EP 248 Dealing with Workplace Conflicts with Andrew Colsky, JD, LPC

Workplace conflicts are a common occurrence in any organization, and they can have a significant impact on employee morale and productivity. In this video, Andrew Colsky, JD, LPC, shares his expertise on dealing with workplace conflicts and emphasizes the importance of a compassionate approach to resolving them. Whether you’re a manager, supervisor, or employee, understanding how to address conflicts effectively can lead to a more harmonious work environment.

Summary

Key Points:

1. Compassionate Inquiry: Andrew Colsky introduces the concept of Compassionate Inquiry, a five-step process that aims to address workplace conflicts in a non-judgmental and respectful manner. This process helps managers and supervisors have factual conversations with employees about performance or conduct issues.

2. Root Causes: Colsky highlights the significance of understanding the root causes of workplace conflicts, such as communication breakdowns or personal issues. By identifying these underlying issues, managers can take appropriate actions and help employees find resolutions.

3. Progressive Discipline: Colsky challenges the traditional approach of progressive discipline, which often leads to prolonged conflicts and legal consequences. Instead, he encourages employing Compassionate Inquiry to resolve conflicts upfront and prevent them from escalating.

4. Employee Perspective: Compassionate Inquiry also benefits employees who may be facing challenges in the workplace. By managing up and using the same process, employees can address issues and communicate their needs effectively to managers, fostering a collaborative and supportive work environment.

5. Relevance in Modern Workspaces: The approach discussed by Colsky is applicable in both physical and remote work settings. Understanding and addressing conflicts, no matter where employees are located, is essential for maintaining healthy work dynamics.

Conclusion:
Employing a compassionate approach to deal with workplace conflicts can foster a positive work environment, reduce legal complications, and enhance employee satisfaction and productivity. By utilizing the principles of Compassionate Inquiry, managers and employees can address conflicts effectively and find resolutions that benefit all parties involved.

Keywords: workplace conflicts, compassionate approach, Compassionate Inquiry, root causes, progressive discipline, employee perspective, remote work, work environment, conflict resolution, employee satisfaction, effective communication.

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Transcript

0:01 Dealing with workplace conflicts with Andrew Colsky, that is our topic for today.

0:09 Welcome to the Lawyers and Mediators International Show and Podcast, where we discuss law and conflict resolution topics to educate both professionals and everyday people.

0:19 Catch regular episodes on YouTube and anywhere you get your podcasts.

0:23 Just remember, nothing in these episodes constitutes legal advice, so be sure to talk to a lawyer as cases are fact dependent

0:36 Hey everyone, this is Mac Pierre-Louis, lawyer, mediator, arbitrator.

0:39 I work through Florida and Texas, and today I have a special guest, Mr. Andrew Colsky, lawyer, mediator, entrepreneur, and I’d like to help him explain himself to you because he has done a lot

0:54 of different things in the field of law, conflict resolution, and studying as a counselor and helping people with anxieties So, Andrew, welcome to the show.

1:05 How are you doing today?

1:07 Great.

1:07 Thanks, Mac. I really appreciate it.

1:10 I know it’s hard to explain my background, but I’ll be happy to do it for you.

1:17 So before we go in, I got a chance to connect with you last week.

1:23 Incidentally, you were in Houston in my neck of the woods, but you’re based in Virginia, but you were here in Houston, but tell us why, because that connects with what you’re going to be

1:34 discussing.

1:35 Yes, yes, it was fortuitous.

1:37 I was in Houston the last week.

1:40 I tell people it’s funny, it was for a national, actually international sleep conference dealing with people with different sleep issues, like insomnia and other types of things that may be anxiety

1:51 related.

1:52 And I tell people it’s funny because it was a sleep conference where there were so many things happening that I didn’t sleep for all week.

2:00 So, wow, I think this is gonna connect with what we’re gonna talk about today, but of course, the audience being people who are interested in law, mediation.

2:10 I’d like to hear from you what exactly that you do, and can you tell us a little bit more about the work involving anxiety disorders, the studies you do, even though you’re a lawyer, you’re also a

2:23 licensed professional counselor who helps people, especially in the workplace, and you’re also an author.

2:29 So, as you talk, I’m gonna share my screen to show people your website,

2:34 Compassionate Inquiry that you worked on.

2:37 And if you are listening to this on Spotify or any of the other audios, please check out the YouTube video so that you can see what we’re pointing at.

2:45 And of course, we’ll put all these links on the show notes.

2:48 All right, Andrew, the floor is yours.

2:49 Tell us about Andrew Colsky.

2:51 All right, thanks, Mac. So the easiest way to describe it is I started life as an attorney, I’m still an attorney today.

2:60 And when I got into the practice of law, I was doing a lot of trial work and much of the work related to employment issues.

3:09 And early on, as I was doing that work, I started to recognize that the basis of a lot of the employment issues that were coming up really came down to communication issues.

3:20 And tying that together with the mediation background that I have, I started to realize that there were ways that employers were sort of missing the mark in terms of how to deal with the types of

3:33 issues they were seeing.

3:36 So I developed a plan based on over 30 years of experience working with these cases called Compassionate Inquiry.

3:45 And we’ll talk about what that is, but that ties into the LPC, the licensed professional counselor part of me, which also was about understanding how people think, why they think, what causes

3:57 them to do what they do, and ultimately things that lead to anxiety.

4:02 So when you say I was at a sleep conference, well, a lot of people have insomnia and other things that can come from anxiety.

4:08 So I do a lot of work with anxiety in general, but a lot of work also with workplaces and helping people to better manage conflict so it doesn’t turn into this never-ending problem, and we can deal

4:22 with it upfront quickly and easily, and help people move forward.

4:27 Got it.

4:28 So the name of your book, Compassionate Inquiry.

4:32 A Manager’s Guide to Addressing Conduct and Performance Issues in the Workplace.

4:38 You said it to me prior to starting this recording that this is a guaranteed foolproof method for helping resolve workplace issues.

4:51 That’s a big bold statement.

4:53 And so I’d like for you to kind of go into that.

4:55 Tell us why is this important and connect, just share some stories as to why, what’s going on in the workplace these days in America and why the employer needs to get their hands on this project.

5:10 Yes, yes, thank you.

5:11 So I’ll tell you a little bit about what I meant when I said it was a guaranteed process and then I’ll give you a story that will kind of bring it all together.

5:21 So the reason I said it’s a guaranteed process, what this is is it’s a five step process that when done correctly, when people actually.

5:31 follow the process.

5:33 It is designed to help managers and supervisors have conversations with employees about performance or conduct issues.

5:41 In a way that is not judgmental, it’s not going to cause any complaints or things because you’re having a factual conversation yet doing it compassionately and taking into consideration all of the

5:57 things that I found through my 30 years plus doing this work that caused the things to turn into complaints, EEO complaints, lawsuits, problems, etc.

6:09 And so we take out all of the triggers for those things and create a process that addresses the issue and we use some techniques in there to help the manager deal with anything and everything from an

6:22 employee who’s not willing to accept responsibility, who’s deflecting responsibility, the employee who is responsible.

6:31 When I do my courses, so I always tell the people in the course, I said, I know there’s going to be one or two people in here who are thinking to themselves.

6:39 Yeah, that’s great and wonderful, but it won’t work in this case.

6:42 And I always say to them, I want to know about this case that it’s not going to work with because then we’re going to do it in class, and you’re going to role play and you’re going to make it as

6:52 hard as you can on me, and you’re going to see that it works.

6:55 And I have not failed yet So

7:01 let me give you an example of a situation where this process would have been perfect had it been used.

7:08 So

7:10 when I was doing a lot of work early on in my career, I worked with the United States Postal Service to help them build out a mediation program that they still have today And there’s a story there

7:23 that just really exemplifies this that pretty much anyone who I work with knows the story of the pigeon lady So. The story is basically this if you can imagine a regular post office where in the back

7:37 they sort all the mail and the trucks go out to your local neighborhood they have a loading dock where the mail comes in and so the people are working inside and they’re getting stuff ready to put out

7:51 on the trucks and they take breaks and they’ll go stand on the loading dock so there’s this one lady who would work there for a long time and she’d go out on the loading dock during her breaks and she

8:01 would bring some bird food and she would feed the local pigeons and

8:08 she had done it for a long time and she got a new manager in and the new manager was stopped feeding the pigeons because it messes up the dock and we have to keep cleaning up behind it and this turned

8:20 into a major problem between the two of them because she had been doing it for years and she continued to feed them.

8:28 and the manager kept telling her to not feed the pigeons, and they were just clashing.

8:33 Turned into an EEO complaint, turned into all sorts of problems.

8:39 So the situation was, this is what typically happens.

8:44 The manager will say, stop doing this.

8:46 The employee is continuing to do something or is upset that they can’t do it.

8:50 And then they do it again, and then the manager gets more upset and they go to HR and they say, What do I do with this employee?

8:57 And HR says, Oh, we’ve got this progressive discipline policy.

9:01 You go ahead and you write them up and then if they don’t stop, then you start to punish them and you send them home for a couple of days.

9:09 And then if they don’t stop, then we keep escalating and eventually you fire them.

9:13 And progressive discipline, quite honestly, as a professional, it’s for the birds.

9:21 It doesn’t address the problem.

9:23 Now it’s appropriate, when it’s appropriate, but it is not appropriate as a first.

9:30 So what compassion and inquiry does is it teaches the managers and supervisors how to have the conversation respectfully, but to get it what’s going on.

9:41 So when they finally did that, and they got it what was going on, the why behind why was this lady feeding these pigeons The story was she had worked for the postal service for a very long time and

9:56 many post employees work there for their whole life.

9:58 They stay in those jobs.

10:01 And she had lost her husband.

10:03 She had no children.

10:05 She had no friends.

10:07 She had nothing going on in her life.

10:08 She was living in a sort of a depressed state, and she would come to work and that was her time out of the house And these pigeons that she had been feeding for years, she knew these pigeons.

10:20 It’s not random pigeons.

10:21 It’s the same ones that keep coming back.

10:23 They were like her kids And so.

10:26 For her, the manager was saying, kick your kids out, stop feeding them, let them go starve.

10:32 That’s how chief perceived it.

10:34 So when we got to the actual, what’s going on here?

10:37 Why is she feeding the pigeon?

10:39 What are her needs?

10:41 Then we were able to address the issue.

10:44 So that’s a real quick story and way of what compassion and inquiry can do to get you to a resolution that doesn’t turn into these lawsuits and constant battles.

10:57 I see.

10:57 So a lot of that seems to connect to some of the validation theories that we talk about where somebody has a need.

11:08 They act out or respond a certain way emotionally, possibly.

11:13 And the observer takes it, maybe personal, or maybe the wrong way.

11:17 But if you take a second and actually identify the root cause of why the person is saying what they’re saying, it might, I guess – validate their

11:29 reason that they’re acting a certain way and the person will now come out their shell and hopefully help calm the situation down.

11:37 Is that a little bit of what’s going on that you’re validating their reasons for why they do what they do?

11:43 You are, there’s validation, there’s acknowledgement, but think about it.

11:48 How can you appropriately solve

11:53 a problem until you identify what the root of the problem is?

11:54 Correct Progressive discipline, in this case, was solving the wrong problem.

11:58 Yeah, it doesn’t address the problem, it just disciplines and over time, and I guess it’s going to create a locking of horns effect where you’re going to wanna one up the person and maybe get the

12:14 government to come in and spank them in a way, right?

12:16 Okay, we’ll continue, so

12:20 that’s one example, but be applied for us in other contexts as well.

12:25 Yeah, so let me give you another example, because I’m sure that someone listening to this, and I would be one of those people too, people too, would be, yeah, that’s a great example, and I’m

12:36 sure you only give examples of where it works beautifully, but what about all the things that I deal with?

12:41 I have these employees that this wouldn’t work with.

12:46 Well, actually yes, this will work for them, and I’ll give you some examples there.

12:52 One of the things that happens with an employee who might be a difficult employee, believe it or not, there are difficult employees.

12:59 Some of them are not responsible as they should be, and those employees, when confronted with the compassionate inquiry process, as with anything else that worked, they will do the typical

13:13 deflection.

13:14 So if the manager is trying to talk to an employee about coming in late, let’s say they’re supposed to get to work and start at 9 am.

13:22 and the employee gets their 9: 05, 9: 10, 9: 20

13:26 And the manager says, you know, we need to talk about getting here on time and then the employee deflects.

13:32 Well,

13:34 so-and-so does it too?

13:36 Why aren’t you picking on that?

13:38 Or, you know, how can you only pick on me?

13:40 And there are several different deflections that I talk about in the book.

13:45 And then what the reason that an employee deflects is because they’re trying to take attention away from the core issue, which is getting to work on time.

13:54 And most managers and supervisors, they take the bait of the deflection, and they get off into this conversation about the deflection.

14:03 In terms of, you know, conversation is, you need to be here on time.

14:08 You start working 9 am.

14:10 The employee gives a deflection.

14:12 Well, but Jim does it too.

14:13 He comes in late too.

14:15 And then they get into this whole conversation about, well, Jim can do it because of this.

14:20 And Sally, that was just a one time thing.

14:22 And they got off into this whole, you know.

14:25 conversation unrelated to what they’re addressing.

14:28 In Compassion Inquiry, the manager learns what I call the eye loop.

14:33 And it’s called the I-Loop.

14:36 And it’s based on the acronyms that we work out through the book.

14:40 But basically what it is, is it teaches the manager a very simple, easy way to respond to a deflection in a way where they’re not being accusatory.

14:52 They’re not hitting on the emotions They’re simply acknowledging the person’s deflection, but they’re bringing it back directly to the conversation at hand, and they continue with the process.

15:05 So there’s several points along a conversation that an employee and manager can have where the employee, if they feel that, Oh, I’m caught, uh-oh, I did something wrong, they’re going to do

15:18 certain things.

15:20 It’s very, very predictable.

15:22 The managers and supervisors who are untrained typically take the bait and that’s what gets them into a lawsuit and they could lose ’cause they had the wrong conversation.

15:35 So bringing them back, if the conversation is about getting to work and starting work on time at 9 am, then that’s the conversation we’re gonna have.

15:44 And no matter how much you try to have a different conversation or deflect the conversation, the manager is trained and skilled now to bring them back to the main conversation and solve the actual

15:56 problem.

15:57 Yeah, to bring the person back to the actual root issue at hand.

16:02 So I guess the typical method doesn’t work, right?

16:07 Where you resort to punishment.

16:10 And I take it that being an adult, nobody wants to be disrespected.

16:14 Even if you know you owe your employer your time because they’re paying you money.

16:20 You, as a human being, are still going to want to defend yourself if you’re being accused of something.

16:25 Especially, I think if you’re thinking you’re being set up because the employer is kind of lying in wait, they’re writing things down, taking notes.

16:33 I think that’s what a lot of employers do, right, which is just do the write-up.

16:38 If they can get enough notes on you, eventually they can just get rid of you and be able to show HR all the different reasons and ways you’ve messed up. But that’s, I guess, tempting.

16:51 How do you dissuade employers from going down that traditional route and doing this then?

16:57 And that’s a great question that’s asked all the time, and the traditional route still exists.

17:02 I’m not telling any employer get rid of your HR process.

17:06 I’m not saying that at all.

17:07 What I am saying is that when you only go down that route, you have an employee who, I heard an attorney say this once, the employee quits but stays. So they’ve stopped working for you.

17:19 but they’re there, they’re on the payroll, they’re taking up space, the work’s not being done, and then you’re going through all these expensive, time-consuming legal battles, wasting the

17:28 manager’s time, and eventually that turns into more wasted time with HR, and then eventually more wasted time and money with legal issues and so on and so forth, and it doesn’t need to get to that.

17:41 If you start off with Compassionate Inquiry, then you can address the process, part of which is, now I’ve had the conversation with this employee about getting here at 9 am.

17:56 This particular employee is being defensive, they know that they are wrong, but they don’t want to admit it, and so the process sets up a goal for how we’re going to try and address this.

18:10 If they do not meet those goals, okay, then they know the next step is the progressive discipline process.

18:18 But at least now you’ve weeded out the two different types of employees, the ones who are trying to be difficult versus the ones who aren’t.

18:26 And I’ll give you one more quick story that I think brings this together.

18:30 So this is a case I did many years ago.

18:34 Employee worked for a, let’s say a big company for many, many years, did a job of a mechanic and was always doing a great job And one day his manager noticed that he started to come to work late.

18:52 This is where I build one of the examples in the book.

18:55 And, you know, just kind of ignored it at first and then employee came and laid again, came and laid again.

19:03 Manager started the disciplinary process.

19:07 He wrote him up and employee still was coming in a little bit late, a couple of minutes, five minutes, 10 minutes here and there.

19:15 And so, managers started to disciplinary progress; he wrote him up.

19:17 So, this one process turned into an EEO complaint, turned into the whole lawsuit thing.

19:25 And when they got to litigation, it went to mediation.

19:32 And so, in mediation, INAUDIBLE

19:45 If you looked at it on Tuesdays and Thursdays, why was he coming to work late on Tuesdays and Thursdays?

19:51 Well, nobody ever asked him and he didn’t tell either.

19:55 Why didn’t he tell?

19:56 What was happening?

19:57 Here’s what was happening.

19:59 His wife got cancer.

20:01 She was in the hospital for treatment.

20:05 They had young kids.

20:06 The kids had to be prepped for school and sent to the school bus.

20:10 Dad had to wait with the kids till the bus picked them up

20:14 They had a car which broke.

20:18 Now they had no car.

20:20 Dad had to take a bicycle to the hospital to check in on mom, dealing with kids, getting kids to school, then wait for the city bus which was not reliable to get him to work pretty far away from

20:35 his home.

20:36 So the poor guy was waking up at the crack of dawn trying to do all these things.

20:42 before getting on the bus to take him to work and the bus would get him there late because the bus is not totally reliable.

20:48 Now, had the employer bothered to ask, they would have found this out rather than just writing him up, you know?

20:56 And this was a good employee for many years.

20:59 So what happened at mediation?

21:00 Well, at mediation, this would have happened in Compassionate Inquiry, but it happened at the back end in mediation.

21:07 And what they did was they found out that this employee actually lived very close to another one of their facilities, who happened to also be looking for a mechanic.

21:21 So they temporarily moved his work duty location to the one right next to him instead of having to take the bus all the way across town and worked with him understanding now what his schedule was and

21:31 what was happening.

21:32 And now they kept a good employee and they had a good relationship because they treated him as a human being.

21:40 as opposed to the first way, which was, you know, punish, punish, punish, punishment is not gonna get you what you want, it’s just not.

21:49 Yeah, so that’s a good example of, you know, at the very end, they both got what they wanted.

21:55 The employer needed somebody, you know, local, and he needed a local jobs that would expedite,

22:03 you know, what he was going through so that he doesn’t have to take the city bus.

22:05 So classic interest-based mediation, you know, example So, you know, thank you for all these examples.

22:12 So, bottom line, progressive punishment.

22:16 I think that’s the word you use, right?

22:18 It’s progressive discipline typically is how it’s called.

22:21 Yeah, progressive discipline in the workforce. You’re not saying to, you know, put it aside, it’s just one tool in the arsenal, but now there’s another one.

22:32 And that is Compassionate Inquiry, where you are asking questions to get to the root issues so that the people will

22:40 get their voices heard and hopefully address the underlying problem.

22:44 But I think you’re still going to get people who are going to be defiant that and or maybe be a jerk, right?

22:50 I don’t know, I haven’t been an employee in a very long time.

22:53 I’ve been working for myself for years, since 2014.

22:57 So haven’t had a boss, you know, in forever.

22:59 So I kind of forget how it feels like to, you know, have to deal with somebody with somebody over me.

23:06 But for all the other people who still, you know, have bosses and have that fear of being potentially written up, or you got to do things a certain way.

23:13 Otherwise, your boss might get upset.

23:16 Is this book good for the employee as well?

23:20 Because it seems to be marketed towards, you know, the boss and the employer.

23:26 But would you tell somebody out there who might be a

23:30 who has a boss that, you know, might be given a hard time?

23:36 Do you think that that might be good for them to pickup as well?

23:39 Yeah, no, I’m glad you asked.

23:41 And the answer is yes.

23:42 And let me tell you why.

23:45 So primarily it was written for managers and supervisors because of all the reasons that I’ve stated.

23:51 But when we go in and we do training, we’re not trying to hide from the employees what this is.

23:58 So we decided, hey, if the employees wanna take the training, that’s great too.

24:02 Because there’s nothing hidden about the process.

24:06 It’s very straightforward, everybody should know what it is,

24:09 it

24:11 works the way it works, whether the employee’s a jerk or not.

24:14 It will tell you whether the employee’s a jerk or whether there’s a real issue to be resolved and it’ll give you the tools to resolve it in either case, which is why I keep giving that guarantee.

24:24 Guarantee, this is gonna work.

24:25 But anyway, for the employee, and I’ll tell you, I have used it myself in the past as an employee on my managers

24:36 It’s called managing up and if

24:39 your manager is maybe not acting appropriately, and there’s plenty who don’t act appropriately ’cause they’re not trained.

24:46 That’s the company’s fault.

24:49 Then you can use the same process and get the same result.

24:56 You’re just doing it upwards instead of it coming downwards.

24:60 Interesting, managing up.

25:03 Well, that sounds like an employee somebody would want a have, while trying to resolve conflict resolution.

25:09 So what about in this new modern day that we live in, though, because now we have people working from home.

25:15 You have 30 years of experience, but COVID was just five years ago, when everything got shut down and we were all locked up in on Zoom.

25:22 Does this still apply in the modern workspace as well?

25:26 Great question, and the answer is absolutely yes, because humans, whether they’re physically sitting in a workplace or sitting at home on a computer.

25:37 They’re still humans.

25:38 They still have the same types of conflicts.

25:40 They still respond to conflicts in the same way.

25:44 And

25:46 think about the legal profession.

25:49 Let’s take that as an example.

25:52 A lot of lawyers have drinking problems because of the high pressure that they’re under.

25:60 And then you look at some of the larger firms and all with the tremendous pressure I have a lot of lawyers that are clients of mine.

26:09 And

26:11 the law firm doesn’t know how to address it ’cause they don’t wanna accuse somebody of having a drinking problem, but they don’t, you know, they have to be kind of sensitive.

26:21 And you don’t know what’s going on with someone.

26:24 Maybe they don’t have a drinking problem.

26:25 Maybe they have some sort of,

26:28 I don’t know, epilepsy or some other issue that, you know, that can make it look like maybe they have something going on.

26:37 And so again, it’s like, how do you approach someone, whether they’d be working from home on the computer or whether they’re in the office, when you’re noticing that something’s just kind of off?

26:49 Well, you know, I didn’t want to pry.

26:51 I didn’t want to do it.

26:52 Well, sometimes these people need or are looking for someone to reach out or need someone to reach out.

26:60 And they’re embarrassed to come forward themselves because of their situation.

27:04 So they’re not going to come forward And then everyone kind of just kind of pretends that the problem doesn’t exist until it blows up one day.

27:13 And so with this process, again, whether they’re working from home, whether they’re working in the office, if you notice there’s something that’s not quite right, it gives you a way to address

27:24 that again in a compassionate, respectful way that will help you to address that problem and then find out that there really is an issue and the employee is grateful that you reached out

27:39 and sometimes maybe not grateful but relieved that you reached out because now they can finally address this you know elephant in the room type of thing

27:49 and so it’s designed for that as well and that that’s why the title is what it is the compassionate inquiry.

27:57 So yeah.

27:59 So Andrew Colsky thank you so much for sharing this knowledge with us today and I think this this is the book that should be the toolkit of every kind of ombuds, every kind of employer, some

28:14 employees as well you know who are nerds like me. And generally speaking I’m a little familiar with you know some of the work but I don’t do employment law right and I think that employment lawyers

28:27 probably deal a whole lot with issues that could have been resolve from the very beginning if the right questions were asked.

28:34 And so I encourage folks to pick it up so that they can learn some additional skills instead of the traditional progressive discipline method that’s always been used ’cause that’s what I’m familiar

28:45 with.

28:46 You just punish and you move them on if they can’t comply with your rules.

28:51 So all right, new ways to work.

28:53 Thank you so much.

28:56 So Andrew, before we take off, let people know the best ways to get a contact with you.

28:58 Again, I’ll share my screen to show your LinkedIn ’cause I believe you stated that

29:04 you’re pretty active on LinkedIn, and that’s where all your different brands and businesses are listed as well, correct?

29:12 Yeah, so on LinkedIn, I’m at Andrew E. Colsky.

29:16 So A-N-D-R-E-W-E-C-O-L-S-K-Y.

29:22 And you’ll be able to see all the different types of projects I’m working on.

29:26 You see a lot of different things there, but they’re all based on addressing this underlying anxiety from multiple different approaches.

29:34 And then I also have a website that you can find me at a contact link and all, which is CenterforProfessionalCounseling. com.

29:40 Great.

29:40 I

29:44 highlight a lot of the mediation business there because

29:49 the clients are more looking for the anxiety work, but I

29:58 do, for over 30 years, I’ve been doing mediation and workplace conflicts.

30:01 Yes, awesome, but you’re based in Virginia, but you work nationally.

30:04 I know you have multiple law licenses in different states and you’re a therapist, licensed professional counselor, even in Florida, right, where I’m also based.

30:14 Yes, yes, I started off everything in Florida and now I’m in Virginia.

30:21 The mediation work and the employment work, I can do anywhere in the country.

30:26 The counseling, I do primarily Florida and Virginia, but I’m slowly starting to expand.

30:33 Well, the Zoom boom helped a whole lot of us out to be able to come in with people all over the country and the world really.

30:39 All right, Andrew, thank you so much for coming on.

30:42 I appreciate it.

30:43 And folks, check out Compassionate Inquiry and follow Andrew on LinkedIn.

30:50 Okay guys, until next time, thank you so much for tuning in, check everything out on LmiPodcast. com.

30:56 Take care.