Leadership In Law Podcast

S03E120 How Communication Builds Strong Firms with Linda Carlisle

• Marilyn Jenkins • Season 3 • Episode 120

Share episode

Culture becomes strategy when pressure rises. We sit down with communications leader Linda Carlisle to unpack how empathy, transparency, and purpose turn disengaged teams into high-performing ones, and why this work is mission critical for law firms navigating constant change. Linda’s career spans external branding and deep internal communications, giving her a rare view of how the inside of a firm shapes what clients see on the outside. She explains why mission and values are only the starting point, and how defining and rewarding the right behaviors creates the real shift.

We walk through the engagement slump many organizations face and the compounding effects of lean staffing, nonstop initiatives, and change fatigue. Linda shares how to run communication as a two-way dialogue, translate strategy into clear objectives, and avoid the trap of “listening without action.” You’ll hear concrete examples: using 360 feedback to coach leaders, retiring toxic behaviors like knowledge hoarding, and tying recognition and reviews to the competencies that actually move the business forward. We also dig into transparent communication in hard moments, how to frame tough news, support impacted people with dignity, and preserve trust with those who remain.

For law firm owners, the conversation turns practical: build purpose into the work through authentic impact and pro bono, protect well-being with realistic workloads and weekends, and watch for early signals of cultural erosion before top performers walk. In a frozen job market, this is the window to invest in culture so you retain the talent you’ll need when demand shifts. If your goal is a resilient, engaged team that delivers consistent client experience and stronger results, these are the levers to pull.

Reach Linda:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/lindakcarlisle/
https://www.comm-ext.com

Law Firm Marketing Fix

Fix Your Law Firm’s Marketing in 10 Simple Steps

Download Your Free Checklist - https://fix.lawmarketingzone.com/

Ready to level up your law firm marketing? Book a FREE Discovery Call with Marilyn Here: https://lawmarketingzone.com/bookacall

Leadership In Law Podcast with host, Marilyn Jenkins
Powered by Law Marketing Zone®
https://lawmarketingzone.com
A full-service Digital Marketing Agency helping clients increase Leads, Cases, and Profit by getting their digital marketing right.

Subscribe on your favorite Podcast listening platform!

Like, Share, and Review us!

#leadershipinlawpodcast #leadershipinlaw #lawmarketingzone #marilynjenkins



SPEAKER_00:

Whether you're a statement leader or just starting your journey as a law firm owner, the Leadership in Law Podcast is here to equip you with the knowledge and tools you need to build a successful and fulfilling legal practice.

SPEAKER_01:

Welcome to another episode of the Leadership in Law Podcast. I'm your host, Marilyn Jenkins. Please join me in welcoming my guest, Linda Carlisle, to the show today. As a fractional corporate communications partner, Linda helps business leaders, VCs, private equity firms, and portfolio companies navigate critical moments that matter, such as MA, restructuring, leadership changes, turnarounds, and workforce reductions. With over 30 years of experience, she's a trusted advisor known for building high-performance cultures rooted in integrity, resilience, and psychological safety. Linda delivers strategic campaigns that drive results, solve problems, and align communications with business goals. Her expertise spans culture development, executive messaging, employment branding, integration, and change management across internal comms, PR, brand marketing, and CSR. I'm excited to have you here, Linda. Welcome. Thank you. I'm excited to be here. Tell us a bit about your leadership journey. I'm really excited to talk to you.

SPEAKER_02:

I really think of myself as having two careers, and they're very interrelated. My first half of my career was very much focused on enterprise branding, typically in the service sector. How does the organization, how is how are all of the activities of the organization perceived in the marketplace? And then what I started to realize through that, through that experience as I moved up through my career, is that the things that you did internally had an impact on how you were perceived externally. Your people were trustful and informed and engaged and excited, that had an impact on the customer experience. And so in this second half of my career, as a result of economic downturn and companies doing mergers and acquisitions and all that, I found myself at a crossroads. And I went into the second half of my career taking an internal communications role. And at first I thought this is just going to be for a little bit because I know a lot about it and I understand how it impacts. And once I was doing it, I really fell in love with doing internal comm and really focusing on how do you keep people engaged and excited about being at your company? And then how do you, how does that cultural evolution of getting people engaged and excited and in and inspired, how does that then impact the external brand? So that's a journey and the all yin-yang of everything I get excited about when I think about comms and culture and people and all that stuff.

SPEAKER_01:

I love that. I love that because we always work on our culture for to keep our people happy and productive and moving forward. I love that. So you seeing both sides and see how they work together.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. And I've seen companies where, frankly, they weren't doing anything in that respect. They weren't doing anything to they really thought these people have a role to play. And maybe the company was having a bad time economically, and everyone's very worried in senior leadership, and they weren't investing any of their energy into building their people. Well, that creates a downward slide in how people feel about the company. And that that whole downward spiral just feeds on itself and makes things harder, makes it harder to turn a company around. You have to get your people willing to take that hill, especially when you're having a period of difficulties. So it's just very interesting how much I think that what excites me is that when you're doing branding, it's like messaging and experiences, but when you're doing internal branding, it's about psychology and how are people feeling and how do you get them to do the most excellent thing they can to help your business.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Yeah. We saw that bring your A game every day. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

So what is the common thread that you've seen between strong cultures and strong business results?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I feel like it really a lot of it really comes down to the notion of engagement, right? And right now in America, writ large, you look at Gallup polls, you look at the Edelman trust barometer, trust is really low within companies across the board. Doesn't matter what kind of company, what sector, how large the company is, trust is really low, trust is low in our society. And so is engagement, right? I want to say it's roughly like 21% of employees will claim to be engaged. That's a really low percent. That means that the rest are disengaged. And disengaged just really means they're not spending that more than 100% of their energy into doing the job. Then you take into consideration that we're running really lean and mean, and so people are having project after project, change after change. That creates a sense of psychological safety. Where we tend to be giving very small type cost of living type increases to most people within the population. And when you add all those things up, there's just not a lot that is driving people to become more engaged. And year after year, that sort of creates a cynicism. And the only way you break that cycle is to invest in culture. You get people excited about the company, proud of the company, sensing that the purpose of the company is making a positive impact on the world. They want to be a part of that, they're proud to be part of that. Building a culture where people are connected to each other, they're connected to their leaders, they care, they feel cared for. When you invest in those cultural elements, that's the only real tool you have to turn around that downward spiral of engagement.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I think at some point money even loses its bang for its buck unintended way.

SPEAKER_02:

Years and years ago, I had a boss, it was during a review, and we it was positive review. He was a quirky guy, and I said, I felt like this would be a good time to let you know during this review that I'm really motivated by experiences. And so far, I've had great experiences, and I've had a lot of great new things that I get to try all the time and the like. But I just wanted you to know that what I'm motivated by is experience. And he said, Linda, you're gonna have to learn to be motivated by money. And I just remember being like, I gave him a gift, and you know, he in your face about it, and but if you're motivated by money, then in years where you know, you're not gonna get the top performer award every single year, right? You're only gonna get some years. If money's the thing, then when money's not there, then you're not gonna be as engaged. And all of that very interesting.

SPEAKER_01:

Now, were you talking about it? I'm sorry. So, were you talking about experiences at work or experiences in life? Maybe he took it for in life because he threw money at it.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh no, so we had a lot going on at the company, and so he did he did mean I did mean at work, and the way we had talked about it was at work. I listed some of the experiences that I had been really happy that I had to have. I get to write congressional testimony, and there were just some cool things that I was involved in that I really enjoyed, and I wanted to make sure that continued to happen. I've never been one of those wake up every day and do the job, punch the widget, whatever. You've never been that person.

SPEAKER_01:

Now, do you find when you're building that that culture in the high performance kind of thing, do you find that revisiting your mission statement or your core values, is that a good place to start if you don't know how to get people to re-engage?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I'm a big fan of mission and vision and values are table stakes, right? What are we trained to accomplish? Where are we trying to go? And then what are the core things that we believe are essential to our organization? What is the glue? How do we treat each other? That sort of thing. Mission, vision, values. How do we approach our work? The pieces that I find are most important to culture are behaviors, because at the end of the day, how a culture manifests itself is in the behavior. So, what behaviors do you reward within your organization? And more often than not, if you're not thinking about behaviors, then there are behaviors that are happening within your organization that are not in alignment with your values, that are not going to get you to your vision, that are not in alignment with your mission. So you want to look at what are the behaviors we want to have, what are the behaviors we're having, and then what can we do to move from point A to point B. Some of that is messaging, right? You can have a campaign and make people aware these are our target behaviors, these are the core competencies that we want leaders to get really good at doing and behaving according to. You can do use 360s to assess whether your leaders are really strong or if they could use a little extra work in some of those behaviors, and then sort of build it into your year-in compensation kind of review discussions, right? Maybe pick one or two each year that you're gonna work on that you're gonna strengthen those behaviors, and then you want to try and retire the behaviors that are not productive. So, for instance, if you've got someone who interprets the phrase, knowledge is power, by saying, I have knowledge, so therefore I'm powerful, I'm gonna hoard my knowledge. That's the opposite of what is intended by that phrase. So that transparency and sharing and being generous with your knowledge and mentoring and helping people, that's those are the behaviors we want, right? So you have to go retire that behavior of hoarding information. How are we rewarding it? How is it getting rewarded? And then how do we turn that around?

SPEAKER_01:

Very cool. Yeah, yeah, that's it's interesting. Knowledge is power, so I'm gonna keep it. Yeah, that doesn't help anyone, but I've seen it, right? Yeah, I think we all have in instances, yeah. Yeah. When you say high performance culture, what does that actually look like in practice? And I don't mean the buzzwords of engagement or collaboration. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

So first of all, I feel like while there's it's been there's a lot of behavior when I talk about behaviors, there's a lot of behaviors that are associated with being part of a high performance team. It starts with trust, it starts with caring for each other, having each other's back, transparency, collaboration, listening to each other. These are all behaviors, really, they're behaviors that knit people together. And when people feel cared for, care about their colleagues, feel like their colleagues have their back, these are table stakes for a high performance culture because you're not gonna go that extra mile if you're not feeling like if you feel like you're gonna get stabbed in the back or your colleague isn't gonna have your back when chips are down for you. So building that culture where there's good care. And then also building a culture that is very goal-oriented, that is that we know where we're going, we know what we're trying to achieve. You've got transparency around objectives and the company strategy that you're bringing people along with you. And so again, it comes down to transparency, right? It's communicated communication and communication as a two-way dialogue, not just a one-way dialogue, right? So I communicate the strategy to you. What did you hear? Right? Or I think we're just peachy keen in our organization, but you feel like you haven't had a weekend in six months, right? So are you listening to where your people are at are at? Are you receiving that feedback? And then are you doing something with it?

SPEAKER_01:

There's that. Yeah, being heard is one thing, but yeah, are they are you responding to them, what they're saying? Exactly.

SPEAKER_02:

And I think that's the biggest mistake that companies make when it comes to the whole listening and surveys and engagement, is that they do the survey, they get the feedback, they may even say, I heard you, thank you for sharing that, but they don't change anything. And a lot of times it's because the culture is so ingrained, it might also be because there's so much change going on. I think right now most organizations are really feeling a lot of just there's just so much change going on so fast. The world is changing so fast. So you're adding change after change to try and keep up with it, and people are exhausted, they're running lean, and now you got six different projects going on, six different initiatives, and they're trying to just keep the lights on and make the initiatives move forward, and it's exhausting. And hearing them is one thing, but what can you do to make that easier? Is there anything you can take off your plate? And it's gonna vary by team what can be done, but you have to hear where they're coming from because otherwise you're gonna lose top talent.

SPEAKER_01:

And that's yeah, so job satisfaction. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, like job satisfaction is way more than money. I agree when it comes to being heard, being recognized, and appreciated. And you're right, if you don't do those things at a good level, you're gonna lose top talent.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. And the time to be thinking about it is a time like right now, it's a very interesting time in the job market, right? Companies are not hiring, they're also not laying off, they're also not promoting. They're everybody's hunkered down because we're in this time of uncertainty. And so uncertainty makes people just lock in. And so that's where we're at right now. And the same as what is true of the employers, is true of the employees. Employees are hunkered down, they're like, it's horrible out there. So nobody's moving, everybody's just wait and see. And the minute that turns, because job markets are cyclical, so eventually's gonna turn. And the minute that turns, your top performers, if they're feeling this stress from all of the things going on all of the time, they'll be the first ones to go because they're gonna be in higher demand, they're gonna find it easier to move on to their next opportunity. So the time to be working on listening and doing something and culture and making your employment environment the most amazing place where people are proud of what they're doing, they love their coworkers, they really connect to you as a leader. Maybe you've got some purpose thrown in the mix. I'm a big fan of leveraging purpose. And I think of purpose as if your business is the kind of business that authentically makes an impact in the world that's positive, then that's a no-brainer. That's your purpose. But sometimes you may need to go up a level and go, well, this is our higher purpose. This is what we can do. So, for instance, in the law community, your pro bono work, right? What can you do from a pro bono space to really make people proud of who you are as a company? And can you leverage that pro bono activity to build relationships with each other? And so then now you've got the relationships and the pride and the and so those are just some levers you can pull, but also just making sure people aren't running it 150% all the time. Well-being is really becoming a very important element in what the environment is like.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I think that's a large part of the conversation, especially as we're coming in during these stressful times, is quality of life and that that rhythm. Quality of life is thrown around a lot, but I think there is a rhythm of life that you need to have work, skate, and some time to relax on the weekends. So I absolutely agree. So, what what would you say is the early warning signs that a company's culture is quietly breaking down? And how can leaders course correct before it shows in up in turnover? So we're talking about those A players leaving.

SPEAKER_02:

So I would say, first of all, if you're if you are seeing turnover, that's a red flag. You need to be taking a look at if you're losing top talent. I was talking to somebody this morning who said they lost two of their top performers. They were, and they were this is the irony. They were thinking about putting a program in place to work on engagement and work on their culture. Oh no. And then they lost their two top performers. So now they're like, so we lost the two people we're worried about, so we're gonna just put the program on hold. I'm like, oh yes, it's really a bad idea. But if people start to go quiet on you, if you start to see performance, performance lapse, if you previously had a great open dialogue with someone and they were telling you what was happening in the organization, maybe they were telling you when other people were unhappy, or maybe they were telling you when they were how they were feeling, what was the stress level with the amount of work, and then they go quiet. Going quiet is a red flag. So really paying attention to how people are sharing with you, and then what is performance looking like. And don't always read poor performance or slowing performance or lagging performance as that's it's a warning sign. You can do something about the culture, it's not always the person, it could be the person, though, also. So you can take a moment to ask them what's going on in their world. Maybe there's something going on in their life, and you can cut them a break, and now they're gonna love you forever for you being so sensitive that there was something going on that they really needed to take care of.

SPEAKER_01:

Nice. Yeah, I think people genuinely need to be taken care of. Heard we don't need to go back to that quiet quitting thing that was happening a few years ago. That was ridiculous, and people just felt ignored.

SPEAKER_02:

So yeah, you know, at the end of the day, we're people, and I think sometimes as leaders, I think sometimes leaders uh uh start thinking of the company as an engine and a machine, and they know it's people, but they don't look at you or look at me and say, This is a person. What is this person experiencing? How is this newest piece of news hitting this person? And it's really important to have that humanity baked into your leadership.

SPEAKER_01:

I love that. And I love that it's the it's the communication is being always being heard, but you're talking about all of the stuff to build a tight team that's m moving the goalposts to the right in the right direction. Yeah, exactly. Absolutely. I know that was the wrong colloquialism to use, but there I said it. Oh so, in your your experience, what role does transparent communication play in keeping people engaged? Now, this is what we're talking about, but you mean from the top down, we don't want uncertainty, we don't want change, we want transparent communication. How what types of things, what can we do in that instance?

SPEAKER_02:

So I think you want you don't want people to be surprised, right? To me, to the degree to which you cannot surprise people with particularly bad news, then try and make sure that people are tapped into what's going on with. The business tapped into what the strategy is, how well are you performing against strategy, so that people have a gut sense based on facts and information that you've shared with them or how things are going in the business. And then when there is some bad news, there are things you're not gonna share. You're probably not gonna share specifics of how, for instance, a layoff has been executed. You but what you can share is that you why it happened, what are the business circumstances that caused it? Are you done? Is this it? Or do we feel like where we are at is what we needed to do in order to get to the other side? And then I'm a really big fan of doing absolutely everything you can for the people that you're going to let go if you're gonna do a layoff, for example. So that they're kept as whole as they can. You're making it as easy for them as possible. It's grown trendy, I think, sometimes for leaders to in it imply that it's the fault of the people who are laid off that they got laid off, but that's not actually true. It's usually a miss in strategy, something changed in the marketplace. And really instead, tap into the your awareness of the humanity of the people that you're releasing, do everything in your power to make their landing as soft as possible. And then you can then say that to the people who are remaining behind, and they understand then that you are an employer who has that empathy or for the impacts of the business upon the people that work there. And I think that will gain you some points in the long run for having taken that little extra effort because people know that you'll do that for them if the time ever comes where something something bad is happening in their world. So that transparency, I think, is really important in letting people know why things happen.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, kindness and communication. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02:

And again, it comes back to that humanity and empathy for what this news is doing to the person you're to and communicate accordingly.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, that sounds back to, I know it's a broad thing, but my grandmother used to talk about manners. And it seems like all of the things we talk about communication and kindness, that's bottom line, it's just banners between humans.

SPEAKER_02:

What's funny that you say that because there are sometimes I'm gonna be reading the news and I'll be like, are these people behaving like the people they were raised to be? You my mama didn't raise me to be that kind of person or whatever. So be the kind of person your mama raised you to be.

SPEAKER_01:

I love that. I love that. So let's talk about moments that matter. You specify specified that in your bio. What's one moment that stands out in your career where strong culture made all the difference in a business outcome? Interesting.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, so I would say that I have been through a company through an expansion company that was very acquisitive. And sometimes those acquisitions worked out well and sometimes they didn't. And so, as much as we were acquisitive, we also then make adjustments to the manufacturing footprint and where we had plants and where we didn't. At one point, we spun off a company and that was no longer like really getting the synergies that we were looking for. And all of this particular company was had the strongest culture I've ever experienced in my life. Like genuinely caring culture, very vested in how people were cared for, very vested in the programs that they promoted to help employees thrive, to help people experience a career path and development, and just a very, very caring kind of company. And that came through in how we acquired and how we helped welcome people in and make them feel comfortable, and how we communicated to them at the front end. And then also when we did things like doing a plant closing, we would host a job fair on site to help people find new jobs from within the community. We did things to help people on their journey out of the company as well. And it really signaled to everyone that that caring, that humanity was very authentic and real, and the culture was real and they could depend on it. And so for me, I got to experience that firsthand and see how people would say it was the best company they ever worked for. You could still go on a glass door and see commentary from people who experienced having a long career at this company and just their sense of how they've been cared for over time.

SPEAKER_01:

That's fantastic. And then do a job fair on site just to help people as they move on.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, exactly. Because it was a small community, right? And a lot of the manufacturing, not all companies are like this, but that particular company had manufacturing in these very, fairly rural areas. And so if you something like a downsizing, then you're in the future when that's impactful. Yeah, when there was a need to upscale your employment levels, how people feel about you, your reputation is everything. So that's why I talk about the yin-yang of internal and external, right? So how are you going to attract your future employees when you do something that makes people feel badly about you?

SPEAKER_01:

So it's an important that's a that's an amazing thing to think about because when you're going through like a downsize, it's kind of like when you're having a bad month. You don't think you don't remember the highs when you're at the bottom. When you're going through a downsize, you don't always think about what about when I grow again and I need these people back or their friends.

unknown:

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02:

But this but it's very cyclical. Business is cyclical. You want to come out of a tailspin, be it because of something the market did or you launched a bad product and it didn't take, or whatever the case might be, right? Right. Your goal is to come out of that tailspin and have a strategy that gets you back on a good course. When you do get back on a good course, you're gonna hire again. So you want to have that reputation as an employer of choice.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, that's definitely something you want to keep in mind. Absolutely. Thinking about our listeners, and this has been a great conversation, moments that matter, and the communication and all, what's the one thing you'd like for them to take from this conversation looking at their firms?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, but I guess I'm gonna say two things. One is lead with empathy. If you put empathy at the forefront, you're gonna make the right decisions during tough times, and you're gonna make the right decisions during good times. And you're gonna, if you're leading from empathy, you're gonna pick up when something's going wrong. You're pick up when people have gone silent on you, lead with empathy. And then, and then I would say also have that big picture of what kind of culture you want to have, what kind of company you want your employment environment to be, and invest in it. Invest in it all the time, but be aware that if you're in a period of stasis like what we're in right now, where there's not a lot of change going on in employment levels, there is probably no better time to make the investment in building your culture and building your purpose and engaging your people more. Because when when things turn around, if they turn around for the positive, those people could leave. If they turn around from the negative, you're not doing anything to build up for delivering bad news. Do what you can during the times where things are a little bit more static on the employment front. Build be the force you want to be in the marketplace.

SPEAKER_01:

I love that. Great advice. I really love that. I know that my listeners are gonna want to connect with you, chat with you. Where would be the best place for them to do that?

SPEAKER_02:

I would say my website is dubcomc-ext.com. And you can also find me on LinkedIn, Linda K. Carlisle, and I have an M-S-I-M-C after my name in LinkedIn.

SPEAKER_01:

I'm gonna include the links to both of those so they can go straight to your LinkedIn. Yep. This has been a really great conversation. I really appreciate your time and thank you so much for being here today. Thank you so much. This has been fun. Good conversation. Thanks for joining me today for this episode. As we wrap up, I'd love for you to do two things. First, subscribe to this podcast so you don't miss an episode. And if you find value here, I'd love it if you would rate it and review it. That really does make a difference in helping other people to discover this podcast. Second, you can connect with me on LinkedIn to keep up with what I'm currently learning and thinking about. And if you're ready to take the next step with a digital strategist to help you grow your law firm, I'd be honored to help you. Just go to Law Marketingzone.com to book a call with me. Stay tuned for our next episode next week. Until then, as always, thanks for listening to Leadership in Law Podcast, and be sure to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts so you don't miss the next episode.

SPEAKER_00:

Thanks for joining us on another episode of the Leadership in Law Podcast. Remember, you're not alone on this journey. There's a whole community of law firm owners out there facing similar challenges and striving for the same success. Head over to our website at lawmarketingstone.com. From there, connect with other webinars, access valuable resources, and stay up to date on the latest episodes. Don't forget to subscribe and leave us to review on your favorite podcast platform. Until next time. Keep playing with Vision and keep growing your firm.

Head Shot

Marilyn Jenkins

Host