How to Handle Workplace Disputes Before They Become Lawsuits

Right now, somewhere in your organization, is there a situation that has legal written all over it, but no one is talking about it? Maybe it's a vendor relationship that has turned tense, a termination that did not go cleanly, a partnership where the trust is gone and the lawyers are already on speed dial. Maybe it's a client who is unhappy in a way that feels like it's heading somewhere serious. Most leaders know exactly which situation just came to mind, and most leaders are doing one of two things with it. They are handing it off to legal and walking away, or they are avoiding it entirely and hoping it resolves itself. Both of those are wrong moves, and today we're talking about why. Here's what no one tells corporate leaders and HR professionals about legal disputes. The legal cost is the smallest part of what you are paying. The real cost is the hours your leadership team spends in depositions instead of driving the business. It is the employees who see a dispute playing out and start updating their resume. It is the client who watches how you handle conflict and quietly starts evaluating your competitors. It is the culture damage that does not show up on your invoice, but that every good leader can feel. And it compounds every single day the dispute is unresolved. I'm not a lawyer, and this is not a legal show, but what I am is a leader who has spent years inside corporate environments watching how disputes get managed. And I can tell you that most of the leaders I have seen handle a dispute well had one thing in common: they stayed in the room. They stayed close to the decision. They asked the legal team hard questions. They did not just write the check and wait. There is a process that makes that possible. It is called early mediation. And before you assume that's something that you do when you're losing or if you're wanting to avoid a fight, I need you to hear today's guest out because she is going to reframe everything you think you know about mediation. My guest, Felicia Harris Haas, spent years as a trial partner inside regional and national law firms. She built cases. She sat across the table from the other side and fought. And then she chose to become neutral, not because she stopped believing in advocacy, but because she could see that what clients actually needed was something the courtroom was not built to provide. Today she's a full-time independent mediator and arbitrator in Houston, Texas, a member of the National Academy of Distinguished Neutrals. She's recognized amongst the best leaders in America and a Texas super lawyer in alternative dispute resolution. She sat on both sides of the table. She knows what leaders get wrong, what they get right, and exactly what it costs to wait too long. As we get into this conversation, to learn more about Felicia and the work that she does, go to HarrisHossPlc.com. Stay with us.

Welcome to Shedding the Corporate Bitch, the podcast that transforms today's managers into tomorrow's powerhouse leaders. Your host, Bernadette Boas, executive coach and author, brings you into a world where the corporate grind meets personal growth and success in each and every episode.

Felicia, welcome, welcome, welcome! How are you?

I'm fabulous, thanks for having me, Bernadette.

We talk about a lot of different subjects, but I must say this subject around mediation is a first, and I'm very excited about it because I really just didn't see the, the direct alignment to leadership. I think our listeners and watchers are going to be pleasantly surprised and really kind of like, aha, about how they could be really walking in confidently to any dispute or any issue that they're having, recognizing that there's this support system called a mediator there to help them get to a resolution without it having to go further than that. So let's start off with just tell us a little bit about yourself and how did you get into this line of work?

Well, thank you again for having me. It's fabulous to be on your show. I'm a fan. So I spent the first 2+ decades of my career as a trial lawyer in the Houston marketplace. I was a partner at the national firms and represented a bunch of executives and corporations and companies in complex disputes. And over the years, I always thought in the back of my head that at some point in my career, I'd transfer out of the courtroom in the trial sector and into the courtroom in the appellate sector, do more writing and more heavy legal thinking. But what I learned is that really no matter what seat you sit in, what clients want is resolution. And one of the ways to provide resolution more efficiently is through mediation. I'll tell you a short story that really made the pivot point poignant for me. And that is I had a trial in 2017. It was a week and a half long jury trial. And after it ended, a year to the day, so in 2018, on the anniversary of the day the jury came back, I was in my office and a big bouquet of flowers was delivered. And my secretary said, you won't believe who these are from. You need to read the card. And it was from a young energy executive who was one of my clients in that trial a year before. And the card read something along the lines of, a year ago today, you saved my career. Thank you for your effort. Something along those lines. And it really dawned on me, right, that for me, that was just another day at the office. For him, it was a big day. It was a moment that he remembered so clearly that he wanted to celebrate it with me a year later. And so that's what brought it home. And then when COVID hit and the timeline to get to trial extended beyond what was already a long time, it seemed like the right moment to pivot out of the courtroom and into the conference room. And so that's what I did.

I love that pivot from courtroom to conference room. But before we get too far into it, for our listeners and watchers who are corporate professionals, leaders, help us understand exactly what mediation is.

You know, we probably all know what it looks like to be in the courtroom. You've watched Matlock or LA Law or whatever your favorite show is. But what we don't know about is oftentimes cases get resolved outside of the courtroom. And I downplay when I say oftentimes, because the reality of it is, and statistics vary from different jurisdictions, But on average, less than 5% of the lawsuits that are filed go to trial. Some jurisdictions is less than 3%. Some may even say less than 1%, but on average, it's a very small percentage of cases that get filed actually go to final trial or final hearing in an arbitration. So what does that mean? That means that the bulk of the cases that get filed, they get resolved outside of the courtroom. Uh, most of them through some sort of either direct negotiation or mediated negotiation. And so in my role, what I do is I serve in that mediation, um, uh, bucket, and I help the lawyers on both sides who are representing their clients have a conversation, completely confidential. Anything we talk about, anything we exchange is not gonna be used at the courthouse if the case is not resolved through a mediated negotiation. And so we're able to have candid conversations about the strengths and weaknesses of our case, about the risks and opportunities for resolution. And through those conversations with a neutral carrying information from one side to the other, we're able to find oftentimes common ground and find resolutions that are even more often than not better than what the parties could ever achieve if they did go to trial. And I'm happy to elaborate on that if you like, Bernadette Boas, but the reality of it is, is most cases resolve through this mediated process with someone like me who is a completely neutral person. I don't have a dog in the fight. And I even tell the parties, I am a lawyer. I've been a lawyer for almost 30 years, but today I'm not one because all the legal advice is coming from their lawyers. I'm simply helping them communicate more effectively.

Well, let's definitely stay on the getting the resolution through mediation because that's what we want, right? We want leaders to recognize that there's a very small percent that have to go there. So they just need to educate themselves. And engage the right people like yourself to help them prevent that. So can you walk us through some of what business leaders and HR leaders just should be aware of that could bring or raise the level to where they need to engage a mediator like yourself?

Well, my work is mostly in the legal environment, and oftentimes it's either prior to a dispute escalating to filing of a lawsuit or filing of an arbitration if there's an arbitration agreement, that or during the lawsuit or during the arbitration. So oftentimes once you've sought legal counsel, you are really— what I like to talk about is priming yourself to ask the right questions of your lawyer, like, what are my options to resolution? And in that conversation if it's not raised initially, because I used to be a trial lawyer. I used to think if you came into my office with a problem, you wanted me to defend you or to prosecute your case in a lawsuit or an arbitration. But the reality is all the parties really want is resolution. And what they oftentimes need a lawyer to do is help them take a glimpse at the rearview mirror and understand what happened in the past. But take a moment to look forward and say, what is it that I really want out of this process? And it is a process for resolution because you don't want to go all the way to the courthouse only to have a pyrrhic victory. So ask your lawyers, what are my options? Can I go to the courthouse? Can we mediate? And if we do mediate, can we mediate before we get to the courthouse? Do we need to wait till we get to the courthouse? And sometimes those decisions are dependent upon how the other side or sides, if there's multiple parties, are reacting and interacting with you. But sometimes it's just a matter of getting everyone to agree to something and then moving forward on it.

Help me even be educated in that. When I think of those type of legal issues that could come up in the work world, the corporate world, I'm thinking employment issues, sexual harassment. Claims, discrimination, safety, executive comp, executive— yeah, yes, exactly.

Non-competes, confidentiality agreements, non-solicitation agreements. We got it all.

And some of them go to the extent to where they think that this thing's going to go to court, but yet that's where this mediation comes in, hoping to prevent that.

That's fair. And you know, when it's a corporate executive or a situation where there is an employment policy, oftentimes they'll mention mediation within those documents and it will already be sort of teed up, if you will. Right. But if it's not, any party can request that before things escalate, that a third party like me, a neutral, is brought in to help facilitate a conversation. And so I think one of the things we talked about before we went on camera is we are all human and we all react to conflict very similarly initially, unless we're able to step outside of that initial reaction and say, let me think about this for a second. Right. But our initial reaction is usually one of confusion or misunderstanding or miscommunication or not me, not ever. I didn't do anything wrong. At some point, some of that doesn't even matter. What matters, you gotta have a conversation about the real conflict and both sides or all sides, if there's more than two parties, really need to understand what that true conflict is. And that's why I'm a big proponent of an early mediation before positions harden, before you escalate your commitment to your view. And you seek out a third party like myself who's a neutral to engage in a process which allows the disputants to figure out what it is they're really fighting about and why the conflict exists in the first place.

And you made a comment before we came on camera about the fact that you love that. Like, that's a space where you're really focused on. Why is that?

It doesn't matter. I've represented executives. I've represented entrepreneurs. I've represented employees. Every single lawsuit is about people, even if it's a company's name that is on the pleading. Because let's face it, companies are people. Yeah. And so it, it gets personal. I remember as a baby lawyer, a big lawsuit, $120 million at stake. And one of the key managers was sort of a mid-level manager in the company called me on a Sunday afternoon to tell me how important it was that we resolve this for the company. Well, on a Sunday afternoon, this is weighing on him, right? I've had clients who are extremely successful, extremely wealthy, sitting in the courtroom next to me, literally crying because it's so stressful. I mean, it's just a moment in time that you don't really know it until you're there. So as a mediator now, a few years back, I helped— I wrote the report and I helped the team present to the American Bar Association's House of Delegates a resolution to make early dispute resolution a policy of the American Bar Association. And in February of 2024, the House of Delegates unanimously passed that resolution. So now early dispute resolution is a policy of the American Bar Association. It is a policy of the state of Texas. We have a statute, a law that says it is a policy of our state to promote early resolution of disputes through mediation. And so what we have is a system which, if you look at, I'm gonna get a little historical here, but in the late '80s, corporate counsels were trying to address the cost and time to get cases resolved, right? And there was a study done, I think it was by Cornell, in which 1 in 10 of those corporate counsels, I think there were 600 of them that were interviewed, said they always try ABR, but very few of them ever really made it a part of their system, right? Fast forward by the year 2000, we know that companies were incorporating within their agreements with third parties and even with some employees, a pre-mediation process before you go file a lawsuit or you arbitrate, right? So they wanted to engage in that conversation. Fast forward again, Cornell did that study with some other universities in 2011. And what they found was, yes, almost all of these companies were wanting to have an early mediation, but they were finding that mediation as a process in and of itself, regardless of the timing, was not effective. It wasn't getting them across the finish line. They were still spending a lot of money. They were still spending a lot of time. And the researchers hypothesized that the reason for that was because the lawyers who were engaging in the process were making it more litigious. They were making it more about advocacy and less about resolution. And so when I wrote the report for the American Bar Association Resolution 500, what I incorporated into it was some of this thinking, right? What is it that was preventing us from engaging in robust conversations early on? And I'm guilty of these, right? I used to tell my clients, we can't mediate yet because we don't have enough information. We have to do 7 months of discovery. We have to spend all this time because before I can advise you, I've got to understand what the case is about.

Right.

And another one that we hear a lot is, I don't want to look weak. I don't want to be the one who says, oh, let's go talk about this because they're going to think we don't believe in our case. That's not the case. The reality of it is, is if you make it part of your standard operating procedure, if you include it in your contracts, And let's face it, if I invite you to dinner, is that a sign of weakness or is that a sign of confidence, right? I want to talk to you. I want to do this thing. And so that's the thinking. And so I'm very passionate about it and I'm very excited because a month ago, the American Arbitration Association, I assisted them and some colleagues of mine in creating an EDR mediation panel. And so the American Arbitration Association has a panel of mediators trained in the EDR mediation guidelines.. And we are now available to help disputants go through this 4-step process, which is designed to essentially take away some of the issues we saw mentioned earlier, where it wasn't— the process wasn't being utilized to its fullest potential.

And when you were talking about an EDR, I just want to emphasize EDR is early dispute resolution. And when you were talking about these insecurities, I'll call them. In my world, I call them bitches, your insecurities, fears, and negativities. You were not speaking about the lawyers. You were speaking about the leaders and the business people that were bringing in these issues, these disputes, correct?

Yes. And the reality is, is we all have biases. So we bring this with us.

Biases is being nice. But there are insecurities, insecurities being ego. When you said about winning, you know, this desperate need, you said weakness, weakness, but also the ego probably gets in the way, right?

Absolutely.

They want to take this further and they don't want a resolution because they want to win.

That's right. Yeah. It's the principle of the matter. My goodness. And we have to prove it or else they'll think that I've done horrible things.

Yeah. And what is the impact of that attitude?

Well, you have to take a step back, right? Because what is really happening there, you have someone who isn't really open, isn't curious, isn't asking questions. They're wanting to control something, right? And the reality of it is, is if you go to the courthouse, you pass that baton called control to strangers. You've lost control. You've essentially said, I can't do this. I need you to figure it out for me, strangers, either a jury of your peers or a judge, right? And I jokingly say, to sort of be a little lighthearted, because these are really important moments in people's lives, that it's kind of stranger danger. You don't know what those strangers are going to decide for you. You don't know which pieces of evidence particularly are going to come in or how they're going to come in, or whether your expert is going to be able to opine on that opinion or not, because those decisions haven't been made yet. And those decisions are going to be made by a judge who is a stranger, who is not going to have to live with the consequences of those decisions because it's your case. The point is, is I love Sun Tzu. And one of the things that we take from Sun Tzu is the importance of planning, right? And a lot of people who are engaged in conflict, they're so emotional or they're so upset or they're feeling misunderstood. That someone needs to help them have a conversation about what does resolution look like? Let's not let the rearview mirror interfere with our view of the windshield and where we're headed. Because once you resolve this, you wanna be in a position to move forward and not be standing still. In other words, you don't want to bankrupt the company. If you're an entrepreneur, an executive who's running a company that doesn't have reserves to set aside, for the cost of years and teams of lawyers. You don't want to be in a position to where if you win, the win is going to force the other party into bankruptcy. And so you've essentially got a piece of paper you can put on the wall, but you've spent $500,000 and 6 years fighting for that piece of paper. You want to know, like Sun Tzu says, you want to— the superior warrior is the warrior who wins the war without a fight, right? Because then you're able to minimize casualties, you're able to preserve your resources, and you're able to fight again and continue doing what it is you do with your company or with your business, with your career, and move forward. And a piece of advice I was given as a lawyer, a young lawyer, is that oftentimes people in conflict get so caught up in themselves that they forget that conflict is normal. We're gonna have it in our life. And most of our colleagues around us understand that and appreciate that because they're having it as well. What they don't understand and don't appreciate sometimes is how you deal with the conflict. And so they're watching you and true leaders know how to sort of take a step back and say to themselves, let's take the high road. Let's think about this and let's have a conversation that is meaningful and that preserves what it is that's important, which it might be your reputation. It might be your resources. It might be your relationships. It might be that research and development team's goal to get that product to market within the market time period. Or it might be your relationship with the SEC if you're working as an executive in a publicly traded company that has to report to the federal government. Right. But take a moment and think about— do a premortem, like what is the worst thing that could happen? And let's figure out a way to manage the crisis. When I say you're in control, there's 4 C's of mediation that I talk about, right? There's confidentiality, There is control, there's creativity, and there's certainties. Some people say cost-effectiveness as well, but that's sort of a given. Confidentiality I've already spoken about. Control I've already spoken about. The creativity part of it is this, right? A judge or an arbitrator really has two options. They're gonna pick a winner and a loser, right? And usually it's around money. Usually it's a dollar that is awarded or not. Sometimes it's injunctive relief where they can order you not to do something. But within the context of a conversation that, especially with corporate executives, oftentimes it's not only money, right? You mentioned discrimination or harassment cases, for example. I've mentioned trade secret cases and some non-compete kind of situations. Sometimes it's not only money, sometimes it's the soft landing, right? And so in a, you get to maintain control, right? And you can negotiate through a mediator. The aspects of a resolution that are non-monetary as well. And a judge or an arbitrator cannot address these things. So for example, oftentimes in employment disputes, the resolution may include not just a monetary payment, but it may include certain references in your employment file or how your departure from the company may be communicated outside of the organization or even inside of the organization. It may include things like If it's between competitors or issues where an employee has left one company and gone to another company, and there are restrictive covenants like confidentiality or non-solicitation, and there's a fear that that might be— those covenants might be breached either directly or indirectly, then you can have a conversation about how you're going to manage and oversee that between the two companies. And the list can go on and on and on, but those types of agreements are not something a judge or an arbitrator can address, number one. Number two, why would you want to wait 2, 3, 4, 5 years to go to the courthouse to try a case that impacts your career, right? It's going to impact how you work and how you engage with the marketplace. It really doesn't make sense. If— and let's just face it, there are some cases that do need to go to trial, and there are some cases that will go to trial. I'm not saying it's all about a panacea, Right. But it is an opportunity for the executives and the company to make an informed decision. Must we fight or can we resolve? And if we do have to fight, what is it that we are going to be fighting over and why? And one of the things about early mediation is that even if the case or the conflict isn't resolved, you leave the process more informed. You leave the process with the opportunity to come up with other resolutions, which will then allow you to create, if you can agree to a bespoke process to get to resolution. Now, what does that mean, Felicia? Let me share with you. If you go to the courthouse, there are rules of evidence and rules of procedure that govern every single case. Those have been adopted usually by the Supreme Court of the state. If you go through the mediation process and you're not able to get resolution, maybe you resolve parts of it, maybe you resolve none of it. What you have is a better understanding of the conflict itself, or you should, if you've engaged the right mediator, then you can ask the mediator to assist you in coming up with a process. For example, it may be that there is a key legal issue that the parties just disagree on. Well, perhaps you can agree to present that legal issue to a single arbitrator that the parties agree upon, who has expertise in that area, in a 30-day time period and get a ruling in 14 days after that, and then come back to mediation with that ruling being in place and then negotiate around the issue there. Or go to a judge and ask a judge to make a ruling on something that needs to be ruled upon so you can get back to mediation, move from that point in the conflict past that, cuz now you have clearer understanding of what that might look like in the process. And these scenarios can go on and on and on, but the point is, is you stay in control., but you also keep all of the creativity that goes along with a negotiation to resolution.

I love that. Good use of control, people. Let me ask you something. If a leader or a business person is dealing with something right now, and they're not quite sure what to do, or even more importantly, because you and I talked about asking questions and my listeners know how big of a fanatic I am about asking questions. What would you suggest that they ask? What are some key questions that they should be focused on?

If you're in need of legal advice, certainly seek it out. Always seek professional assistance if it's something that requires it or you think requires it. Don't say, oh, I'm just going to go to mediation. Get that legal advice, number one. But number two, when you are having a conversation with the lawyer, there's no harm in asking them, what are all of my options? And if If they don't bring mediation up as one, say, what do you think about the possibility of an early mediation? I heard Bernadette's podcast and I'm curious to know if it's something that would work here. Do some research on EDR mediation and the guidelines. There's 4 steps to the process. Appreciate that those 4 steps are available to the parties and propose it. Not everyone's gonna agree to it, but there's no harm in having the conversation.

Right. Well, since you said that the parties may not agree with it, what should business leaders know or consider when it comes to bringing an issue in dispute to who then would be involved in taking those next steps? What do they need to be realistic about, about whether or not this thing is going to be able to move forward because they believe that it should?

Well, every case is different, but I think in general it is to try your hardest, your darndest to remember always that there are always multiple versions to every scenario, right? You can ask two people who saw the accident at the intersection and one of them may say the light was red. One of them may say the light is green. Just be open and curious to wanting to appreciate what the other side is feeling and how they're perceiving the situation. It may be that it's just a misunderstanding and miscommunication and get HR's input in that. Ask them to assist. Because sometimes I've had situations where I've worked with HR professionals and they have a relationship within the organization and they may be able to have someone provide more insight through questions. They probably have an investigation process which is designed to try to better understand and appreciate the situation before it escalates. And so tell them and be open to ideas for internal resolution.

However, if it were to go beyond the internal, and go into engaging someone, what should they be thinking about?

If you're going to engage a lawyer, then clearly find a lawyer you trust and have confidence in, right? And not every lawyer is the same. Anytime anyone asks me for a recommendation, I always try to give them at least 3 names because not every lawyer is the right fit. We all have our own styles, but depending on what you want out of it, be prepared to, first of all, share with the lawyer or lawyers how you perceive what happened. Be prepared to do this. Share with them how you think the other side may react or respond or how they perceive the situation. I used to always ask, what do you think the other side's going to say to this? What do you think their issue is? Right? And then the other question that I always asked, and you should be prepared to present it if it's not asked of you, is, is what does success look like? What is it that you want me to do for you and why? Because that's part of this planning process that I mentioned earlier. If the goal is to win, however that is defined, but it's gonna interfere with your new project you're trying to take to market, is that truly a win? If the goal is that you've got a competitor who is upset about some allegation of trade secret theft, right? Let's face it. Once you go to the courthouse, those trade secrets are likely gonna be the product of some public record somewhere. And so it's probably behooves everyone to have a confidential conversation about what it is, why somebody believes trade secrets have been stolen, who is involved in the alleged trade secret theft, and if it happened or if it might have happened, how you might address it. Maybe you can come up with a collaborative way to engage in some sort of a joint venture over whatever it is. I'm throwing stuff out, right? But it might be that there are avenues to resolution that will not derail your own efforts to get something to market or to keep market share or whatever, and still manage the conflict and resolve it.

Resolve it and resolve it. And so take the emotion out of it, take the ego out of it, take your fears out of it and simply ask questions logically to get more and more information is what I'm taking from all that.

Let's be face, let's face it. It's very hard to take the emotion out of it, but try. And if you recognize that you are getting emotional, then again, a lawyer can usually come at it and say, look, let's just talk about what can and can't be done and what you want and how to achieve it. But I think for me, what I learned through 20+ years of being in the courtroom, trying cases and sitting in this seat now compared to where I was before is in this role. I see how lawyers, because they're advocates, because we're advocates, right? We want to win. That's how we make a living. Even we get confirmation bias. We start hearing things differently because we want our clients to succeed. Not on purpose, just because we're human.

Right. What is one last thought, one last next step that you would have for our corporate professionals all around this subject of early dispute resolution, especially?

One takeaway is like we talked about earlier, everything that happens to you in your career can have meaning, right? Life is a marathon. It's not a sprint. If you have a situation, you're going through that moment on the marathon track and it's a conflict and it's difficult and it's confusing and it's interfering with what you want to achieve. Take a step back and say to yourself, I heard that podcast about early mediation. Maybe this is a situation. That doesn't need to go legal full bore. It can go legal soft bore. And let's engage someone who can help get us through this. Like I said, it doesn't work all the time, but it is a situation where you, instead of reacting— this is what I say in mediation, I'm saying, don't react to this proposal because I know it's not gonna be accepted. Respond. And respond in a way that can advance the conversation to resolution. I think something that I say in mediation sometimes is that when you say some— you want to win, right? Winning isn't always, and rarely ever is, having the person you are arguing with say you're right. What it is, is having that relationship, having the person you are in conflict with responding to you in a way that allows you to achieve the outcome that benefits your interests. And there could be 7 different ways that response could come at you. But if you are so engaged in winning, and only one route to winning is all you're thinking about, you lose the opportunity to actually engage in a way that allows the other person to respond to you so that you can achieve your outcome. Right. So what we're saying is like, you can't control the other side. You can only control how you respond to something. Yes. And how you respond to something will inadvertently have a reaction or response from the other side. So manage yourself so that you can try to manage how they respond to you.

Well, this has been fabulous, Felicia. Thank you so much. What a great education, but also great strategies to really help our professionals walk into disputes in a more level-headed, logical way. So thank you.

Well, thank you. It's been fun talking with you, and I hope that everyone takes at least one or two nuggets away from the conversation, and the next time they engage in a in a conflict, whether it's in the courtroom or otherwise. Hopefully it's not in the courtroom, but if it is, they're better prepared and they know what to do.

I absolutely know that they will, and that's what I'm grateful for. So thank you.

Thank you.

What a powerful conversation and what a powerhouse in Felicia. And I want to be sure you have her contact information, so go to harrisllc.com. You can also use Harris Haas PLLC on Facebook and then Felicia Harris Haas on LinkedIn, and we'll make sure that we include all all of that in the show notes. Now, I have to say, I didn't want that conversation to end. It was both very informative, very transformative, and it really provided some unbelievable zingers from Felicia. Respond, don't react. Winning is not having someone say you're right, it's achieving the outcome that benefits your interest. And my personal favorite was the pivot she made from courtroom to conference room. And here's what I want every leader and HR professional listening to take from this conversation. First, fewer than 5% of lawsuits actually go to trial, which means the fight that you're bracing for is actually gonna be resolved in some other way. The question is whether you were in the room when it does or whether you handed it off to someone else to make the decision. Second, when a dispute shows up in your world, your first move is not to go to war. It is to ask your legal team one simple question: What does success actually look like for us? That question changes the entire strategy. And then respond, don't react. And third, take the emotion out of it. Take the ego out of it. Take the fear out of it. And then respond, don't react. Because how you show up in a dispute will shape how the other side responds to you, just as we always talk about in life. How you show up is how the world responds. And that is something you can actually control. And if this episode gave you something, a new way of thinking, a question to ask, a moment of recognition, then do me a favor. Subscribe to Shedding the Corporate Bitch because this is exactly the kind of conversation we bring each and every week. The ones that nobody is having in the boardroom, but everybody needs to hear. Once again, I'm Bernadette Boas. This is Shedding the Corporate Bitch, and I'll look forward to having you right back here next week.

Thank you for tuning in to today's episode of Shedding the Corporate Bitch. Don't miss any of our weekly episodes. Subscribe to our podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you love to listen. And for those who thrive on visual content, catch us on our Shedding the Bitch YouTube channel. Wanna dive deeper with Bernadette on becoming a powerhouse leader? Visit balloffirecoaching.com to learn more about how she helps professionals, HR executives, and team leaders elevate overall team performance. You've been listening to Shedding the Corporate Bitch with Bernadette Boas. Until next time, keep shedding, keep growing, and keep leading.