<![CDATA[Barrington Coaching

<![CDATA[Barrington Coaching - Blog]]>Wed, 18 Feb 2026 15:58:06 -0700Weebly<![CDATA[Ridiculous]]>Wed, 02 Dec 2020 20:33:40 GMThttps://www.barringtoncoaching.com/wisdom/ridiculousI placed a call to a healthcare company today. As is often the case, I was assisted by a call center employee. A couple of minutes into our call I heard a baby crying and the customer service rep said she’d look into my question and I could tell she muted me. Less than a minute later she came back and let me know she’d have to take another action. I heard the baby again and she muted me again. When she came back I told her she doesn’t have to mute herself! I told her that I know she’s working at home, many of us are, and that’s certainly not an issue for me. She then admitted that she’s new to the organization and a customer had complained about the baby noise! I was so stunned that I couldn’t respond immediately.

I had to hold back tears.

When I gathered my emotions, I told her how sorry I was to hear that. I had to hold back tears.

Really? We’re all just trying to survive this chaotic, frightening, and difficult time and a customer complained! And the company passed it along to the employee instead of supporting her!? She admitted she’s fearful and just doesn’t want to get in any more trouble. I asked her a few different times if there’s a phone number or email for customer service that I could reach out to and let them know about the exceptional customer service I received from her (because she skillfully resolved my issue). Unfortunately, each time her answer was “unfortunately no.”

I commend you.

For all of you out there working at home while caring for parents, children, or partners, I commend you for doing everything you can to make it work. I commend you for taking care of your loved ones. I commend you for helping your organization get through this difficult time. I commend you for being there for ME, the customer, who needed assistance. I commend you for helping the economy recover.

A call out to all leaders.

And, for those of you who lead companies. Please, show compassion for your employees. This should be a given—always—but most certainly now.

This article was originally posted on LinkedIn on August 10, 2020 based on an experience I had that compelled me to write about it.

]]><![CDATA[Employee Engagement is Good for People AND for Business]]>Tue, 09 Jul 2019 18:17:15 GMThttps://www.barringtoncoaching.com/wisdom/employee-engagement-is-good-for-people-and-for-business

Do you know how engaged your employees are?

If your organization’s employee engagement mirrors results from the Gallup’s 2017 State of the American Workplace report, it’s just 33%.

That leaves a whopping 67% who are not engaged – including 16% who are actively disengaged. In fact, these employees may actually be working against your organization’s interests!

How do you think that affects your bottom line? Should it concern you enough to do something about it?

A number of business leaders in the Phoenix, Arizona area recently said, “Yes!”

These leaders joined me and my fellow executive panelists for AZ Biz Link’s June 25 Workforce Event, “Getting Real About Employee Engagement.” Our lively discussion illuminated several helpful insights from both the panel and attendees.

Below you’ll find some of our moderator’s questions and the key points I shared with the group that can help you improve employee engagement at your organization, resulting in a healthier and more profitable workplace!

What exactly is employee engagement?

There are dozens of definitions in academia and practice. The definition I use pulls from a few of these, primarily Kahn & Shuck:

Employee engagement is a psychological state related to the elements of your work as they are experienced collectively (i.e., the company, the leaders, and your job). This state shows up as three different energies:

Cognitive
Emotional
Physical/Behavioral

In practice, many organizations define employee engagement based on employee discretionary effort, intent to stay, or survey scores. One way you can “see” engagement is through an employee’s attachment, and how that attachment transforms into commitment toward all things work-related.

What are the key drivers of employee engagement?

Employee engagement is driven by:

Leaders, including traits like tone, behavior, and style.
Culture, which includes values in action, as demonstrated by policies, procedures, and practices.
Job & job resources, including tasks and level of autonomy.
Employee traits, such as emotional intelligence (EQ) & Big 5 personality traits.

How can you tell if employees are engaged?

While I love the rich information I get from employee survey results, I’ve learned that two observable behaviors will provide me with initial insight into an organization’s level of employee engagement:

Employees use the terms “we/us” instead of “they/them” when talking about their company

Employees go out of their way to please the customer, often without having to ask a manager

What are the top three reasons most organizations fail to address their employees’ engagement?

They don’t recognize the cost ($450 - $550 billion in lost productivity) of low engagement, or benefits (increased customer satisfaction and profitability, a healthier workforce, lower turnover, higher quality, and more innovation) of high engagement.
They think it’s just about doing a survey. Wrong! That’s simply a point-in-time metric. Actual engagement starts with what executives and leaders do, every day, to improve organizational health – the culture, leadership behaviors, and the way employees experience the workplace. From there, it’s about selecting the right people for the right jobs and getting out of their way!
They fail to balance the “time” ledger, thinking it takes “too much time” to engage employees. Yes, it takes time for leaders to connect with employees, which involves listening, observing, and providing feedback. But it takes more time to process someone’s exit, recruit for a replacement, and train that replacement – especially if it occurs with some frequency.

How do you influence senior leaders to make employee engagement a priority?

You connect it to results that are important to them. Executives pay attention to data linking actions to outcomes.

For example, you could demonstrate links between smaller spans of control, the amount of time leaders spend with employees, and improvements in key organizational health metrics like attrition, absenteeism, and customer satisfaction. Some companies have even demonstrated a direct link between employees’ self-reported levels of engagement and their organizations’ operating revenues. Those are results any CEO would heed!

Executives pay attention to data
linking actions to outcomes.

- Lisa Barrington

Is it possible to recruit and select for higher engagement?

A number of studies suggest that selection is key to engagement. In several of these studies, employees with higher EQ made for more highly engaged staff. Those who scored highest on “conscientiousness” on the Big 5 personality scale tended to aim for high achievement, while those who scored high on “open to experiences” tended to aspire to self-actualization.

But before you start selecting for engagement, you need to have a clear sense of your organizational culture and values. Only then can you begin to ask questions that help you – and your candidates – determine if there’s a mutual fit for high engagement.

What are three best practices you would recommend to leaders who want to start improving employee engagement today?

1. Start with yourself

You don't have to be a senior leader or begin a major initiative to improve your team's engagement. See the shaded box for ideas!

2. Focus on improving relationships at work, and the work itself

The results of a 2010 meta-analysis conducted by Harter, Schmidt, Asplund, Killham, and Agrawal showed that when an employee has adequate tools to do their job, can contribute skillfully to the work at hand, feels acknowledged for that work, and feels otherwise cared for by their colleagues and supervisor, they will report higher levels of engagement.

3. Collect data and do something about it

Doing something about it is key here! There’s nothing that kills engagement faster than spending time, money, and effort asking employees for their feedback, then not sharing the results and never following up with improvements. So be prepared to act, be transparent with the results, and communicate what you’re doing now and plan to do in the future.

Leaders with the best engagement do these things:

Set transparent and achievable expectations that are tied to the organization’s vision, giving the employee a clear sense of purpose
Provide the tools and resources employees need to do their jobs
Build authentic, caring relationships with their employees; learn about their needs; and customize solutions to meet those needs
Provide opportunities for employees to learn and grow in the role and beyond
Enable employees to leverage their strengths to do their best work, every day, with as much autonomy as possible
Acknowledge each employee for their work and recognize and reward effort and success

This article was adapted from Lisa’s key points as part of a “Getting Real About Employee Engagement” executive panel for AZ Biz Link’s Workforce Event on June 25, 2019, in Phoenix.

Image credits: Lindsay Moellenberndt

]]><![CDATA[Making Accountability a Reality at Your Organization]]>Mon, 20 May 2019 19:11:07 GMThttps://www.barringtoncoaching.com/wisdom/making-accountability-a-reality-at-your-organization

Lisa Barrington at 2019 WACUBO Conference

Have you ever been disappointed or even frustrated by an employee’s or colleague’s actions, or lack thereof? Maybe you have an employee who frequently fails to submit his weekly reports. Or perhaps you work with a colleague who spends meeting time with her face buried in her phone.

On the flip side, it’s equally as annoying to be pestered and micromanaged by a leader who doesn’t know a more effective way to ensure that people follow through on their commitments.

The truth is, helping people be accountable is hard. Most leaders I speak to admit they struggle with this task. In fact, in a 2019 Benchmarking Report by The Predictive Index, CEOs revealed that their biggest weakness was “holding people accountable.”

Lisa Barrington 2019 WACUBO Presentation

Why Accountability Matters

But when we don’t help others be accountable, we experience real consequences that affect the bottom line.

For example, in their multi-year, Workplace Accountability Study of more than 40,000 employees, Partners in Leadership discovered that organizations without a culture of accountability have:

Misalignment around key priorities and desired results
Low trust
Problems with collaboration
Declining engagement levels
Ineffective execution of initiatives
Increased turnover

When you can’t count on being able to implement projects well, or you don’t know if your employees will hang around long enough to get the work done, you’ve got a serious problem.

The Value of Taking Action

The good news is you can build a culture of accountability, and it is worth the effort!

After decades of writing and testing hundreds of questions to build their Q12 Employee Engagement Survey – which includes the accountability question of “Are my co-workers committed to doing quality work?” – Gallup discovered that organizations whose employees respond positively to these questions have lower turnover, higher profits, and increased customer loyalty.

In my own coaching and workplace strategy practice, I’ve found that teams who focus on improving team cohesion and accountability also improve across other team dimensions. This chart shows how one team I coached saw significant improvements across the board, moving them to a “high” performance level and increasing their confidence in leadership.

Lisa Barrington 2019 WACUBO Presentation Team Results

How to Build Employee and Colleague Accountability

There are several ways to build accountability. For this post, I will focus on the one attribute any leader can personally control and implement today to build a culture of accountability:

Your willingness to let others know when they are or are not living up to agreed-upon performance standards and behaviors.

For best results, I recommend that you start with building employee (direct report) accountability, then add colleague accountability as you gain confidence and competence.

1. Build Employee Accountability

If your team sees you helping one of their colleagues to be accountable, they’ll feel safe doing the same. But how can you do this in a way that empowers everyone, even the person who may have failed to be accountable? Here are five steps that have worked for my clients:

Set expectations. Ensure first that team members have the ability and tools to meet those expectations. Once this is in place, confirm their understanding of the expectations, including timing, quality, behaviors, and measures.
Give frequent feedback. Don’t wait until team members fall short. Give feedback all the time. When they meet expectations, be specific, and let them know how they positively affected others. When they miss the mark, be specific, describing the gap as compared to the set expectation, and let them know the impact (e.g., to their reputation, your relationship/trust, the team, the customer, or the organization).
Ask why. If there’s a miss, you want to understand the reason. Listen to understand. Don’t interrupt. No judgment. Learn their why. Ask questions from a place of curiosity rather than one of affixing blame.
Ask what. Ask them what they need to do and what you can do to ensure they meet expectations going forward.
Agree on what they will do differently to meet expectations, and reiterate any commitments you’ve made. Discuss your approach for feedback, measurement, timing, and, if necessary, consequences.

2. Build Colleague Accountability

As difficult as it is to help direct reports with accountability, it’s even more difficult with colleagues. Because you don’t have authority over colleagues, there’s a risk that they’ll feel you’re blaming or trying to manage them. So, I suggest a different approach than you’d take with a direct report. Here’s what’s worked for my clients:

Gain clarity. Confirm you’re on the same page. Ideally, teams should have Operating Agreements. The team I showcased above created an operating agreement that they still live by. These agreements should include a handful of meaningful behaviors that create a high degree of trust, define how the team makes decisions, and identify what happens if team members don’t follow through on commitments.
Acknowledge the gap. Approach it from a place of compassion and empathy, and provide detail around the gap. For example: “I was wondering why I didn’t receive the report?”, or “I noticed you’ve been late for our project meeting the last few times.” Be empathetic, ask what’s going on (e.g. maybe they have too much on their plate?)
Share the impact. Be specific. For example: Maybe their actions caused you to work into the night, or caused you to submit your work late. Perhaps you missed a commitment to an outside group, or the product or service wasn’t up to par. In some cases, their action – or inaction – affected how they’re perceived or eroded trust.
Re-negotiate/re-clarify. Confirm shared understanding of what’s expected in the future. Let them know that you care about people keeping their word, and obtain their commitment.

Rising to the Occasion

No doubt about it: It can be uncomfortable to give – and receive – corrective feedback for accountability. That’s why most of us try to avoid it. But when we don’t make the effort to help others raise their game, we deprive them of the opportunity to grow further.

In one study about the efficacy of feedback, teachers grading student essays gave detailed feedback to students throughout each paper.

At the end of the paper, they concluded their feedback in one of two ways:

On half of the papers, they closed with: “I’m giving you these comments because I have high expectations and I know you can reach them.” This is known as wise feedback.
On the other half of the papers, they said: “I’m giving you these comments so you’ll have feedback.” This is known as neutral feedback.

All students were then given an opportunity to revise their papers for a new grade.

Of those who received “wise feedback,” 71% revised their papers.

Of those who receive “neutral feedback,” just 17% revised their papers.

The moral of the story? When we set high expectations, express our faith in others’ ability to achieve them, and offer regular feedback and support, they will almost always rise to the occasion.

This article was adapted from a “Holding Peers Accountable” presentation that Lisa gave to leaders at the 2019 Western Association of College and University Business Officers (WACUBO) Annual Conference in May.

Image credits: Nichol Luoma and rawpixel on Pixabay

]]><![CDATA[Driving Employee Engagement: Michael S. Seaver Podcast]]>Tue, 04 Dec 2018 22:45:48 GMThttps://www.barringtoncoaching.com/wisdom/driving-employee-engagement-michael-s-seaver-podcast

Coach Lisa recently joined Michael S. Seaver on his podcast series, "Equal Chance to Be Unequal," to talk about employee engagement.

Click here to listen to the full episode on Michael's website.

]]><![CDATA[Sexual Harassment in the Workplace: A Seven-Part Series]]>Wed, 25 Jul 2018 14:47:47 GMThttps://www.barringtoncoaching.com/wisdom/sexual-harassment-in-the-workplace-a-seven-part-series

Approximately half of all women will experience sexual harassment in the workplace. Recent headlines illustrate how pervasive and damaging this is to the individuals affected, as well as to the organizations where they were harassed.

Do you and your company know what constitutes sexual harassment? Are you at risk? And what can you do to ensure an engaging and supportive workplace that allows everyone to perform their best?

Workplace Strategist and Executive Coach Lisa Barrington, PCC, BCC, SPHR, SHRM-SCP, provides her insights on this topic in a seven-part podcast series on sexual harassment in the workplace for Stewart, Cooper & Coon. Topics covered include:

101: What is Sexual Harassment?
102: Misconduct in the Workplace
103: The Important Fall Hard
104: Man vs. Woman | Man vs. Man | Boss vs. Employee
105: How to Prevent Sexual Harassment
106: Who Has What Rights
107: Binding Arbitration Agreement

Listen to the Podcast Series

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