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Appreciating our own and each other’s transferable skills is something we should all do more of.  Let me tell you why I think that.  First, it helps us to value the things we do every day and increases our job-satisfaction.  This can be helpful for staying in a role, developing a role or job, or securing a new and challenging position.  It supports us to think about how we are growing and developing, and how we can build our careers for the long-term or create new roles – grasping opportunities rather than considering ourselves to be insufficiently experienced or skilled.

It’s important to say this article is not about supporting anyone in early years to leave the sector.  The reverse is true.  Indeed, far too many people, in my view, are leaving because they do not see a secure and fruitful future in their early years roles.  Whether they be blocked by leaders and managers who seem unchangeable and unmovable, or if terms and conditions are not enough.  Early years has changed enormously in recent years, and I cannot see this trend stopping anytime soon.  There are practical challenges, I know there are, I am a realist.  But there are cognitive barriers as well.  So, let’s work together and break all of them.

We can do this by identifying, celebrating and promoting the amazing skills we develop in early years and childcare.  We all need to do this, because many of those around us are not doing it on our behalf.  When we all get this right, then the rewards are more likely to follow.  It will help us to connect in better ways with other professionals, it will help us grow new, exciting and sustainable roles in the sector, and it will empower through greater confidence.

What other jobs can you think of that:

• Deliver a national early years curriculum (EYFS) under the scrutiny of Ofsted
• Deliver a wide-range of ground-breaking and challenging government policies and strategies e.g. tackling disadvantage, social mobility, 30 hours and two-year-old funding
• Identify children’s needs early and coordinate packages of early intervention support
• Ensure child protection and safeguarding, and manage health and safety and other legal duties
• Inclusively engage with children, parents and families
• Develop and design information and marketing strategies
• Lead staff teams of different levels, including apprentices
• Support continuous professional development, training, and staff development
• Juggle multiple tasks in a high-pressure environment
• Work with partnership organisations, agencies, and local authorities
• Manage complex financial arrangements and contracts, accounts, funding and income generation
• Lead and manage organisational change

That is an amazing list.  I cannot think of many comparative roles.  But I wonder, how many of us describe early years and childcare jobs in these terms?  My argument is we should.  We all should.  And those who ask us to deliver, need to value what we can do.  And for that to happen, we need to tell them this is what we do in clearer and more precise and understandable ways.  The best way for that to work, is for us all to recognise all promote our transferable skills.  Now, all I ask is you go and update and rewrite your CV.  Then tell everyone how amazing you are.  Feel that confidence growing.  That way, the change and growth we all want will have a greater chance of happening.

A version of this blog was first published in Teach Early Years Magazine.

We all have to attend meetings.  Some even enjoy them.  They are all tricky in their own ways; each one is different.   One of the trickiest is a meeting with your boss.  And these meetings should be grasped with both hands, not avoided (even though the temptation might be huge), because the potential benefits are much bigger. So, if you are someone often tempted to avoid them, here are some tips.

1. Meet regularly. Make meetings routine. Don’t save them for when disaster strikes, you are angry or complaining, or you need something.  Do that, and you will be perceived as the person with problems and demands.  By regularly meeting, you can build a better relationship – you won’t get too stressed about them, and you will be thought of in more balanced ways.
2. Organise your boss. Busy bosses need managing as much as staff teams do. They need you to put meetings in the diary.  Be clever though, don’t block out too much time.  Think carefully about how much time you need, half-an-hour, an hour, an hour-and-a-half?  Don’t get trapped into the mindset every meeting should last for two-hours.
3. Be positive. It’s a two-way thing. Yes, your boss has a role in motivating you and identifying solutions, but take some responsibility for that yourself.  We all prefer to work with competent and positive people, so make sure your boss views you as one too.  Ask for their feedback, as long as you are ready to cope with it.
4. Have a meeting plan. Make sure there is an agenda, or at least a list, or a clear understanding on both sides of the aim and purpose of the meeting, and items that need discussing.  No one likes surprises, and many perform better if they have a little thinking time ahead of any discussion.  It doesn’t matter whose role it is to develop the agenda, what’s important is you both have input.
5. Be honest. If you need help, are feeling overwhelmed or just can’t make a decision, tell your boss and ask.  Don’t hide important details they should know, because these are likely to be discovered at some point.  Don’t be afraid to ask for anything.  Be prepared for your boss to say no, and do not let that get in the way of you being assertive and ambitious for you and your work.  Help your boss to learn about you and understand what makes you tick.
6. Take care of business. Put a little time into your meeting.  Have a clear summary about what you are working on – including the highs and the lows.  Be one of the first to tell them about your achievements, and ensure you are the first to tell them about what went wrong – before someone else does.  It also helps to have an outline of what is coming up as well – so you can both plan.  If you are bringing a problem to the meeting, have some options for solutions prepared to support your discussions.

That way you will be a happier colleague and will achieve much more at work for you, and for them.

A version of this blog first appeared in Teach Early Years Magazine.

Three times in the past month I have had the unfortunate experience of overhearing job interviews being held in a café.  Apart from the inappropriateness of holding such a vital exchange in a public and often noisy area, I have to tell you my overwhelming judgement has been the interviewers themselves have been terrible!

It got me thinking whilst there is plenty written about how to be a good interviewee, little in contrast is offered to managers about how they should undertake an interview.  And I know not many people are aware that interviewees have a right to take a potential employer as far as an employment tribunal if they feel badly treated in an interview, citing various rights including the Equality Act (2010).

The first thing I learned from these chance encounters was everyone should find the right time and place for an interview.  A noisy and public shared space just isn’t good enough.  The single focus must be on the transaction taking place, and should not be diluted by environmental distractions or stifled by a lack of confidentiality. People perform better when they feel safe and comfortable.

Commonly interviewees are told to research the organisation they want to work for, dress appropriately and make good first impressions, but do interviewers take as much care I wonder?  Interviewers need to be equally prepared with answers to likely questions about the organisation, making sure they make a good organised and competent impression, and taking care in their presentation.  All of these factors increase the likelihood of a candidate accepting an offer if one is made.  People join organisations to work with people, not businesses (also the same reason they leave).

An interview is a two-way conversation.  In all of the interviews I have witnessed this month, the interviewer has dominated by talking as much as 80% of the time.  The opposite should be the case 20% you, 80% them.  I observed too many closed questions requiring a yes/no answer, and a lack of quality listening.

The basis of an interview is a series of questions to be answered by the candidate.  Questions need to have a single focus, be open ended, and test out values whilst offering a chance to share examples of past and relevant experience and future approach.  And the questions need to be listened to aurally and visually (body language).  Once again, I am reminding leaders and managers to prioritise listening skills.

Don’t be afraid of awkward silences.  Be interested in the candidate and encourage them to think and speak about themselves.  As a psychotherapist, I have been trained to value silences – they are thinking time for both sides.  Candidates’ brains will be working at speed in what is a high pressure environment, so silences are very helpful all round.  Breaks in conversation can offer time to think of further or sub-questions, and to process the answers already given.

The stakes are really quite high.  Team members are your biggest resource and your largest expense.  So taking time and care is a great investment.  I believe the better the interviewer, the better their recruits.

A version of this blog was first published in Teach Early Years Magazine.

I have certainly found myself in middle management positions before.  I have been ‘the boss’ for 20 years, so for a while I have avoided some of these challenges.  That said, I can often find myself occupying that difficult position of balancing the needs of a client with those of a team member.  And I have recent memories of when having my own middle management team didn’t work so well.

Whatever your position it can often feel one is caught in the middle, that space between competing agendas and needs.  It can be defined by your place in an organisation’s structure, or in a communication chain, or when you are working to two different agendas.  The nightmares commonly associated with being a middle manager are those around being caught in the in-between, and trying to keep everyone happy at all times.  This usually results in you feeling everyone is unhappy all of the time.  The trouble is the role of the middle manager is one that is frequently under-valued by those up the chain and those down it.  It can feel like a thankless task, with many pitfalls and none of the freedoms of lower tiers, nor the perceived glamour and trappings of being in charge.  It can be a lonely place being a middle manager at the staff Christmas party.

But so many of us are middle managers, and we need to value, celebrate and embrace this important role.  And not view it as a stepping stone, or less important or valuable than the top job.  Because middle management is extremely important to any organisation.  If middle management fails, it is more likely the organisation is or will in the future.  So middle managers are the secret to success and I think would benefit from greater value, and some creative and exciting reinvention.  Here are some survival tips:

1. Be a great listener. You need to listen to those above and those below you – because everyone relies upon you to share and represent their thoughts, needs and wants on their behalf.
2. You need to be a great communicator – because you are the conduit or channel of messaging up and down. You need to share information in ways adapted to different audiences, and be able to motivate action in the process.
3. You are key to change management – you need to know the processes for making change happen, and the emotional responses people have to it. Then match your actions to the stage people are at.  Sounds simple, but it isn’t.
4. Be confident enough to ‘own’ your messages and to not blame colleagues or leadership when things get tricky. Creating false enemies will only come back and bite you later.  Instead, try to support everyone to see things from their points of view.
5. Hold your boundaries – be confident in the middle, and make sure everyone appreciates that is where you are. If leadership starts to feel more like your allegiances are downward focused, or colleagues think the opposite, it could be the recipe for many problems.  Stick your flag in the middle ground, be consistent, clear, principled, and loyal to all.
6. Be able to mediate – once you have supported everyone to consider different viewpoints, use mediation and problem solving techniques to ensure everyone feels acknowledged, listened to, understood, and part of the future direction.

Sounds like a lot of hard work, but an exciting and essential role when you think about it.

A version of this blog was first published in Teach Early Years Magazine.

Recently, whilst watching a nature programme on the television, the camera focused on the leader of a troop of baboons in the African bush.  Snoozing on a branch of a tree in the heat of the midday sun, the baboon was unaware his likely successor was approaching.  The narrator observed “a leader should always sleep with one eye open”.  He implied a leadership challenge was always a strong possibility when one is ‘in charge’.  That got me thinking about a whole bunch of things.

First, leaders can feel the target of challenge from those around us constantly.  Whilst they can feel draining and unwelcome, they can be positive opportunities.  They hold us to account and keep us on our toes.  Challenges can bring in new ideas and energy – we must always be open to that.  So, to be a leader means you should be prepared to be under relentless scrutiny, surrounded by colleagues who all think they could do a better job.  A great question to ask your teams, is ‘what would you do differently?’ – which is a frequently overlooked opportunity.  Be brave and ask.  Sometimes it helps colleagues to learn decision-making, leadership, deal-making, and compromise is not as easy as they might think!  Which in itself is a learning opportunity.

Next, I thought about succession planning and feelings of fear of losing control in the workplace.  The former being an essential task of the leader, and the latter an unhelpful trait.  Leaders must be prepared to leave when the time is right for them and the organisation.  They should have one eye on who they are nurturing to replace them (and when and how), or how they attract or phase-in such a person ready for when the time comes.  They also need to prepare the team and organisation to willingly and warmly welcome such a person into the succession role.  It can be a big wrench for team members.  If this promotes feelings of a lack of control for the leader, then there are likely problems ahead.

Which links to final thoughts around the importance of personal well-being.  Quality sleep is a serious matter and occupation for leaders, it impacts directly on mental and physical health in the short- and longer-terms.  Revel in the thought your frontal cortex (responsible for executive functions such as planning for the future, judgement, decision-making skills, attention span, and inhibition) is having a break, and in the knowledge good sleep is believed to stave off a multitude of lifestyle diseases.  I used to call it ‘work-life balance’, but these days I am more focused on investing-in-self.  By that I mean anything from a long list of: self-development, lifelong learning, career evolution, personal physical health and emotional well-being, time to switch off and relax, and having a broad range of other non-work-related interests.  And just like in parenting, being a good role model is key.  As are good bedtime routines like not working, and not looking at emails, and arranging a quality sleeping environment.  Investment in sleep should be an investment in self.  Confident leaders can sleep with both eyes firmly tight shut.

A version of this blog was first published in Teach Early Years Magazine.