling attorney so
I don't you know I would call myself civil and
so I think there is there are definitely lessons in that
(39:31):
conflict and that we take that we should take out into the world like how do
we have civil conversations where we're learning and we're not becoming more
divided but we're learning from each other I absolutely agree and I do agree
that pretty much talk about politics and
probably religion as well, ought not be topics at work for a variety of reasons.
(39:54):
And part of it is when we think something is very reasonable,
let's say some sort of political topic, and we are just all in,
we think all reasonable people agree with me on this.
And if you're voicing this at work, because it's just, of course,
if you believe in human rights, you believe this, or if you believe whatever,
you believe this, you are misunderstanding that not everybody sees the world the way that you do.
(40:19):
Something that I think is innocuous may not be for somebody else.
Right. That's very true. The issue with microaggressions, right?
Like something that you might think is so small.
Could also be a microaggression. So it is important not to make assumptions.
Leading with questions as opposed to assumptions is what I advocate.
(40:42):
To ask, how do, and again, I think staying away from the politics is important.
Sometimes it's inevitable.
Sometimes you will very quickly enter into that political terrain when you're
not really expecting to. too.
But leading with questions as opposed to assumptions and not assuming that someone
(41:02):
has the same view as you, it's so important.
And when you're friendly at work, you might assume that the person across the
table has the same view as you.
But that's not necessarily the case. We all do bring nuance.
So we are not a monolithic society.
And that's what makes us so beautiful is that we do have the ability to disagree
(41:23):
and the freedom to disagree and still live harmoniously, right?
Like that is the beauty in America.
And I think that that's just a beauty that the workplace should make sure that
they continue to promote being respectful.
So that conversation, as much as you can leave politics, you need to focus on
(41:47):
what you're focusing on at work.
But at the same time, if there is an opportunity to teach, you know, do it respectfully.
And there may be many opportunities. I mean, there may be opportunities in which
your colleague, they're exposed to a new viewpoint because they're working with
someone who has a viewpoint that's different than theirs.
And they want to learn more genuinely to know, you know, this is like,
(42:09):
I trust you as a colleague and I trust you as a person.
Would it be offensive to you if I asked you this question, or do you mind if I ask you this question?
And I think leading with that question as opposed to.
Assuming that it's okay to ask that question, you know, but really giving the
other person autonomy to say, no, I don't want to engage here because it could
(42:30):
put someone on the spot in an uncomfortable way.
But generally leading with curiosity and empathy is so important.
And I think those are all tenets of respect.
Yeah. When I think about respect, I think about professionalism.
Like what does it mean to be professional? What does it mean to be a good colleague.
And while I don't believe workplaces are families, but I do think that we can
(42:55):
have something very interesting and fulfilling at work when we are collegial with one another.
And this is this deep kind of respect and professionalism, which takes continual introspection.
It takes this being a person of integrity and recognizing that we're We're all
flawed and we all are trying to be better tomorrow than we were today.
(43:18):
And so we are going to make mistakes and then we can make amends and move forward
and really try to listen and be listened to this reciprocal relationship.
And so when something contentious comes up, because there are contentious issues
at work, like how do we allocate these resources?
Who do we hire? Right. You know, right.
(43:40):
So there's plenty of contention at work that we leave religion and politics at the door.
So how do we not vilify the other, but extend grace and think about, well, what did they see?
Why do they want to hire this person? And I think we should hire somebody else.
Why do they think we should go with this outsourcing company instead of continue doing it in-house?
(44:01):
What did they see so that we can gain the other perspective and come to better
conclusions for the organization, which helps us to improve and helps them to improve.
And then our relationships are continued to improve with each other.
And that dialogue and that iteration, that does build relationships,
(44:24):
you know, that being able to have disagreements and then come together and come
up with the solution that's in the best interest of the organization.
That is that I mean, that's a testament to the strength of the relationship
and it does build that relationship muscle.
So I totally agree with you there, Mary.
Yeah, I think, yeah, the more we do it, the more we can have these little wins
(44:46):
with people. the more we do, the disagreement.
So if you can really disagree with somebody, that means you have a good relationship
with them. That's exactly right.
And that's, I think that's, you know, that is the essence, an employment relationship.
It is going to be, you know, I think of employment relationships like marriages,
right? Like you will, you have to communicate.
(45:08):
You have to, you're in a community, you're in not a marital relationship,
but in an employment relationship with several people. And there are going to
be hard issues that you have to solve.
And that's why if you're working at a company that does innovative stuff in
the world, then you are going to have challenging, complex issues that don't
(45:32):
have a one-sided solution or a blanket solution.
Solution and the purpose that
you're the reason your company's hired you is because you do come
with a sense of you know of difference you
you you bring a different perspective you bring your own individual
skill set to that particular challenge and you're bringing your solution to
(45:54):
that challenge and the solution that your colleague brings may be different
but coming together and figuring out the best ways you identifying challenges
them identifying challenges you're You're really coming up with the most innovative,
most powerful solution to that problem.
And that's really why you're bringing the value.
And I think that it's reflected, you know, if you think about the iPhone,
(46:17):
I'm sure there are many disagreements over this piece of innovative technology that changes the world.
You know, if one person had been the if there had been one person working on
this piece of technology, I'm sure that this technology would not be as amazing as it is now. Right.
Or, you know, you might not be an Apple person. You might be a Google person, but in any of it.
(46:40):
But this is the idea is that innovation takes several, several,
several perspectives and disagreement is inevitable. But that doesn't mean that it's wrong.
Absolutely. And, you know, I think that, you know, when we when people hire
us, they shouldn't and usually don't hire us. At least they don't think they're
hiring us to just say yes, yes and go along.
(47:02):
And so it should be a topic of conversation. When you hire someone,
the person that is leading you should say, when you disagree with me,
when you disagree with somebody else, this is how I like to hear this. What about you?
When you have a disagreement or when you see that we ought to be doing something
else, how do you typically voice that?
(47:24):
So how can we disagree well together and continue to have those conversations
which recognize, one, we ought to be disagreeing. And then when we do it,
how do we do it well? How do we argue well?
That means how do we communicate difference well in an efficacious,
fruitful way, not one where we're down like impugning each other's personalities
(47:47):
or reputations. And that's unnecessary.
There's no reason. Personal attacks are never necessary.
It's not helpful. It's not constructive.
But to your point, Mary, asking how do you receive feedback is so important
because everyone receives it differently.
(48:08):
And it's hard to receive feedback. I don't know.
I like feedback for sure. Sure. It's in the way that it's delivered,
I think it's important because you never want to attack someone's confidence.
You want to give feedback in a way that's truly constructive.
And the person who's receiving the feedback should know that it's coming from
(48:32):
a place, not of maliciousness or of malice, but of care for the person,
of care for the product or solution or service you're imparting into the world.
And so that dialogue and just building the trust, it's important because then
you can receive feedback.
You can give as much feedback, you can receive it.
(48:53):
Sometimes the feedback isn't going to come across as sugary and nice, right?
Because you might be working in a very fast-paced environment,
which it's impossible to sugarcoat.
Or make everything a compliment sandwich, right? Compliment,
feedback, compliment, right?
You know, it's not feasible in the environment in which you're working.
(49:14):
But I think if you deliver that feedback with a level of trust,
if you've already built that trust, there's a trust bank there,
that feedback is going to be far more well-received than you just,
you know, hammering down that critique with no relationship.
Yeah. Work is all about relationships, right? So networking is about relationships
(49:38):
as being a good colleague.
When you build trust, then people are more likely to actually tell you you've
got that spinach in your teeth, right? Yeah, exactly.
And so we all say, yes, we want feedback.
And almost universally people say, it's really difficult.
In some way, I don't really want it. But when we don't get it,
and eventually it comes to you two years later, you say, why didn't you tell me?
(50:02):
We all want to know, right? So if your best friend saw that you were being cheated
on and they're like, well, I didn't say anything. You're like,
then you're not my best friend, right?
So we have this, and this is just pretty a human thing. We have this love-hate
relationship with feedback.
But if you don't tell people the truth, you hold them to derision.
(50:23):
And that happens, I mean, just about every organization I go to,
somebody or some people are being talked about behind their back because they're
unprofessional, but nobody has talked to them.
And so now it's a pattern and it's a whole big thing. And that's one of the
reasons I'm there. Right.
If at the very beginning we could have you could have said, hey, you know.
(50:45):
We need to have our uniforms like this and you come like that.
This is what you need to do. Then that person can get up to speed.
But three years later and the person is called Stinky Joe, you know,
that that's a huge problem all the way around.
Oh, for sure. I mean, I think, you know, I see this all the time in employment
(51:06):
matters when feedback is delivered late and it's not delivered at the time that
the feedback should have been delivered.
At the time when the conduct was present.
And it's really difficult for someone who is being terminated or being demoted
for them to get feedback several, several months later or several years later.
(51:30):
And they're wondering, where did this come from?
And it feels like they're blindsided and they feel like they're attacked because
that feedback was nowhere to be found several years ago.
And so it's important to give continual feedback and you can do it in a way,
again, that is actually helpful and constructive and would likely be appreciated
(51:55):
when you're actually giving it.
Because it's, again, it's not coming from everyone has a job to do in the workplace.
You are trying to find a solution.
You're trying to serve customers. You're trying to innovate.
Whatever your particular, you're trying to serve the public,
whatever your particular particular industry is, you are trying to be of service
(52:16):
and you are working for a common goal.
And I think that's understood when you apply. So it's impossible to think that
you're not going to receive any form of criticism in that, you know,
in the accomplishment of that goal.
So I think it's just important to give it out, know how to give it out,
be, and everyone should be receptive to giving it out, but leading,
(52:40):
again, with that respect and empathy, transparency.
And Mary, again, to your point, asking how do you receive this is so important.
Absolutely. Clarity is kindness. We people want to know what they need to be
doing, if they're doing well, when they're doing well.
So a good leader is giving much more positive feedback than the challenges the
(53:02):
person is facing. But we need all of it in those continual, respectful,
collegial work environments. And that's where we want to be.
And we can have those, but it does take intentionality to be respectful.
I think a lot of laziness creeps in and we say, oh, it's just too hard or that
person needs to suck it up instead of thinking, well, what about my behavior?
(53:25):
I'm in a public space being paid to be here.
I'm a part of this organization. how do I behave well, and not just minimal,
but really well in this environment to.
To treat people, you know, the way I want to be treated. The intentionality
that's paramount, you know, taking time to say, how do you want to be respected?
(53:49):
And then not getting caught up in how quickly the environment moves, right?
The environment will move very quickly. And sometimes, you know,
it's, it's a frenetic pace that you're at, which you're working,
you're just like shooting off emails, they may be one word responses to someone,
you know, do take time, at least even if that is the case where it's not sugary,
(54:12):
it's not, you know, it's not loaded with compliments.
Make sure that you at least take some time, whether it's in the week or within
the month to check in, just like let people know where you're coming from.
Absolutely. And we can read that. I'm all about being genuine.
Genuine don't pay people false compliments people know
(54:34):
they can feel if you genuinely care about
them if you genuinely want them to succeed or you're trying to get rid of them
so and so we can see that and we can feel that and i think it kind of goes back
to what you were saying originally is courage courage to as we started this
podcast talking about to if you're in a difficult situation you're going to
(54:56):
have to be brave and you're going to have to be brave and you're going to have to
courage to stop and say, okay, what do I do next? What are my options?
So as we end this podcast together, can you give us some tips as to what are
some ways that we can individually develop our own capacity for courage?
Mary, thank you, number one, for this awesome conversation.
(55:17):
It's just always a pleasure talking to you. And I just really appreciate the
ability to come on this podcast and share ideas with you.
How do we develop our courage muscle? I think it's important to remember our values.
So when I am afraid to do something, I remember my values.
I remember why I'm doing the thing that I'm doing.
(55:39):
If it is a scary email that I have to write, it's an email that I don't want
to send particularly, I'm thinking, well, what are my values?
Is this in alignment with my values?
What do I stand for? And if I don't do this, what are the consequences?
What does this mean about who I am? Do I really stand for what I say I stand for?
(56:01):
That's important to me. And if that courage, if I'm lending my courage to someone
else, right, which I, as a profession, that's what I do.
And I'm asking those questions, do I stand for what I say I stand for?
And am I doing what I'm doing with integrity?
And the answer to that question should always be, yes, I'm coming from a place of integrity.
(56:24):
I'm coming from a place of I'm doing the right thing with the facts that I have available.
So that's one way to develop the courage muscle. And then I think repetition
and doing it over and over again, because you're developing confidence in that courage muscle.
You're remembering, you know, this is what happened the last time that I was courageous.
(56:46):
And that resulted in something great for maybe the world, maybe for a person, maybe for yourself.
So continuing to just be repetitive so that you trust yourself.
I think like that's trust in yourself is that is really at the heart of courage.
Wonderful answer. I just couldn't agree more.
(57:08):
And pulling back to what are your own values and then repeating and that internal
trust and confidence in yourself.
Well, right back at you, Jessica. Jessica, I love talking to you and I really
appreciate obviously what you're up to and that you really want people to have resolution.
You want people to have better work environments. You want to help people out
(57:29):
of really awful circumstances and give them peace and help.
And I appreciate what you've devoted your life to.
Thank you so much, Mary. I love what I do and it's really an honor.
So thank you very much for allowing me to share on your platform. form.
Thank you, Jessica, for being on Conflict Managed again.
What a pleasure it is to speak with you and just in awe of the work that you
(57:52):
do in the legal profession to help people in the US with their employment issues.
And as we all know, there's a lot of pain that people experience at work and
people need direction and help.
And I'm so glad that you have devoted your time and your professional life to
helping people have healthier work environments and finding resolution and also
(58:14):
of holding organizations to account for illegal behavior.
Conflict Managed is produced by third-party workplace conflict restoration services
and hosted by me, Mary Brown.
You can find us online at 3pconflictrestoration.com. Check out my book,
How to Be Unprofessional at Work, Tips to Ensure Failure.
It's 80 tips of what not to do. It looks at what to do instead to have a healthy work environment.
(58:36):
This idea of courage and respect, what does that really look like in the everyday?
Come back. We have new episodes every Tuesday. day. Our music is courtesy of Dove Pilot.
And remember, conflict is normal and to be expected. Let's deal with it. Until next time.
Music.
Music.
(00:25):
Welcome to Conflict Managed. I'm your host, Merry Brown.
This week on Conflict Managed, we welcome back Jessica Childress.
Jessica is the author of Peace, Leaving a Toxic Work Environment on Your Own
Terms, and an award-winning attorney.
Jessica has practiced employment law for over 11 years, representing organizations
of all sizes and individuals in employment law matters.
(00:47):
She is the managing attorney of Childress Firm, PLLC, boutique law firm based in Washington, D.C.
Jessica holds a Bachelor of Arts in Government and African American Studies
from the University of Virginia and a Juris Doctorate from the University of Virginia School of Law.
Prior to launching the children's firm PLLC, Jessica served as an associate
(01:08):
at two global law firms and as an attorney at the United States Department of Justice.
Jessica has litigated retaliation, discrimination, sexual harassment,
non-competition, unfair labor practices, and whistleblower cases before various tribunals.
She serves clients in general business transactions with employees and independent contractors.
(01:28):
Jessica has been the recipient of many awards, including the National Bar Association's
2018 Young Lawyer of the Year Award, the Washington Bar Association's 2017-2018
Young Lawyer of the Year Award,
the National Bar Association's 40 Under 40 Best Advocate Award,
the Kim Keenan Leadership and Advocacy Award, the Greater Washington Area Chapter
(01:52):
of the National Bar Association Rising Star Award, and recognition by the National
Black Lawyers as one of the top 100 Black attorneys.
In 2020, Jessica received the
Women-Owned Law Organization's Woman Legal Entrepreneur of the Year Award.
Jessica is a 2022 graduate of the Aspen Institute's Justice and Society Program.
Jessica serves as a contributor for Arianna Huffington's international media
(02:17):
outlet, Thrive Global. She has been featured in numerous publications,
including Forbes, Essence, Huffington Post, Success, and Entrepreneur.
Good morning, Jessica, and welcome back to Conflict Managed.
Good morning, Merry. Thank you so much for having me back. It's so great to see you.
Oh, it's wonderful to see you
again and to get to chat with you and talk about what you've been up to.
(02:39):
Some of it I know because we were both with Vanguard Voices International Summit
for Speak Up for Psychological Safety at Work.
We both spoke at that and I know we're both passionate about healthy work environments.
That's right, Merry. That was a wonderful, wonderful summit. And thank you very
much for attending my talk.
I really appreciate it. And I'm just so happy to be back with you today.
(03:01):
Absolutely. And so today, one thing I want to highlight is talking about the
course that you have delivered for people called Peace, Leaving a Toxic Work
Environment on Your Own Terms.
I think so much of when people are in difficult situations,
and we both know that people have real pain and difficulties and toxic work
(03:24):
environments that rise to the level of illegal work environments.
And when people are in these environments, a lot of times they just are lost.
They don't know what to do or what to turn to.
And I've been through your course, and I think it's such a wonderful way to
start that process of figuring out what is actually going on.
(03:46):
What are my next steps? What do I need to move forward? Because a lot of times,
as you know, when we're in these bad environments, we feel stuck and we just are overwhelmed.
Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, that's the reason why I created this course,
because I'm an employment lawyer.
People call my office or contact my office in some way every day.
(04:09):
And the reason people call my office is because they don't know where to start.
So education is so important.
I'm a lawyer. I've been trained in this field. I've been practicing employment law since 2011.
And lawyers have to go through continuing legal education credits every year
(04:30):
to keep my bar license active. Now, that allows me to dig deeply into very, very complex topics.
And that takes an investment of time and money.
And the person coming to me, they could be from any industry.
They haven't. But if they're coming to me, they're typically not lawyers or
(04:51):
employment lawyers at that.
And so I wanted to provide an educational piece that really just crystallized
the key, the major employment issues and key employment issues that I see frequently.
Discrimination, harassment, retaliation. What does that actually mean under the law?
And I wanted people to be able to look at those laws and understand that what's
(05:19):
retaliation under the law or discrimination under the law or harassment under the law,
it may not actually, what you're experiencing,
it may actually be violation of law, but it may just be an uncivil workplace.
So that distinction is very important when you are evaluating an employment
law claim. So the course is educational.
(05:42):
It's for informational purposes only. It's not legal advice.
It is a starting point for someone to understand what are these key laws? What are how do I report?
Harassment in the workplace? What are some state distinctions?
Every state is very different in the way that their own states describe discrimination or harassment,
(06:05):
but there is an overarching civil rights law in the United States called Title
VII of the Civil Rights Act, and that there are state analogs to that particular act.
So Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, I'll just give you a quick primer,
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act protects various protected identities.
And you can't discriminate on the basis of those protected activities.
(06:28):
So I do workplace training and I typically ask, I do anti-harassment training,
and I typically ask my students in the audience to name some protected classes.
So the first one that people usually mention, it's race. And that's protected
universally in the United States.
I have never seen a state statute that does not protect against discrimination
(06:51):
on the basis of race, sex as well.
It's another commonly mentioned and universally protected category, but there are others.
In D.C., parental status is one.
That's not a universally protected category.
So that slight nuance is important if you're living Living in Washington,
D.C., if you're discriminated against on the basis of your parental status,
(07:15):
that is a violation of our D.C. Human Rights Act.
However, if you're living in Georgia, for example, I just picked a state out
of the blue, but if you're living in Georgia, parental status is not protected.
So if you're in a workplace in Georgia and someone mentions,
you know, parents are always late to work, you're always taking your kid to
daycare and you're late and you have what's called an adverse action,
(07:40):
if you experience what's called an adverse action, termination.
Demotion, those are examples of adverse actions.
If you experience that on the basis of your parental status in Georgia, that may not be illegal.
It's likely not illegal if that's the only basis on which you're claiming a discriminatory act.
Now, in this discussion, I've mentioned a lot of legal words.
(08:03):
And so what you'll see is that the law is very technical.
And if you are coming to a lawyer for the first time and you've never heard
these words, it can be very overwhelming.
And I think it's intimidating to call a lawyer in the first place.
It's very intimidating just to accept the fact that you may be experiencing
(08:24):
a workplace violation and then to articulate that to a lawyer.
So the course is really just a way to get familiar with some of the terminology
that you may hear your lawyer discuss so that you don't feel like the process
of engaging a lawyer is overwhelming.
Overwhelming it may if you don't have the
(08:46):
funds to obtain a lawyer if you can't obtain a
lawyer hopefully the course is educational enough
so that you have a starting point but you
have to analyze your own the there are no analytical tools in within the course
that does the analysis for you so you have to do your own analysis and apply
your own facts to the law but hopefully the course will give you an outline
(09:12):
of what the key laws are, what you should be looking for.
Has a certain thing occurred in your workplace?
There are resources in the book. For example, there are sample reports of discrimination.
There are resources in the book that give you access to the American Bar Association's
(09:33):
directory and the National Employment Lawyers Association's directory so that you can find a lawyer.
So there are resources within the course that hopefully will guide you in the right direction.
One thing I really appreciate about the course is that when we are caught in
conflict, we, a lot of times, just, we don't know what to do next.
(09:54):
And we think, because it's so awful and painful to us, that certainly what is
happening is not just mean-spirited or uncivil, but it's illegal.
And I am not a lawyer, but when I talk to people and I hear their pain and I
hear how really awful it is for them, I see it's probably not illegal behavior.
(10:16):
And again, it may be, but given what they say, and so I think a lot of times
just thinking through, is this illegal behavior?
Why would it be illegal? Is this just something really difficult?
Is this a one-off? What is going on? Through listening to your course,
I can see it's helping people to get some sort of categories,
(10:39):
as you said, what to do next, right?
So always consulting a lawyer is, you know, if that is available to you,
you know, so that you can ask your specific targeted questions and especially
an employment lawyer who is knowledgeable in the law.
And of course, many of these, many of our listeners to Conflict Managed are
around the world. And so laws are different in different countries.
(11:02):
And it might be shocking to us in one country what is or isn't illegal in another
other country, but the law is built up for many different reasons in different
cultures at different times.
And so there's always the distinction between what is legal and what is moral
and it's something to consider.
Absolutely. And it's often shocking that behavior.
(11:26):
And I often say there are many terrible things that have happened in the workplace.
And I say this in the course that unfortunately are not illegal.
And I think that there are many behaviors that should be illegal.
I do think behavior that is demeaning should be illegal, but it has to be linked
(11:47):
to some statute in the United States or some what's called a common law.
So negligence, for example, if there is water on the floor, just very simple
example, water on the floor, The employer doesn't, you know,
wipe it up. They know about it. They have a duty of care.
Someone slips on that on that water and they fall.
(12:08):
You know, that's going to be potential negligence. So that's what's called a common law.
But statutes are actually laws that are passed by a state legislature.
So people, lawmakers coming together, deciding that something is unlawful or
should be the law, and that idea being codified into a statute.
(12:33):
And that's not what's called common law, like judge, what's called common law is judge-made law.
So those are the sources. And lawyers are confined,
unfortunately, to those, or maybe fortunately in some regards,
but there are rules by which a lawyer, they're confined by which a lawyer has to argue their case.
(12:55):
They are, sometimes their hands are tied, right?
Like if you have a bad manager, they're just really, really mean and awful,
but the behavior isn't tied to some protected class or some common law,
unfortunately, it's not legally actionable.
And I say, unfortunately, continually, because I don't like when people are
(13:18):
working in psychologically unsafe workplaces, workplaces that make them feel bad when they walk in.
So in the course, I do have a checklist of things that someone should consider
before leaving, because there may be alternatives to suing and there may be
alternatives to even leaving your workplace.
So there it's not sue the workplace or leave the workplace.
(13:42):
There are things in between that you can ask for.
And I do have a checklist of things to consider before leaving your workplace.
And also key considerations that you should be making, like,
do you have a non-compete agreement?
And right now, non-compete agreements are, they're in an ambiguous state in the United States.
(14:03):
They were the FTC banned non-competes.
And now there is a court case that is litigating that FTC ruling.
And so the state of non-competes is in a bit of flux right now in the United States.
But that's still something that employees should put their thumb on.
Do you have something that prohibits you from leaving?
(14:23):
If you leave, do you have to pay back some sum of money?
Often there are bonuses attached to you starting at an employer.
And if you leave before a certain amount of time, you may have to pay back that
bonus. So there are geographic restrictions.
If you leave, how long will it take you to find another job within your locality?
(14:47):
Like, do you have to commute longer?
So there are many, many considerations that are not legal considerations.
They're just lifestyle considerations.
And those are things to think about as well. So the course really tries to be
as comprehensive as it can.
I don't claim to cover every single topic available or that's important,
(15:07):
but I do hope that it is a starting point for people to consider some of the
considerations that commonly come across my desk.
And I try to synthesize that into this course. And I think you do it very well.
I appreciate that because as you are articulating, the problems that people
have at work are as varied as the individuals that experience them.
(15:33):
And I think that best practice when you're having something very difficult at
work is to do everything you can to work on it, right?
And that is seeing your options available with the caveat, if you are being
greatly affected mentally or physically, as you say in your course,
(15:53):
the biggest asset you have is your health.
And so you do need to protect that. And yet there are these real world considerations
of money, healthcare in the US and other places. There's all these things to consider.
And so it's very easy for somebody on the outside to say, just leave.
(16:13):
It is never that simple. I mean, it's that simple if you don't need to work
and if you don't care about the work, but that is, 99.9%. That is not the case for people.
And also, many times we think, I'm going to leave this environment.
I'm going to go someplace else and I'll be much better. And not necessarily, Right.
(16:34):
We need to figure out what are the issues, what's going on, what are the other possibilities.
And so I really appreciate that about this course is that it's not,
okay, let's leave. It's, you know.
What I appreciated about your course is anything that helps a person stop and
think and get out of that emotional space to really think, how is this action going to impact me?
(17:00):
What are my next steps? And the more options you have available.
So speaking with a lawyer does not mean you are going to sue.
It means it's one option about seeing what are my different options.
Speaking with mentors, speaking with friends, trusted family members,
and maybe even trusted people at work,
you know, what are the options available so that you can continue in your professional
(17:23):
capacity in whatever mission it is that you want to be doing in your work life?
Absolutely. And that is really the role of an advisor.
You know, lawyers are advisors. advisors they don't
make the ultimate decision you are in control
of in your relationship with
a lawyer the client is in control of what happens the lawyer is there to advise
(17:48):
the lawyer is there to advise about risk the lawyer is there to provide what
they think in their professional judgment is the best course of action considering
all the facts available but no one has more facts,
about their situation than the client themselves.
And the company, they have all the facts about, you know, all the data in terms
(18:10):
of, you know, what are the communications that happened and the documents.
The companies usually have that power and that information.
There's an information imbalance to some extent because the company does hold
that particular information. But the client themselves, the employee themselves,
if you're working with a lawyer in an employment matter.
(18:33):
They know how they feel about their workplace. They know how they feel that
Sunday night before having to go in on Monday morning.
And they understand what their impetus is for leaving or staying.
And that's really important to do that level, Mary, of introspection that you
(18:54):
identified and that the course really tries to bring out.
That there shouldn't be a knee-jerk reaction to leaving. Leaving sometimes can
hurt an employment discrimination claim if you leave before you've reported the conduct.
You do, as an employee, have an obligation to report conduct that you find to be illegal. legal.
(19:17):
And if you then decide, if you leave before reporting and then you decide to bring an action there,
it's really hard to show that the company should have reacted in a certain way
because they will likely claim they had no idea that any unlawful conduct was occurring.
And so it's important that employees like have the courage.
(19:39):
And I talk a lot about when I give talks about harassment and discrimination,
I talk about the courage that it takes to actually report.
And that's just something that can't be understated or overstated rather.
It takes so much courage when something bad is happening to say,
this is how I feel because workplaces typically don't embrace a lot of feelings.
(20:03):
And it feels like, you know, you don't want to be considered a whiner.
I know I have experienced workplaces where there was conduct that I just did
not feel comfortable, you know, I just didn't feel comfortable being subjected to.
And it was really difficult for me to say something.
And when I did say something, it
(20:25):
was, in one instance, it was just with a supervisor that I really trusted.
And it was in conversation and I wasn't going to say anything.
It was just in conversation where it came out and my supervisor was asking,
hey, is everything okay?
How are you liking this? And I was like, well, you know, this is,
you know, what I do like, this is what I don't like.
And I was very passive in the conversation. So I don't even think that would
(20:50):
have been considered reporting.
My supervisor was just wonderful in actually responding to the conduct and having
a conversation with the person that was making me feel uncomfortable.
But at the same time, that particular, I knew what I had to do if I really wanted
to report, and I didn't do that because I was scared.
(21:11):
And I think that's just a natural reaction that when you are fearful,
you're wondering, Did something actually occur?
This is why I think it's so extremely important to understand what the legal
parameters are, what the law says is illegal, what it doesn't say is illegal.
I think the biggest thing that you can do or the best thing you can do is really
(21:34):
look at cases within your jurisdiction to determine, you know,
how are courts looking at this?
And so hopefully my course will give you just a starting point as to what you
should be looking, what laws should you be looking at?
What laws should you be diving deeper into so that you can do your own analysis?
And then, of course, it's so extremely important to consult with a lawyer who
(21:57):
can really help you and guide you in that analysis.
I really appreciate this emphasis on courage, because what I love about conflict resolution,
if you've listened to my podcast, my listeners, you know, I say it over and
over again, is that conflict is about first and foremost, personal empowerment,
conflict resolution, dealing with it.
(22:17):
And that personal empowerment, it does take a lot of courage to acknowledge
there's a problem, to acknowledge that you need help, and then to have those
difficult conversations.
Conversations and I think that
when you when you really think about
how do I have those conversations fruitfully it
(22:38):
can take a lot of
the it can give us a lot of confidence and it can also make better conversations
because you're not coming in hot and escalated and accusatory but when you really
think through what exactly is the issue and you bring it to somebody and you
have a a curiosity about it. I think about this especially for young workers.
(23:00):
Sometimes somebody who's new to a.
Profession or just new to the workplace might feel uncomfortable with something.
But sometimes in every job, there's stuff that we don't like and there are policies
we don't agree with, but we do them anyway. It's not illegal. It's not immoral.
We just think they're dumb or sometimes it just feels uncomfortable to reach
(23:23):
out and do this or do that.
And so we feel this sort of unease, but we don't know how to talk about it.
And so there's that courage there with just getting in the habit of really understanding
ourself so that we could ask those kinds of questions like that you did with your supervisor.
You were, I imagine, testing the waters a little bit for you to decide if you
(23:46):
wanted to do something else.
But also the importance here is of the listener.
So those people who are those advisors, the lawyer, the good manager and leader
should listen. Listen, when to probe, when is somebody testing the waters?
What are they trying to say?
For sure. I think that that's so important, Mary, is having the listener,
(24:12):
especially supervisors.
And I say this all the time, especially when I'm giving anti-harassment training,
is supervisors, they're held
to a higher level of responsibility under the law in the United States.
And that level of responsibility that they're legally held to,
it should just be the baseline.
(24:33):
They should really be allies as well.
And being an ally requires building a level of trust. And that supervisor and
I, we had a level of trust with each other. I trusted her.
I very much, you know, I thought that she was a leader and did the right thing.
And so I felt like I could say very candidly how I was feeling.
(24:55):
And I didn't really expect or expect.
And I didn't think that what I was going through was harassment or discrimination.
I just felt as though the conduct that I had been subjected to just wasn't good leadership.
And I didn't want her necessarily to do anything, but she did to make her workplace
(25:18):
to have a better culture. And so I appreciated that because it was scary.
I was not going to say anything to this person.
And I think that level of just listening, of taking action and building workplace
culture, it does fall on the leaders within the organization.
Organization that's just i mean that's who
(25:41):
holds the the torch to create
that light within your organization like that is the
that's who people are looking at is the leader and then if but also if you are
a colleague if you do hear something and bystander intervention and i'm sure
you heard me talk about this but bystander intervention is so important you
(26:02):
know you can be you can lend your courage to someone else.
If you are in a position of privilege, whatever that privilege is.
You might just have the courage privilege where you have a voice that you're not afraid to use.
And some people are just naturally more inclined to speak up.
(26:23):
I think it's easier to speak up for other people. I'll say this on behalf of
myself. It's much easier for me to speak up for other people than it is for
me to speak up for myself.
I'm very keen on speaking up for injustice for other people.
When it happens to me, I'm a little bit more demure.
And so I think that if you can lend your courage to someone when you see something
(26:43):
happening in a workplace, that's important too.
And in many states, you're also protected from harassment. If you're complaining
about harassment or discrimination on behalf of someone else,
you are typically protected as now Now, a protected category,
if you're complaining about harassment or discrimination on behalf of someone else,
you're protected from retaliation.
(27:05):
And so it's beyond just the legal parameters.
I think the law is a baseline. What you do in the workplace to build better
culture, that's dictated by the company's values.
You know, what type of values do you want? Do you really want that high level
of that high standard of showing illegality?
(27:27):
Or do you want a culture that actually is based on not what the law prohibits,
but on what you think should be the values of your company for my company, integrity,
respect, excellence, inclusion. conclusion.
And so those are really, really important just to define and to execute on a
(27:49):
daily basis and make sure that everybody buys into that.
Oh gosh, I love so much of what you said. But one thing I want to focus on is
the lending your courage, right?
And at the bystander, would we see something going on?
A lot of times we don't know what to do. We know this person is in trouble or
this person is hurting and we don't know what to do.
So a lot of times we don't act. But this idea of solidarity,
(28:13):
of there's so many ways we can come alongside and even just showing up and saying,
I saw that, you know, I see you, I'm here for you.
But the vision of lending your courage, that is so very beautiful and evocative
(28:37):
of what we really can do for other people.
Because, I mean, I absolutely agree with you that I can definitely advocate
for other people much more than myself.
When it comes to me, it's like, did that really happen? Is it that big of a
deal? Do I want to open this can of worms?
Right, all of that. But when it's somebody else, especially if they ask for
(28:58):
help, or I say, I see this, is there anything I can do?
Then, you know, to come alongside side and to do that with that person or for
that person if that is, again, what it is that they want.
Because we always want to follow the lead of the person who has been negatively impacted.
(29:18):
Indeed. I think that that's absolutely right, Mary. It's very much a privilege that we do have.
And I don't think that it can be overstated in the appreciation that someone
may have when you're just listening and you validate that something has happened
that they may not think or they don't know. No.
(29:40):
And that's, I don't know if you've been in situations in which something happened
and you're just sitting there like, did that really happen? Or did I imagine that?
Or is that really bad?
And so I know I have been in those situations and someone has said,
yeah, well, that actually, that wasn't okay. And that might have inspired me
just to think more deeply about it.
(30:02):
Or, you know, if a person has said, yeah, we're going to say something,
you know, that that matters to people when you are an ally and you just listen.
And in some cases or in many cases, if you in the workplace,
if you do see something that's harassing, if you do see, for example,
sexual harassment, you have an obligation to report that conduct to the company
(30:25):
as a bystander, even if the victim of that harassment doesn't want you to.
So that's just a small nuance in the United States.
Typically, most companies have policies in which you have to report if you see something.
If you see something, especially harassment, you have to say something because
(30:47):
you are creating the culture. And, you know, there may be situations in which
the victim doesn't want you to say something, but you have to,
you can't promise confidentiality.
If you are someone who is less inclined to, you know, want to report,
it's important that you build the courage to.
And in doing this, it's not just fulfilling your.
(31:08):
A policy obligation or a legal obligation, but it's that moral obligation that
you are building a better workplace.
And workplaces do create our worlds, right?
They do create, you're spending the majority of your time in this space,
whether it's a remote space or an in-person space, you are spending the majority
of your time building something within your company, building something with other people.
(31:34):
And those lessons that you take or that you create, that you learn in the workplace,
you do take those things out into the world.
And so I think that employees, we make up the world.
It's important that we go out and do good things in the company because I think
inevitably you will do good things in the world with those lessons.
(31:54):
Absolutely. So as what happens in our workplaces affect our private life and
the rest of our public life.
And then, of course, what's happening in our culture and in our families also
comes into the work environment.
And so as we're recording this, this is the summer of 2024.
And in the U.S., we have had just, well, I think the world has had a very interesting past four years.
(32:20):
But in the U.S. right now, we're in the middle of a presidential election.
And in the U.S., those take a very long time. And We have had one of the nominees
was shot at a week ago and another nominee stepped down.
And there's a lot of turmoil. And we've already been dealing with incivility
and just this real shift that's going on at work since COVID and economic pressures.
(32:47):
There's just so much going on. What do you see about how we bring about respectful
workplaces that treat people really well?
Yeah, Mary, it's just so important, especially in a country that may be more
divided than it's ever been,
(33:07):
to make sure that you are bringing just a high level of respect to everybody
that you are interacting with in the workplace. place.
And so that respect is just the respect in your language, the respect in the
way that you're treating people.
Everybody's going to have a different view about anything that's going on in the world, right?
(33:31):
We all are entitled to our different opinions, but what you bring to work has to be based in respect.
Your interactions, just any microaggressions really should often,
And you should always at least be thinking, you know, am I leading or my actions
showing microaggressions?
(33:51):
Is my language showing a microaggression?
And those microaggressions can be something such as, you know,
where are you really from? Right?
Like, can I touch your hair? Those are microaggressions. And so it's important
to remember that little things, they're micro actions that can be disrespectful.
And so all of us have to just be cognizant of our behavior.
(34:15):
Because I do think that we are in an election season, so I think tensions are high.
And leading with respect, you know, saying hello to somebody,
smiling, just being pleasant, that can actually lead to just better interactions in the workplace.
And I'm not telling you just to go around like smiling, you know,
(34:37):
you don't have an obligation to smile, but just saying hello, being civil.
Is important. Just treating people with dignity, everyone with dignity in the
workplace, extremely important.
Because as I said before, workplaces do create our worlds.
So making sure that you are just leading and building a culture of safety,
(34:59):
psychological safety within your workplace.
Because in the outside world, you may not feel that psychological safety.
So the The workplace should be a place in which everybody feels like their value,
their appreciated, what they bring to the table matters.
And so we can all do that for each other by being civil to your colleagues.
(35:21):
One way that we could be civil with our colleagues is recognizing and celebrating difference.
And that can also be a political difference. And if we really embrace this idea
that we are going to be better and stronger if we don't deny the fact that we
have different backgrounds,
different gifts, different perspectives,
(35:43):
and that when there is a season of high emotion going on in a culture,
that people are going to be at different places with that.
Recently, I was on a vacation and we were having a political discussion,
which we don't typically do, just for a lot of reasons.
And everything was going relatively well, I thought, even if I was a little uncomfortable.
(36:09):
And then all of a sudden it didn't. And I really appreciated how my family members
responded to that by allowing that, you know, allowing, because the person just got up and left.
And I wasn't there, though I have been there when certain topics come up,
certain things that I think, I can't believe this person is defending this,
(36:30):
and I have escalated, but I wasn't there.
But another person was, and just realizing that when really difficult topics
come up that not everybody is thinking and processing as I am.
And I think and process at different times differently.
So I think a part of respect is having grace on people.
(36:54):
I'm not advocating yelling. Absolutely not, right? None of those.
But allowing people to...
To be at different places, because that is reality. Absolutely. Absolutely.
And I think that it's important to remember, I don't necessarily advocate talking
about politics at work because of how sensitive these topics are,
(37:19):
and they matter in people's real lives.
And so if there is an opportunity, though, for, I do believe in inclusion.
And if there is an opportunity to learn more from your colleague,
you know, that may have a different political view from you,
then civilly, you can have that discussion, right?
You can have, and I think it should take place outside of the workplace.
(37:42):
It could be a coffee where you say, hey, I'd like to like learn,
I'd like to sit down with you and just learn more.
And understanding that we all process at different paces, but the yelling,
there are ways to engage in dialogue. And Mary, you are the expert in this and
managing, right, managing conflict, managing differences of opinion.
(38:02):
But I think sitting down and having parameters to the conversation is so important.
I mean, I love mediation as a tool in general. I think there's so many things
you can bring out of mediation, just in the tactics in which it occurs and the
processes that you use to mediate.
I think taking those processes of a formal mediation and bringing that into
(38:26):
your personal life, like, hey, these are the parameters.
These are the rules of the conversation, the rules of engagement.
And then coming to a place of deeper understanding. I think that is essential.
And I think we all learn more when we hear from people with different perspectives.
I mean, there is no value in only having one perspective.
(38:49):
And I think because we have blind spots.
And I learn, you know, I learn, I may not agree with every opinion, but I do learn.
I'd learn the perspective of the other person whose opinion that I don't agree with.
I mean, that's what lawyers, we are often in conflict. I mean,
that's, I'm in conflict all the time.
(39:10):
But I do learn, right? I don't always agree with the person on the other side,
but I do learn their perspective.
I don't, I may not agree with it, but it's done civilly.
You know most of the time I think it's
a we are not you know indeed I'm not a yelling attorney so
I don't you know I would call myself civil and
so I think there is there are definitely lessons in that
(39:31):
conflict and that we take that we should take out into the world like how do
we have civil conversations where we're learning and we're not becoming more
divided but we're learning from each other I absolutely agree and I do agree
that pretty much talk about politics and
probably religion as well, ought not be topics at work for a variety of reasons.
(39:54):
And part of it is when we think something is very reasonable,
let's say some sort of political topic, and we are just all in,
we think all reasonable people agree with me on this.
And if you're voicing this at work, because it's just, of course,
if you believe in human rights, you believe this, or if you believe whatever,
you believe this, you are misunderstanding that not everybody sees the world the way that you do.
(40:19):
Something that I think is innocuous may not be for somebody else.
Right. That's very true. The issue with microaggressions, right?
Like something that you might think is so small.
Could also be a microaggression. So it is important not to make assumptions.
Leading with questions as opposed to assumptions is what I advocate.
(40:42):
To ask, how do, and again, I think staying away from the politics is important.
Sometimes it's inevitable.
Sometimes you will very quickly enter into that political terrain when you're
not really expecting to. too.
But leading with questions as opposed to assumptions and not assuming that someone
(41:02):
has the same view as you, it's so important.
And when you're friendly at work, you might assume that the person across the
table has the same view as you.
But that's not necessarily the case. We all do bring nuance.
So we are not a monolithic society.
And that's what makes us so beautiful is that we do have the ability to disagree
(41:23):
and the freedom to disagree and still live harmoniously, right?
Like that is the beauty in America.
And I think that that's just a beauty that the workplace should make sure that
they continue to promote being respectful.
So that conversation, as much as you can leave politics, you need to focus on
(41:47):
what you're focusing on at work.
But at the same time, if there is an opportunity to teach, you know, do it respectfully.
And there may be many opportunities. I mean, there may be opportunities in which
your colleague, they're exposed to a new viewpoint because they're working with
someone who has a viewpoint that's different than theirs.
And they want to learn more genuinely to know, you know, this is like,
(42:09):
I trust you as a colleague and I trust you as a person.
Would it be offensive to you if I asked you this question, or do you mind if I ask you this question?
And I think leading with that question as opposed to.
Assuming that it's okay to ask that question, you know, but really giving the
other person autonomy to say, no, I don't want to engage here because it could
(42:30):
put someone on the spot in an uncomfortable way.
But generally leading with curiosity and empathy is so important.
And I think those are all tenets of respect.
Yeah. When I think about respect, I think about professionalism.
Like what does it mean to be professional? What does it mean to be a good colleague.
And while I don't believe workplaces are families, but I do think that we can
(42:55):
have something very interesting and fulfilling at work when we are collegial with one another.
And this is this deep kind of respect and professionalism, which takes continual introspection.
It takes this being a person of integrity and recognizing that we're We're all
flawed and we all are trying to be better tomorrow than we were today.
(43:18):
And so we are going to make mistakes and then we can make amends and move forward
and really try to listen and be listened to this reciprocal relationship.
And so when something contentious comes up, because there are contentious issues
at work, like how do we allocate these resources?
Who do we hire? Right. You know, right.
(43:40):
So there's plenty of contention at work that we leave religion and politics at the door.
So how do we not vilify the other, but extend grace and think about, well, what did they see?
Why do they want to hire this person? And I think we should hire somebody else.
Why do they think we should go with this outsourcing company instead of continue doing it in-house?
(44:01):
What did they see so that we can gain the other perspective and come to better
conclusions for the organization, which helps us to improve and helps them to improve.
And then our relationships are continued to improve with each other.
And that dialogue and that iteration, that does build relationships,
(44:24):
you know, that being able to have disagreements and then come together and come
up with the solution that's in the best interest of the organization.
That is that I mean, that's a testament to the strength of the relationship
and it does build that relationship muscle.
So I totally agree with you there, Mary.
Yeah, I think, yeah, the more we do it, the more we can have these little wins
(44:46):
with people. the more we do, the disagreement.
So if you can really disagree with somebody, that means you have a good relationship
with them. That's exactly right.
And that's, I think that's, you know, that is the essence, an employment relationship.
It is going to be, you know, I think of employment relationships like marriages,
right? Like you will, you have to communicate.
(45:08):
You have to, you're in a community, you're in not a marital relationship,
but in an employment relationship with several people. And there are going to
be hard issues that you have to solve.
And that's why if you're working at a company that does innovative stuff in
the world, then you are going to have challenging, complex issues that don't
(45:32):
have a one-sided solution or a blanket solution.
Solution and the purpose that
you're the reason your company's hired you is because you do come
with a sense of you know of difference you
you you bring a different perspective you bring your own individual
skill set to that particular challenge and you're bringing your solution to
(45:54):
that challenge and the solution that your colleague brings may be different
but coming together and figuring out the best ways you identifying challenges
them identifying challenges you're You're really coming up with the most innovative,
most powerful solution to that problem.
And that's really why you're bringing the value.
And I think that it's reflected, you know, if you think about the iPhone,
(46:17):
I'm sure there are many disagreements over this piece of innovative technology that changes the world.
You know, if one person had been the if there had been one person working on
this piece of technology, I'm sure that this technology would not be as amazing as it is now. Right.
Or, you know, you might not be an Apple person. You might be a Google person, but in any of it.
(46:40):
But this is the idea is that innovation takes several, several,
several perspectives and disagreement is inevitable. But that doesn't mean that it's wrong.
Absolutely. And, you know, I think that, you know, when we when people hire
us, they shouldn't and usually don't hire us. At least they don't think they're
hiring us to just say yes, yes and go along.
(47:02):
And so it should be a topic of conversation. When you hire someone,
the person that is leading you should say, when you disagree with me,
when you disagree with somebody else, this is how I like to hear this. What about you?
When you have a disagreement or when you see that we ought to be doing something
else, how do you typically voice that?
(47:24):
So how can we disagree well together and continue to have those conversations
which recognize, one, we ought to be disagreeing. And then when we do it,
how do we do it well? How do we argue well?
That means how do we communicate difference well in an efficacious,
fruitful way, not one where we're down like impugning each other's personalities
(47:47):
or reputations. And that's unnecessary.
There's no reason. Personal attacks are never necessary.
It's not helpful. It's not constructive.
But to your point, Mary, asking how do you receive feedback is so important
because everyone receives it differently.
(48:08):
And it's hard to receive feedback. I don't know.
I like feedback for sure. Sure. It's in the way that it's delivered,
I think it's important because you never want to attack someone's confidence.
You want to give feedback in a way that's truly constructive.
And the person who's receiving the feedback should know that it's coming from
(48:32):
a place, not of maliciousness or of malice, but of care for the person,
of care for the product or solution or service you're imparting into the world.
And so that dialogue and just building the trust, it's important because then
you can receive feedback.
You can give as much feedback, you can receive it.
(48:53):
Sometimes the feedback isn't going to come across as sugary and nice, right?
Because you might be working in a very fast-paced environment,
which it's impossible to sugarcoat.
Or make everything a compliment sandwich, right? Compliment,
feedback, compliment, right?
You know, it's not feasible in the environment in which you're working.
(49:14):
But I think if you deliver that feedback with a level of trust,
if you've already built that trust, there's a trust bank there,
that feedback is going to be far more well-received than you just,
you know, hammering down that critique with no relationship.
Yeah. Work is all about relationships, right? So networking is about relationships
(49:38):
as being a good colleague.
When you build trust, then people are more likely to actually tell you you've
got that spinach in your teeth, right? Yeah, exactly.
And so we all say, yes, we want feedback.
And almost universally people say, it's really difficult.
In some way, I don't really want it. But when we don't get it,
and eventually it comes to you two years later, you say, why didn't you tell me?
(50:02):
We all want to know, right? So if your best friend saw that you were being cheated
on and they're like, well, I didn't say anything. You're like,
then you're not my best friend, right?
So we have this, and this is just pretty a human thing. We have this love-hate
relationship with feedback.
But if you don't tell people the truth, you hold them to derision.
(50:23):
And that happens, I mean, just about every organization I go to,
somebody or some people are being talked about behind their back because they're
unprofessional, but nobody has talked to them.
And so now it's a pattern and it's a whole big thing. And that's one of the
reasons I'm there. Right.
If at the very beginning we could have you could have said, hey, you know.
(50:45):
We need to have our uniforms like this and you come like that.
This is what you need to do. Then that person can get up to speed.
But three years later and the person is called Stinky Joe, you know,
that that's a huge problem all the way around.
Oh, for sure. I mean, I think, you know, I see this all the time in employment
(51:06):
matters when feedback is delivered late and it's not delivered at the time that
the feedback should have been delivered.
At the time when the conduct was present.
And it's really difficult for someone who is being terminated or being demoted
for them to get feedback several, several months later or several years later.
(51:30):
And they're wondering, where did this come from?
And it feels like they're blindsided and they feel like they're attacked because
that feedback was nowhere to be found several years ago.
And so it's important to give continual feedback and you can do it in a way,
again, that is actually helpful and constructive and would likely be appreciated
(51:55):
when you're actually giving it.
Because it's, again, it's not coming from everyone has a job to do in the workplace.
You are trying to find a solution.
You're trying to serve customers. You're trying to innovate.
Whatever your particular, you're trying to serve the public,
whatever your particular particular industry is, you are trying to be of service
(52:16):
and you are working for a common goal.
And I think that's understood when you apply. So it's impossible to think that
you're not going to receive any form of criticism in that, you know,
in the accomplishment of that goal.
So I think it's just important to give it out, know how to give it out,
be, and everyone should be receptive to giving it out, but leading,
(52:40):
again, with that respect and empathy, transparency.
And Mary, again, to your point, asking how do you receive this is so important.
Absolutely. Clarity is kindness. We people want to know what they need to be
doing, if they're doing well, when they're doing well.
So a good leader is giving much more positive feedback than the challenges the
(53:02):
person is facing. But we need all of it in those continual, respectful,
collegial work environments. And that's where we want to be.
And we can have those, but it does take intentionality to be respectful.
I think a lot of laziness creeps in and we say, oh, it's just too hard or that
person needs to suck it up instead of thinking, well, what about my behavior?
(53:25):
I'm in a public space being paid to be here.
I'm a part of this organization. how do I behave well, and not just minimal,
but really well in this environment to.
To treat people, you know, the way I want to be treated. The intentionality
that's paramount, you know, taking time to say, how do you want to be respected?
(53:49):
And then not getting caught up in how quickly the environment moves, right?
The environment will move very quickly. And sometimes, you know,
it's, it's a frenetic pace that you're at, which you're working,
you're just like shooting off emails, they may be one word responses to someone,
you know, do take time, at least even if that is the case where it's not sugary,
(54:12):
it's not, you know, it's not loaded with compliments.
Make sure that you at least take some time, whether it's in the week or within
the month to check in, just like let people know where you're coming from.
Absolutely. And we can read that. I'm all about being genuine.
Genuine don't pay people false compliments people know
(54:34):
they can feel if you genuinely care about
them if you genuinely want them to succeed or you're trying to get rid of them
so and so we can see that and we can feel that and i think it kind of goes back
to what you were saying originally is courage courage to as we started this
podcast talking about to if you're in a difficult situation you're going to
(54:56):
have to be brave and you're going to have to be brave and you're going to have to
courage to stop and say, okay, what do I do next? What are my options?
So as we end this podcast together, can you give us some tips as to what are
some ways that we can individually develop our own capacity for courage?
Mary, thank you, number one, for this awesome conversation.
(55:17):
It's just always a pleasure talking to you. And I just really appreciate the
ability to come on this podcast and share ideas with you.
How do we develop our courage muscle? I think it's important to remember our values.
So when I am afraid to do something, I remember my values.
I remember why I'm doing the thing that I'm doing.
(55:39):
If it is a scary email that I have to write, it's an email that I don't want
to send particularly, I'm thinking, well, what are my values?
Is this in alignment with my values?
What do I stand for? And if I don't do this, what are the consequences?
What does this mean about who I am? Do I really stand for what I say I stand for?
(56:01):
That's important to me. And if that courage, if I'm lending my courage to someone
else, right, which I, as a profession, that's what I do.
And I'm asking those questions, do I stand for what I say I stand for?
And am I doing what I'm doing with integrity?
And the answer to that question should always be, yes, I'm coming from a place of integrity.
(56:24):
I'm coming from a place of I'm doing the right thing with the facts that I have available.
So that's one way to develop the courage muscle. And then I think repetition
and doing it over and over again, because you're developing confidence in that courage muscle.
You're remembering, you know, this is what happened the last time that I was courageous.
(56:46):
And that resulted in something great for maybe the world, maybe for a person, maybe for yourself.
So continuing to just be repetitive so that you trust yourself.
I think like that's trust in yourself is that is really at the heart of courage.
Wonderful answer. I just couldn't agree more.
(57:08):
And pulling back to what are your own values and then repeating and that internal
trust and confidence in yourself.
Well, right back at you, Jessica. Jessica, I love talking to you and I really
appreciate obviously what you're up to and that you really want people to have resolution.
You want people to have better work environments. You want to help people out
(57:29):
of really awful circumstances and give them peace and help.
And I appreciate what you've devoted your life to.
Thank you so much, Mary. I love what I do and it's really an honor.
So thank you very much for allowing me to share on your platform. form.
Thank you, Jessica, for being on Conflict Managed again.
What a pleasure it is to speak with you and just in awe of the work that you
(57:52):
do in the legal profession to help people in the US with their employment issues.
And as we all know, there's a lot of pain that people experience at work and
people need direction and help.
And I'm so glad that you have devoted your time and your professional life to
helping people have healthier work environments and finding resolution and also
(58:14):
of holding organizations to account for illegal behavior.
Conflict Managed is produced by third-party workplace conflict restoration services
and hosted by me, Mary Brown.
You can find us online at 3pconflictrestoration.com. Check out my book,
How to Be Unprofessional at Work, Tips to Ensure Failure.
It's 80 tips of what not to do. It looks at what to do instead to have a healthy work environment.
(58:36):
This idea of courage and respect, what does that really look like in the everyday?
Come back. We have new episodes every Tuesday. day. Our music is courtesy of Dove Pilot.
And remember, conflict is normal and to be expected. Let's deal with it. Until next time.
Music.
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