065: How People Unintentionally Escalate Conflict at Work

Speaker A: And you can say a couple of different things like, um, just acknowledge the emotion or just, and it could be you seem to feel really strongly about this or um, am I getting it right? This seems really upsetting to you. Or you can even just ask a curiosity question. And I think this is a great one and I've stole it from um, a colleague of mine of help me understand where all this emotion is coming from.

Speaker B: Mhm. Mm.

Speaker A: And in particular, in the workplace, we don't wanna talk about emotions at all. But we are thinking and feeling human beings. And just because you're not comfortable or you don't have the acuity to recognize the emotional content, doesn't mean it's not there.

Speaker C: Welcome to the Employment Experience. What if you could hang out with an experienced employment lawyer who has represented businesses in disputes with employees. Ask them about everyday employment decisions like hiring, firing and medical leave. Then take an insight or two to make sure you are following employment laws. Your host, Carly Wanos, provides training and guidance designed to help businesses prevent costly litigation and operate efficiently. Carly is an employment lawyer and the founder of the Wuornos law firm. Her goal is to help business owners and human resources professionals stay on top of employment issues affecting their business and their employees. Now here's Carly.

Speaker B: Welcome back to the Employment Experience podcast. Today we are discussing conflict in the workplace and I love this episode because I think it's something that everyone can relate to. We are discussing escalating tensions and I'm sure you have all experienced this when someone says calm down or maybe you have said to somebody who is getting upset, just calm down. The intent is to de escalate the situation, but what it does is the complete opposite a lot of times and it just serves to escalate the conflict. So today we're talking about why you should never say calm down and what to say instead. We're also talking about how to spot and address conflict on remote teams because as ah, you can imagine that comes with its own own set of challenges. My guest this week is the expert. So let me tell you about her. But first, of course, if you are listening on Apple or Spotify or Stitcher, please be sure to subscribe so you don't miss an episode. And uh, also I would love if you could rate and review the show. This helps me reach more listeners and of course helps get our message across for more people. And now I want to introduce you to Carol Bowser. Carol is a workplace conflict expert and after practicing employment law for several. Carol founded Conflict Management Strategies when she realized that A lawsuit cannot deliver the level of resolution and satisfaction that is gained when people are actively involved in creating solutions for themselves in their workplace conflict. Carol's clients come with a wide range of employers because conflict is universal across all industries and all types of organizations. And where there are people, there are emotions, and when there are emotions, there's the potential for conflict. The key is to help people recognize and address conflict before it damages working relationships and creates organizational drag. And as you all know, I am an employment attorney, and a lot of times, unfortunately, these types of situations, if they're not addressed up front, do, unfortunately, at, uh, times end up in litigation, which for most organizations definitely don't want to end up there. In over Carol's 20 years of experience, she's discovered some universal themes about workplace conflict. And she loves to share how people at all levels can strengthen their conflict resolution muscles. So let's bring Carol in. Carol, thank you so much for being here and welcome to the show.

Speaker A: My pleasure. Happy to be here.

Speaker B: Absolutely. I'm glad you're here. I'm excited for the conversation that we're having today. Like I was mentioning before, it's something that resonates with me. It resonates with a lot of people. And we're going to be talking about what workplace conflict, specifically, why you should never say calm down to somebody who might be a little bit agitated or, uh, you know, might be having some conflict or tension with you. Um, um. And I'm. And I'm excited to jump into that and kind of find out your reasons why you should never say calm down. But first, it's almost. I just wanted to mention, I completely understand why people might say that. It's like a knee jerk reaction to seeing somebody who is getting upset. So explain kind of how that works, why you shouldn't say calm down to somebody. And then I want to talk about what you should say instead.

Speaker A: Fantastic. So I think the re. I don't know where it came from, but everybody just said, calm down, calm down, calm down. But I find it's absolutely minimizing of, you don't have a right. You shouldn't be upset about that. It is a disproportionate response. Yes.

Speaker B: It's dismissive, almost.

Speaker A: It's dismissive. It's completely dismissive. And if you are upset in part because no one is listening to you and you're feeling dismissed and you're having an emotional and physical and psychological reaction to it, not helpful. My impression is that people are deeply uncomfortable with other people being upset. That's the first thing, the second thing is from our own point of view, we don't think that it makes sense that they should be upset. It's not quote unquote rational.

Speaker B: It's not justified.

Speaker A: It's not justified. It's a temper tantrum. It's a disproportionate response. That being said, if you're a parent or uh, you know, or you have children or you have people who act childlike because some people don't have the emotional awareness or they don't have the emotional regulation where in fact it is a disproportional response. And a little asterisk here is we are becoming more and more aware of neurodiversity within the culture and within the workplace. And some of the, I don't want to say the word symptoms but some of the characteristics of certain neurodiversity is an intense and disproportional reaction. So one people may not realize that they are escalating. They may not realize it's a, that other people perceive it to be a disproportional response. And people may just be uncomfortable with high levels of emotion. So you are trying to dictate other people's emotional and psychological response based on your preferences. Right.

Speaker B: That's so interesting and thank you for pointing that out about neurodivergent individuals. I think people need to be aware of that, especially in the workplace. Just because you don't experience certain feelings or emotion doesn't mean that somebody else doesn't also experience those feelings or emotions. I was thinking about why the almost knee jerk reaction is to say calm down because a lot of people do it and it's kind of like the go to. It's the immediate response and I think it's probably because that's what the person wants the other person to calm down and relax. But it actually ends up having the opposite effect and it ends up in many times escalating the situation because it's not well received by the other person or they feel dismissed. So what is it? Let's give like a real world example. What should they say when they want to say something like calm down or they want to help or they want to de escalate the situation. What's something that you suggest they say instead?

Speaker A: First I'm m going to say it's going to take a little bit of practice because that just calm down is so ingrained that it was going to be an auto response response. So the people doing this you're going to have to be aware of, uh, first of how often am I saying this? So you're going to have to engage in the situational awareness and self awareness and then you can just pause and just let them talk for a little, a little bit. Because if they are escalated because they don't feel as though anyone is listening, then just stop and let them finish. Kind of let them, if it's the analogy, if there's, if they're stressed and it's like a big balloon full of air, let the air dissipate and you just be listening and making eye contact with them, um, and then just really let them go. And you can say a couple of different things like just acknowledge the emotion or just. And it could be, uh, you seem to feel really strongly about this or am I getting it right? This seems really upsetting to you. Or you can even just ask a curiosity question. And I think this is a great one and I've stole it from a colleague of mine of help me understand where all this emotion is coming from. And in particular in the workplace we don't want to talk about emotions at all, but we are thinking and feeling human beings. And just because you're not comfortable or you don't have the acuity to recognize the emotional content doesn't mean it's not there. And it shows a sense of curiosity, it shows an acknowledgement. And so again, just things like help me understand what, you know, where this emotion coming from. Or even the acknowledging the intensity of, wow, you seem to feel really strongly about this. That being said, you could also say I'm just getting a really kind of flat affect from you here. What's going on with that? So we're also acknowledging it's not just the high but the disengagement as well. So those are just a couple of things that people can try on for size and allow people to process and articulate what, what's going on with them.

Speaker B: Right. And, and I like what you said about just listen. A lot of times people, when they get upset, they just have to get it out, just let them get it out. And when you shut them down and say wait, stop, you're getting too emotional or calm down, dismissive, you're cutting them off, you're not allowing them to get out, out what they need to get out. And I found that a lot of times they, the person can be emotional about the situation. It's not necessarily directed to the person. So what happens a lot, um, especially in the workplace is someone's upset and they are emotional and the person is taking it like the anger is directed to them. So now they're taking a personal and you have now another layer to the conflict that you have to resolve. So that was really good. And then you mentioned something else that I wanted to touch on. Try to take the emotion out of it. So I know that you practiced employment law and when we read deposition transcripts, specifically you cannot see the emotion in the transcript, so you're just reading words. And sometimes I like to think of like that if someone's really emotional, just listen to the words that they're saying. So you can properly respond to the content of their communication and not so much react emotionally in response to their reaction, their emotional reaction. I know it's easier said than done,

Speaker A: obviously, but yeah, you bring up a really interesting point because, um, there are two things that came to mind. I saw a meme the other day that talked about the importance of fonts. And, and it's something like, uh, one was a, like a fluffy font with um, you know, like, kind of like you would imagine hearts. And one says I will always follow you. And the other one was like a psycho killer font of I will always follow you. And they said font is important. So I think it'd be really interesting if depositions had a font that could be able to display the emotion. And similarly, because we rely on emails and teams and Slack and non verbal communication that we either read in emotion or intent or we miss the emotion, uh, and intent. So it can be kind of hard. And also a lot of depositions now are videoed so you can go back and you can see are they uncomfortable, are they fidgeting? Was there a long pause in there? And I think teams and slack are similar to that. And zoom is similar to that of, uh, we might be able to look at the chat, we might be able to look at the face and we're trying to put together the words and the visual piece. It might have been your podcast, um, a couple of. I was just listening to where they were talking about like leadership, uh, communication. And they said communication is not just words. Communication is what is said. Communication is what is not said. Communication is how it is said. Communication is body language. So if we're thinking about that, the never say calm down. You're relating to I don't feel this person, I feel this person is unsafe or unreasonable. And I can't talk with them, which really means I can't convince them that I am right and they are wrong. Um, so just again, that kind of awareness of what is it you're Trying to get out of this conversation and how, what and how are you doing, including what language and your use of pause are you recognizing where your audience is. So that way we can get, uh, emotional and hopefully psychological alignment to be able to have productive communication.

Speaker B: Right. And so how important is it, in your opinion, that workplace conflict and tensions when, when people get upset with each other at work, that it be resolved early on rather than brushed under the rug and kind of continue to fester?

Speaker A: Oh, well, um, if you can't talk about the little things, you won't be able to talk about the big things. And having these opportunities for building your conflict resolution muscles, building your ability to be able to recognize and address the emotional content of the, uh, message is huge. And so also what I find with my clients, a lot, a lot, a lot, that first they will say, you know, we're so busy, or my manager is so busy, um, I don't want to add to this. And so that way the little thing never, ever gets addressed. And then it's been festering like a little bit of a, um, sliver and then it continues to fester and then we're dealing with something much bigger. When I talk with leaders, they will say, you know, if something's important, um, I want to be able to deal, to deal with it. And I'd prefer, I would prefer that people interrupt me with little things versus having it fester. And also if it festers, then you're, then it is likely involving more people and people have greater emotional reaction to it because they are so upset that it hasn't been addressed. So again, if you're not talking about the little things, the little annoyances, the little challenges, the little concerns, the little disappointments, um, you won't talk about the big ones. The other point I want to raise is that working relationships, they're not a problem to be fixed, they're a relationship to be managed. And I think it's. Esther Pearl said that thing in more intimate relationships of it's not a problem to be fixed, it's a relationship to be managed. So if you look at it of, uh, like how am I managing myself and managing the other and managing the relationship, then we don't expect it to be a one off one and done well, we fixed it conversation. So I think that's important. I'll give you, uh, one related point in that some people kind of get stuff done where they view everything as a problem and we're going to tackle that problem, get it done and move on. They will tend to view Instances as single action, one and done, emotionally done with it. Other people view it, and here's my former employment lawyer, as the totality of these circumstances. And so we look at the totality of the circumstances from that person's point of view, and that person may see a common theme running through it of, well, yeah, we addressed that issue, but it was still really difficult. It was still taxing. They were aggressive, they were dismissive in the meeting, and they continue to do that pattern. So for leaders, I would like for you to consider, are you viewing it as a one and done? We've moved on, we've emotionally healed from it, or there was no emotional toll versus is it possible other people are looking at it as the totality of the circumstances, and there is a through line theme moving forward. I think that that's an important situational, um, awareness, uh, to exercise.

Speaker B: That's a really, really excellent point. I love that you brought that up. I, um, think more people treat it as the totality of the circumstances than what other people realize. I think the situation may have been addressed, but there's still hurt feelings underlying issues. And I don't know if you had this experience when you were practicing, but a lot of when you asked employees once a lawsuit had been filed why they filed the lawsuit, why they felt discriminated against, retaliated against, harassed by their manager, if there was an issue with the manager, more times than not they say, I don't think they liked me. I don't think the person liked me. So, you know, you can see how it comes down to the bottom line is just, you know, conflict and basics kind of, uh, at a basic level. And I wondered if a lot of times those foundational issues had been resolved and worked out, it wouldn't have kind of built on each other like building blocks up to the point where a lawsuit had been filed over something that could have started as a simple misunderstanding.

Speaker A: Precisely. I'm reminded of, um, a mediation I did when I was a contract mediator for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. It was like probably the fastest mediation that I ever did. It was like 20 minutes or something like that. And what ended up happening is one employee was bringing forward a concern, and I think the president of the company or the vice president of the company said, oh, I'll look into that and get back to you. And the president or vice president, the, uh, executive ended up delegating, getting back to him with somebody else. And so the guy said, I feel this was the only way that I feel I could get their attention to my issue, this was the only way I feel that they could take me seriously, and they're not taking me seriously. And that's an example of what a theme I heard over and over again is filing a lawsuit, filing with the EEOC or the State Human Rights Commission or a safety violation or anything like that. People don't feel heard. So if you make the leap to, if you're saying don't calm down, they're. You're saying what the message they're hearing is you're not important. What you think, what you feel isn't important. Even though we hired you based on your brain, on what you think and feel and how to execute and they're bringing forward concerns and not feeling heard or not closing the loop of saying, I'm going to get back to you, or even having that, uh, proxy say, the vice president asked me specifically to follow up with you on this, to be able to close the loop. Fascinating, isn't it?

Speaker B: Right. And once you make that commitment to follow up, employees are becoming more and more sophisticated. They're going to expect you to follow up. And when you don't, it's almost like a double slap in the face.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: They didn't feel heard the first time around, and now you're just completely dismissing them altogether. So, yeah, I would like to emphasize for more companies to make sure, I think communication and conflict resolution between employees and managers sometimes gets pushed to the wayside, but it is so, so important. And, you know, I don't want to say everything ends up in an unemployment lawsuit, but it certainly does contribute a uh, majority of the time and a lot of times more times than not, probably pushes the employee over the edge towards filing. So I would urge, you know, employers to take that seriously and, and get that addressed on the front end as much as possible.

Speaker A: Correct. And to layer it, um, onto there. Like, I have yet to find an employer who said, yeah, we retaliate. Yeah, we discriminate. I mean, there may m. Oh, no, we know that there are. That. That does happen.

Speaker B: There are those outliers that, you know,

Speaker A: don't see a problem. Outliers, you know, and it may be inadvertent. Let's just give people the benefit of the doubt. That being said, the employer would say, you know, of course I'm not discriminating against them. I'm not bullying them, I'm not holding them to a higher standard. I don't treat them differently. It's just ridiculous. I think that negates a couple of things. One, there may be A feeling that there is an existential threat of retaliation. I mean, we don't want to get on people's bad sides. Particularly if someone like a manager or supervisor or someone who has social sway within the workplace, they can make your life difficult. They can do things that are differently. So even it might be like, well, I'm not that person. Just recognize that existential threat is real and it is pervasive. So just please be recognize, uh, that even though you don't think that you do it or that other, that your company doesn't do it, that doesn't mean that it doesn't happen. I mean, let's face it, we can all work a mood. And how many times have we heard, you know, I just know when the boss or my supervisor is in a bad mood, you know, they wear their emotion on their sleeve or I don't want to be a bad boy, or I don't want to be a bad girl, or I'm finishing my probation or I've even had high level executives say, I'm a single parent, I need this job. And I am not going to do anything that's going to upset because even particularly at high levels, if the president or the CEO says, you know what, I don't think you're effective anymore and this working relationship is becoming too fraught, I'm going to end this. I'm going to bring in someone who I feel, uh, is better suited for me, for me to do my job. So, um, that threat is out there. But being able to listen for it and also for one tool for everybody. I just worked with an executive team and they were so deliberate and having really difficult conversations. They use that improv technique of yes. And. And I was facilitating in the room and I could feel them struggling of like yes. And however they did it, and they made a commitment to it, even though it was painful, which demonstrated a commitment to we want to collaborate, we want to hear what, what, what, what it is. And so I think that that is a valuable tool as well.

Speaker B: So tell me what, what is that really quickly? Is it. Yes, because you're acknowledging what the person's saying, but you're also yes. And you're adding something else to it because you don't a hundred percent agree.

Speaker A: Correct? I. And so in some way, I think if you, if any of the audience wants to Google things. Improv. Yes. And um, Tina Fey in her biography Bossy Pants, talks about it. Amy Poehler, I think talks about it. It's in a way of not denying. So if they Say, you know, this is a, you know, we're really, if they're being specific, we're really, really struggling with retention. And you could say, yes, I'm acknowledging that we're doing this and I want to add to it. Uh, so it's not a no, we're not, or it's not a feeling. It's like, you know, and even if you could say, I'm so frustrated with this, I don't feel as though we're addressing this appropriately. You can say, yes, I can see that we're struggling with this. You don't have to say, and we're not dealing with it appropriately. But you could say, yes, I can see that this is an area of concern. Yes, I can see this is a high level of emotion and we're gonna. And I'm also trying to address the issue.

Speaker B: Right, so that's really interesting. So it's the opposite of a total shutdown, because you're acknowledging. Yeah, I mean, it's the opposite of a total shutdown, you're acknowledging. And it's allowing for the continuous would continued conversation. I also think it's interesting that you, the people who you observed seem to be struggling with it. So it just shows you it's something that you need to work on and that words do matter because they very easily could have said no, but. But they said yes and. And it, I anticipate continued the conversation in a positive way.

Speaker A: They did and not. And it was still rough and it was still rocky and there, uh, when they were still feeling raw about it, uh, however, it demonstrated to the other people in the room that even though it hard, there was a demonstrated commitment to keep it going.

Speaker B: Okay, good. Thank you for sharing that. Let's add one more layer of complication to conflict resolution. And let's talk about how to address and spot conflict on a, uh, remote team or for virtual workers. Because there is more and more people working remotely, virtually. You can't see a lot of the things, uh, you know, body language, hand gestures that you would see in person. So tell me a little bit about that.

Speaker A: So first I think it goes to how well are we getting onboarding and getting to know the personal preferences of our team? And also if you're able to, the importance of, you know, one on ones to be able to find out, like, is this the person who likes to be on camera? Is this person who doesn't like to be on camera? When they seem to be running on all cylinders, what's the nature and extent of their interaction? One of the things that is similar in conflict, whether it's online or it is, um, in person, is people start kind of, they go to what the folks over at the Crucial Conversations company call to extremes. It's either they kind of go to silence or they go to violence. It's kind of a, almost binary. And when they go to silence is like we start seeing and hearing them less and less and less their interaction is going through. They're actually kind of physically and emotionally retreating. Then it could be that, uh, and I heard this when I was practicing law and also eeoc, they will, they will talk to more people more frequently with increasing intensity in different modes. So it may be, they may be splattering out on Facebook, they may be doing side chats with people. Um, and then also for leaders, are people actually trying to get on your calendar to talk to you about things? And I would just consider how many obstacles if you were to maybe draw like a little map and put you in the center, how many little obstacles do. Would people have to go through in order to get time on your calendar or get, get your attention to be able to pay to these things? And the more barriers there are to you, the less likely, uh, they're maybe going to try once, try twice, and then be done with it. So they're not reaching out to you anymore. So think about that. And then also just think about, like, here's the question. When's the last time you saw people laughing? When was the last time there was lightness and not laughing as sarcasm because sarcasm is a power ploy, or that people were using humor to draw their attention to something that they're not comfortable talking about directly, but that we generally laughed about something and that you are aware of what's the emotional climate of my team? Team. Uh, so that means that you need to get to know your team and then. And reach out to the team and you know, and ask about not just how things are going, but how are things going. Really help me understand is, is there anything that, you know, that I should be paying attention to or that I've overlooked? Those are some things. And that's going to be an ongoing conversation, not a one and done. And it may take anywhere from, uh, 18 months to a year for people to start getting comfortable with you doing it deliberately, consistently, tenaciously, to be able to notice.

Speaker B: So let me ask you a question on something that you said, because I know this comes up a lot and a lot of companies have this question. So you mentioned ask if they feel more comfortable on camera or off camera. And some companies would say, well, we want everybody on camera. We want to be able to see them. We want to be able to see their reaction and to communicate directly with them. So how do you deal with something like that where you're, you're, you're, you want to ask if they want to be on camera or off camera to make them feel comfortable, I assume is the reason, but the company wants them on camera.

Speaker A: So I've got many different thoughts. My first question is why. Why do you want them on camera? Is it, you know, do you really want to see that they're not working from Hawaii? And a friend of mine with her, uh, wfh ah is work from Hawaii. And she's amazingly productive from that. So I mean, why is that, Is it that you're trying to check up on people? Is that you want to check in with people and then also just thinking about if we've got a screen of like, uh, 10 people around here, are you really able to check and see how they're doing? Or is it a way that you are trying to compel engagement? So think about the why. And it could be, hey, if we, we want to be able to build a sense of connection with each other, you may be fog, uh, out the background and can we at least get on to say hi, that I, that we can look and see each other? So that way I'm putting a name with a face and um, it's uh. And if you can, great. If you need to get off for whatever reason, you know, get, you know, get off. But, um, I would just say, you know, is it possible to push back of why is it we're doing this? And you know, is it once again, because we don't trust people and we're. And are we checking in or checking on someone?

Speaker B: Right. Or maybe just at the beginning, for the first 10 minutes, you can have the camera on and then you can take the cameras off. You know, everybody's there, you know, they're not, you know, surfing in Hawaii. And you know, everybody gets the zoom fatigue after a while anyway. So that, that might be a good compromise to consider. Exactly.

Speaker A: Because in as much as companies, um, might want to tell you that video fatigue is not a thing, you know, neuroscientists will tell you it is a thing. Um, and again, going back to people who are neurodiverse, try that level of intensity of trying to take in all of this, all of the subtle information is really hard. So are you overly emotionally and mentally fatiguing people? Therefore they're more likely to be irritable and more likely to be conflict oriented because they're just spent. So I think that's one, one way. And also I think giving people's explicit permission to say, you know, I invite you to be able to come in. Can we just do it for a little bit? Because it is weird being able to talk to nobody. It's most people, it's almost equivalent of public speaking. You know, many people don't like public speaking. Some people aren't comfortable in meetings and then it just kind of exacerbates it. So I think that that's, uh, you know, a couple of things to think, to think about.

Speaker B: Right? Let me ask you about a scenario where you have two co workers that might not get along. How do you decide? And you're the manager and you decide that the co workers need to have some kind of discussion. How would you go about deciding if you were all adults, you let them have their discussion and hash out their issues by themselves, or you as the manager kind of need to serve as an informal mediator and the three of you need to meet together so you can kind of lead the discussion.

Speaker A: And if I had like a dollar for every time someone said they're all adults, we should be able to figure it out. I would, I would, I would be able to work from Hawaii because I could buy a beautiful house there, then

Speaker B: there would be no problems because we were.

Speaker A: I mean, I would love to be able to put myself out of work. However, if people run on the assumption that how they see the problem is so straightforward and that the people involved have the negotiation, collaboration, conflict resolution skills that you have, people who, if you put them in the room would make the same decision. I, um, think that's huge, particularly because you may know this, others may know this. Law school warps your brain, that's one thing. So lawyers, our professional training skews usually for certain analytical frameworks and certain ways to address, uh, problems. Engineers have a different way. Finance bookkeeping has a different way. Social workers have a very different way of doing things. People who are frontline customer service have a very, very different way. We have different analytical frameworks and we have different ways that say this is the right way to do it. So essentially when that happens, they say they should be able to figure it out. I'd be willing to bet that each one of you views the right way exceedingly differently and views that, uh, a compromise is none, that what the compromise are asking, being asked to do is non negotiable. Therefore, please take that they should be able to do it. And I see this a lot like director levels. They should be able to do it on their own. And I thought, well, you know, if they. If they should be able to and if they could, why haven't they? What are you, as a leader, assuming? Because maybe they have very, very different ways, Maybe they have very different teams and they're entrenched. So, therefore, it is your job as leader to be able to step in and help guide that conversation. So, for example, like, what are the metrics you are looking for? Because they may. I mean, you look at, like, sales and marketing, you know, manufacturing, um, you know, legal, hr. We would all come to how we would like to see it and what we think is in the best interest of the company and the best interest of our team. Some of those may be shared, some of them may be different, some of them may be competing. So that's where the manager steps in, not maybe to encourage problem solving and give some guidance of what they would like to see as outcomes. Um, and then if not, maybe this is an area where they just need to step in and make a decision.

Speaker B: Got it. Well, thank you so much for sharing, uh, all of this really valuable information and your expertise. I think doing what you do is so very important to kind of address these issues early on. And if the management team doesn't have the tools and background and negotiation skills necessary to have these conversations, then they can potentially reach out to someone like you who can. Who can help guide them through the process.

Speaker A: Yeah, thank you. I would love to do that. And I'll kind of leave you with this quote, which I wish I might have been from one of your podcasts, but when they were talking about community and those soft skills of conflict resolution, emotional intelligence, emotional awareness, be able to navigate the high levels of emotion without saying, calm down. It's, um. And this is a modified quote that those are the skills that create the fabric that connect us as colleagues. Yes, I love that.

Speaker B: That's absolutely.

Speaker A: Fabric that connects us as colleagues, which, by the way, then we'll get more production and less.

Speaker B: Yes, less turnover, more production, increased, bottom line. Absolutely. Well, thank you so much again for being here. We appreciate it. And, uh, we'll speak to you soon.

Speaker A: Take care. Have a great day.