Right now, we are being bombarded from friends, social media, mainstream media & all walks of life to set our intentions, make our goals, affirm ourselves daily and have gratitude.
We are encouraged to put in the actions required to achieve the dream (goal/s) that we want and then we will be in the land of milk and honey. Life will be sweet & perfect. Right!
But how?
Is it really that easy and if it is can this also translate into the work environment and how we own & run a childcare centre? Can we do both – have personal intentions & own and operate a successful childcare centre?
Well the answer is yes – it can be done!
Now, I’m not going to school anyone on personal life goals or intentions. There are literally hundreds of influences on Instagram / Facebook that are only too happy to show you how (check out @marieforleo or @melissaambossini for two different styles).
My jam is knowing how to operate a successful childcare centre…so, follow along.
To achieve this unicorn of being planned & purposeful (aka Getting Sh*t done) in our childcare centres, we need to take a long-term view and approach to the business.
HINT – This is more than an annual budget.
It starts with understanding where the business is currently (we call this ‘current state’) and then having a very clear vision for the future (‘future state’).
It’s also important to know WHEN you want to get there!
So, this requires us to look in advance – say a year – and plan all aspects of our work to align with our vision for the future. BUT it’s also CRITICAL to understand what work we all need to do to keep our childcare centre operating successfully – we call this Business as Usual (BAU).
If we fail to do this, we run the risk of creating a giant big ‘to do’ list that never ever gets done. Been there done that.
So – FIRST we would plan our BAU work around categories such as Quality/Compliance, People/Team, Finance/Operations, Community Engagement/Events, just to name a few.
It doesn’t need to be in detail (to start with – our detailed 90-day plans will fall out of this process). Planning at a high level just outlines a task and a month that it will be done.
THEN – when we can see exactly how much there is to do & when can we only really plan for the big strategic, transformational ‘projects’ that will help us achieve our vision.
Contact us today and let our team of early years specialists work their magic.
