In this first episode of the Early Bloom Podcast, we welcome Lucy Lewin, founder of the Profitable Nursery Academy, part of the NCFE technical advisory board, a PACEY trustee, owner of the Little Angels Uppingham Nursery, and Co-founder of Good Food Academy. In this interview, Lucy opens up about her philosophy on the five pillars for running a successful nursery. She shares her secret formula for transitioning from struggling to pay her staff, to running a successful (and profitable) nursery.
We discuss her journey to becoming a successful nursery owner. In this interview, Lucy opens up about her philosophy on the five pillars for running a successful nursery, and she shares her secret formula for transitioning from struggling to pay her staff to running a successfully profitable nursery.
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0:04
Hello, I’m Priscilla, the host of the Early Bloom podcast.
0:07
Today we have a special guest, Lucy Lewin from the Profitable Nursery Academy.
0:12
Today we’re really excited to be talking about how to run a successful nursery, especially when it comes to staff retention and profitability.
0:20
Lucy, how are you?
0:21
And thank you for being here.
0:22
Hi, Priscilla, It’s great to be here.
0:24
Thank you for inviting me.
0:25
Yeah.
0:25
So I would like to know a bit more about how you got started with the Profitable Nursery Academy.
0:31
Yeah, it’s it’s a great story, one that actually starts with me owning my own 85 place day nursery, founded almost a decade and a half ago.
0:42
2018 arrived and I couldn’t pay my staff and it really destroyed me.
0:49
I felt that I had one job and that was to pay the team and I’d let them down.
0:55
So I decided to do whatever it took to become the person I needed to be, to have the business that was proud and profitable.
1:06
So I went on my own journey of expiration.
1:09
I remember printing off a CEO job description and between us, I had to Google every word because I had no idea what any of it meant.
1:17
My first performance review with me was interesting.
1:19
Almost got the sack.
1:22
Decided that I couldn’t do this on my own.
1:24
So I got a coach.
1:25
I got somebody that I could really learn to trust and grow with.
1:30
That’s when my journey started.
1:33
So when COVID hit in 2020, my business had already recovered.
1:39
OK, So we’d already been through a catastrophe ourselves.
1:44
So I found myself available, I think is the right word for other owners and managers and leaders.
1:51
And I was helping people and offering support, I think because I’d got the capacity to do it, you know it, It felt nice.
2:00
And I’ve always been a huge advocate for following your dreams and that kind of finding something that you love.
2:08
And this just felt really natural.
2:10
I’d trained as a live coach back in 2014.
2:12
I’d been doing training and support.
2:15
And I kind of had one of those, like, blinding flash of the obvious moments where I thought my journey could actually help other people.
2:22
You know what I’ve gone through myself.
2:25
There are some really good lessons in this.
2:27
And others might be able to relate and are going through a similar experience that you are at that time.
2:32
Yeah.
2:33
And it was about bringing together that.
2:36
And I just thought if I could help one other nursery owner or manager save themselves from what I went through right then that would be really powerful.
2:47
So I decided to think, right, what did I do?
2:49
Where did I start?
2:50
What have I done?
2:51
What have I created?
2:53
And started to kind of talk to other people about that.
2:56
And I had a really good response and people were genuinely relating to my journey, to my experiences.
3:05
So that was kind of where it came from, this desire to save maybe is the right word or support others to become more confident, to understand the business of business and actually see how incredible it can be when we merge our head and our hearts, I think.
3:25
And at this point, did you have one setting or did you, did you already have a couple of settings?
3:31
So we’ve got one.
3:32
It’s it is a large setting, but I had already started to not be based in the nursery.
3:39
So part of my own journey in 2019 was how do I take my heart out of my business yet leave my heart in my business, if that makes sense.
3:51
Yeah.
3:51
Yeah.
3:51
You know, how can I be there without being there?
3:53
How does everything that I have cried over and sweated everything that you built and still have that involvement?
4:00
Yeah, I can tell you the short answer.
4:02
Operations manual, OK, like writing down what’s expected, what people need to know.
4:09
If you want to know what I think, how I want you to do it, what I believe, there’s a chapter in the 120 page operations manual that will tell you how to do that.
4:18
Wow.
4:19
And So what would you say was one of the biggest challenges that you face when trying to start the profitable Nursery Academy?
4:27
I think a little bit of imposter syndrome, a little bit of how could my story really be useful to anybody else?
4:38
And a lot of the challenge was, who do I tell?
4:41
Where do I start?
4:42
You know, this had been a very long journey for me.
4:45
And I can kind of what I didn’t want to do is throw on an already exhausted workforce, lots more work to do because, you know, we need less to do, not more.
4:57
But at the same time, I knew first hand that everything that I was going to ask them to do was invaluable.
5:03
So it was about identifying where do we start and how do you identify where to start when everybody’s starting at a different place, when everyone’s in a different place and facing different challenges within their nursery settings.
5:15
So what would you say would be some of the areas that you’ve noticed nurseries need the most help in?
5:22
Would you say it has to do with retaining staff?
5:25
Would it be, you know, helping them with their profitability and finances?
5:30
What are what are some of the biggest challenges you see?
5:32
I think the answer is yes, Priscilla to all of those.
5:35
Yeah.
5:35
What I was able to identify are kind of five key areas.
5:40
OK, so there’s a 5 pillars.
5:42
Ohh, there they are.
5:45
Give us, give us the inside scoop.
5:47
So the first one is planning and that’s back to the operations manual.
5:50
OK, so some people need to start there.
5:53
Some people need to put, dare I say it, systems and processes into their nursery.
5:59
This is my first slice of humble pie.
6:01
Imagine the five pillars as the biggest piece of humble pie cake I ever had to eat.
6:05
OK, for nine years I truly believed that systems and processes belonged in factories and if I wanted to have a truly child centred nursery, then I needed to avoid systems and processes.
6:19
How can you have rigidity in a child centred nursery?
6:24
Yeah, I was wrong.
6:25
OK, I was wrong.
6:27
Systems and processes give people space to think, creativity, to bring their whole selves to work and also improve well-being.
6:37
Because all of a sudden you’re not all trying to do the same thing.
6:40
Yeah, you can all work towards a goal within your own strengths, within your own capacity.
6:47
And actually it really makes for stronger teams.
6:51
The second one for me was about kind of planning and preparing.
6:56
So no one plans to fail, right?
6:58
They just fail to plan.
6:59
And again, I wanted this environment where the child’s at the centre and everything evolves from the child.
7:08
And as much as I knew we had to plan, I wanted to make sure that it didn’t feel planned.
7:15
So how do you do that?
7:17
It’s about what you plan for, OK.
7:20
It’s about having a focus on important things that matter.
7:24
So have it having habits, you know, we know that daily habits consistently lead to great outcomes.
7:31
Well, let’s apply that mindset to nursery management to effective and efficient ways to operate what you’re doing.
7:40
Then the other one was profit.
7:41
I think that’s a big one.
7:44
That’s a big one.
7:45
Oftentimes of settings, you hear so many, like especially back during COVID, so many setting for closing down and it was just hard to retain the staff.
7:53
And as you were saying, you one of the challenges that you faced was not being able to pay your staff.
7:59
And I’m sure that was really hard and difficult for you to face because also I’m sure your staff feel like family, right?
8:07
And it’s, you know, oftentimes, you know, I think people forget that nursery settings tend to be a child’s second home, second family.
8:15
So letting go of your staff, it’s almost like feeling like you’re letting go a piece of you, a piece of your family percent.
8:21
Yeah.
8:21
I think the first thing I will say, and the lesson I learned the hardest is profit isn’t a profanity.
8:28
And what I mean by that is quite often in early years circles, we sometimes believe that profit is this gluttonous thing that we shouldn’t strive for.
8:38
You know, we see it as I’m doing this for the children.
8:42
What we don’t realise is in profit comes the capacity to do more for the children.
8:48
Exactly.
8:49
And invest in other areas, like you were saying, more creativity and programmes.
8:53
And yeah, it’s essential to a business, you know, if you are not making a profit in your business, and I’m going to say something even more controversial if you’re not paying yourself.
9:02
Oh, Lucy, I know, right?
9:04
It is #1 but now, again, so many owners and managers don’t pay themselves, and you need to create a business model that does pay you.
9:15
Because that’s not a bad thing, you know?
9:18
That is essential.
9:19
Because if you’ve got money to live to look after yourself, then you’ll be surprised how that then carbon copies itself down and all of a sudden everybody does.
9:31
The other thing around the profitability is knowing your numbers.
9:36
I have this thing where I talk about pie in the sky pricing.
9:40
I’m guilty of it.
9:41
Everything I talk about, I talk about because I was guilty of doing it.
9:44
What do I mean by that?
9:46
Do you know how for eight years I worked out what my daily rate was?
9:50
I looked at the nurseries in my local area and I thought they’ve got nice brand new equipment and really nice garden.
9:57
So I’m not quite as good as them or I’m a little bit better than them.
10:03
So I’m going to pitch myself at the price between the, you know, the middle of what that in between like, yeah, irrespective of what it was actually costing me to do it.
10:14
I didn’t know.
10:14
I didn’t have any idea really.
10:16
I do, you know what Priscilla?
10:18
And again, not the mindset to have, right?
10:20
No, because I didn’t go into nursery ownership to be a businesswoman.
10:24
I didn’t go.
10:25
You don’t realise that that’s what comes with.
10:27
Yeah.
10:27
Running a setting.
10:28
Yeah.
10:28
I went into the admin side of it, the the business side not Yeah.
10:33
I wanted to improve the lives of children.
10:35
I wanted to set solid foundations for future generations to thrive.
10:40
I didn’t want to balance a balance sheet or boring stuff.
10:45
The boring stuff, right?
10:46
Divorced an accountant.
10:47
You know, it was, it was, you know, I didn’t want any of that.
10:53
But I think what I didn’t understand was if I truly want all of those things for the children, the thing I have to do is set the solid foundations as the owner.
11:05
And solid foundations don’t come from burying my head in the sand because I don’t want to know about my numbers.
11:10
Solid foundations come from facing what I need to face, doing what I need to do, and doing some of the jobs that need to be done.
11:20
Not like being done.
11:23
I set to.
11:24
It was terrifying.
11:26
Absolute.
11:27
I’m not silly.
11:27
I’m trained as an accountant many, many years ago, right?
11:31
I’ve got a certificate to tell everybody that I’m a member of the Association of Accounting Technicians.
11:37
Could I balance my books?
11:39
No, because it wasn’t charging enough.
11:42
The reality was when I sat down and I looked at my costs, my overheads, you know, all of my fixed costs, then my running costs, I was under charging by £30 a day.
11:56
Wow, you don’t need to hurry.
11:58
Yeah, do the maths.
11:59
85 place nursery under charging per child, £30 a day per child you’re losing.
12:08
That’s got lots of noughts on it I think.
12:10
Yeah, crazy.
12:12
So that was one of my harshest lessons I think in this though comes a lot around value.
12:20
OK we have to make sure that our services are valuable to the people that are using them now in early years.
12:30
It’s multifaceted, isn’t it?
12:32
We’ve got the people that we are, our primary service users, the children, their needs are probably quite different to our fee payers, the parents.
12:44
We’ve then got our regulators, Ofsted, who probably have slightly different requirements of us.
12:50
We have our local authorities who sometimes and especially going forward with the changes to funding, are going to be funding large.
12:57
Yeah.
12:57
They’re large customers of ours, but we’re also service providers to them.
13:03
So it’s so multidimensional that all of these things we have to know about, OK.
13:09
And I, I see my numbers now as a tool to ensure that I am running an effective and efficient business.
13:19
If I can set the standards, if I can understand those things, don’t like doing it, hands up, you know, I will find a million other things to do than my month end report.
13:29
But I know that once it’s done, what gets measured gets you can improve, OK, you can manage it then I can see what I’m doing now every single moment of every single day.
13:41
And I know where I can spend time or energy or even money, you know, And I think it gives you now that freedom to then expand into other areas of the business once you tackle and take care of this side, the financial aspect of running a setting that makes sense.
13:58
Priscilla.
13:58
It, when I sat there and I started to add up the pennies, you know, I and I didn’t really simply, you know, I just use a numerical budgeting code.
14:09
If it’s the waste, it’s waste.
14:12
If it’s consumable, you know, it’s a really simple system, but it’s so effective and it allowed.
14:19
I remember having my first strategy and planning meeting that’s so important.
14:24
It was me and Kelsey and Shelley in a coffee shop.
14:28
But at the time, Shelley was our cook, and she actually said, can I ask you a question?
14:34
Why does the waste management number fluctuate?
14:37
You know, why don’t we pay a fixed amount each month?
14:41
And I said, well, the contract that we’re in, we’re charged per the weight of the bin when it’s emptied.
14:47
She was like, oh, so the heavier the bin, the more it costs.
14:50
I was like, yeah, that’s how it works.
14:53
Do you know it took her three months.
14:55
She halved the cost of the waste that we were paying to the company to take away our bin.
15:00
Wow.
15:01
I don’t know where she put it.
15:03
I’m sorry.
15:03
How did this?
15:04
Yeah.
15:05
How did she manage to do that?
15:06
I think she just got a bit savvier about what became waste.
15:10
What could we reuse?
15:12
So, for example, I’ve got my whole approach to nursery life.
15:16
It’s called the cardboard box approach.
15:18
OK, we talk about when you give a child a cardboard box, they’re only then limited by their own own imagination and time.
15:25
OK, that cardboard box can be an ice cream van, a shop, a spaceship, it can be anything, can’t it?
15:31
So I think what she started to do was buy better.
15:35
So look for things where there was less waste, if we could, if it came in a cardboard box or some packaging that we could reuse.
15:42
Reuse the sustainability part of.
15:44
OK, that’s true.
15:46
We’ve always do.
15:47
You know, one of the things I’m most proud of actually in my nursery is we’ve never put a disposable nappy into landfill.
15:54
So in, you know, in the 14 years that we’ve been trading, we utilised an organisation that actually makes it into waste, sorry, into energy, makes the waste into energy.
16:04
So I think that’s quite a huge thing from that environmental aspect for us that’s been really important because, you know, like we say, sustainability and we’re making a difference.
16:13
So but yeah, it was just, I never would have been able to come up with whatever it is that magic that she did in my waste.
16:22
So one of my other, I’d never think even the smallest parts of, you know, making a difference in your nursery, like the waist that I’m sure so many anyone listening to this now might actually rethink like, oh, we could start somewhere like our waist.
16:36
Yeah.
16:37
You know what I like even things like.
16:39
I remember it now She was using the team were using tin cans as pencil holders.
16:48
Yeah, it was so incredible.
16:50
It links Lovely into our curriculum intent around teaching children to be kind of globally and environmentally sustainable and conscious citizens.
17:00
Yeah, so it did link Lovely into that as well.
17:02
Nice.
17:03
Just starting them young.
17:04
Exactly.
17:06
But that would never have come from me, you know, hands up.
17:09
I would never have done what the team did with that, but the team wouldn’t ever have been able to get there if we’re we haven’t started.
17:19
What I’m trying to say is what started with how can I save money?
17:22
How can I reduce my costs?
17:24
Lead to look at this fantastic wider learning around kind of global and environmental sustainability around sharing great ideas.
17:35
The team’s morale was through the roof because they were using their creativity.
17:41
I’m happy because I’m not spending so much on, you know, waste it.
17:45
You know, the children were loving it because they were building these, like, amazing creations and a bit of STEM and oh, it was everybody was happy.
17:54
The parents were happy because the children.
17:56
Do you get what I’m saying?
17:57
It was the one for everyone.
17:59
Yeah.
18:00
It started with how do I reduce my costs?
18:04
Wow, Amazing.
18:05
Yeah.
18:06
Back to the pillars.
18:07
So the one after that is people.
18:11
OK.
18:11
I think what one of our biggest assets that was assets that we have in the nursery is our people OK.
18:19
Without them, we have nothing.
18:22
Unlike other industries or businesses, we rely on our teams to keep the children safe, to teach them and to care for them and that is a huge responsibility.
18:37
And retaining the right people right now is a hot topic in our years, very much something I’ve noticed as a social media manager for nursery management software will blossom.
18:53
Often times I want to go down to nursery settings to film a bit of content and I find it so hard to to make my way down there only because they always are understaffed.
19:03
And So what advice do you have for nursery settings to help retain their staff and having your own nursery setting, how do you also help your staff when it comes to their own professional development?
19:16
So for me, having a talent strategy has really helped me ensure that I’ve got that long term vision for what I want, need and expect from my people within my organisation.
19:31
Now that does mean that I have to pay the long game, OK.
19:35
So I appreciate that if you’ve got a hole in your rota on Monday morning, me sitting here saying you need a long term vision for you, it doesn’t really help.
19:45
OK, so stay with me.
19:47
There is method in my madness.
19:50
Retaining good stuff right now is really difficult because there are lots of jobs available.
19:57
So that means if you are an educator right now.
20:02
The ball’s in your court, you know, you have technically and arguably all of the power because there is lots of jobs available.
20:09
So you don’t long, you don’t any longer.
20:14
You no longer have to stay somewhere that you’re not happy, right?
20:19
So for me, what’s been really important is really understanding my team, understanding what’s important to them, but also having a vision for my nursery.
20:30
So my team are the custodians of our vision, OK?
20:34
They take my vision of being the flexible childcare solution for busy families and they make it happen.
20:41
They make it happen through our values of being fun, flexible and full of love.
20:46
They know that everything that they’re doing on a daily basis has a purpose.
20:53
We know from looking at data that the landscape has changed definitely since the pandemic.
20:59
People out there in the workforce now want to work for organisations whose purpose driven who.
21:05
They want to be part of something that’s bigger than themselves.
21:08
They want to make a difference.
21:10
That’s so true.
21:11
Yeah.
21:11
They want the company’s values to align with their own.
21:15
And.
21:15
And this mindset also applies to so many sectors.
21:18
I mean, people just want to feel that they have purpose.
21:20
Yeah.
21:21
Yeah, especially in what they do day-to-day.
21:24
Tell me you are the architect of the future generations brain.
21:29
You get to sit with the next leaders and creators and inventors of the world.
21:37
That’s true.
21:38
Play a part in their fundamental foundations.
21:41
90% of brain development happens in the early years whilst the children are in our care.
21:47
We are literally creating brains.
21:50
Yeah, You are shaping.
21:53
You know, I once heard a really great phrase where it said brains are built, not born.
21:57
And I just think, whereas if you are looking for a career that is purposeful, impactful and huge, then why would you not want to work in early, early years?
22:10
It is.
22:10
And that’s powerful.
22:12
I never really thought about it that way.
22:14
That’s true because you’re shaping the the future generations to come and that’s huge.
22:18
Yeah.
22:18
And that’s exciting, OK.
22:21
So for me, it’s about understanding that these people, that we’ve got our talent, OK, is incredible humans, OK?
22:31
They are dedicating their lives to understanding and developing the next generation.
22:38
And if that’s not purposeful, then I don’t know what it is.
22:43
So understanding that that’s who our people are, but also understanding that everybody’s got strengths.
22:49
Some people are naturally gifted in in areas that others aren’t.
22:53
And for me, it’s about understanding individual strengths and allowing them to work to those strengths rather than working against what is natural and innate.
23:05
So, Lucy, something that I’ve come across often when I’m in these Facebook nursery groups is that oftentimes nursery practitioners want to leave their job because they feel underpaid.
23:22
They feel that they’re working in a toxic nursery setting environment and they’re looking to transition out of of their job.
23:32
What advice do you have for them?
23:34
And perhaps it’s time that we change the narrative.
23:38
Yeah, 100%.
23:39
So you’ve said it there.
23:41
I think as leaders and managers, we’ve got to become the agents of change, OK?
23:46
We, I love that, the agents of change.
23:52
We have to love ourselves first, OK?
23:55
We do that by changing the narrative.
23:58
Yes.
23:59
You know, we can sell or talk about through the lens of underfunding, underpaid, overworked, emotional toil and all of those things.
24:11
But here’s a thing.
24:13
Think back to what I said a minute ago about this is a sector where we’re we’re shaping future generations brains.
24:20
We are working at the foundational level of leaders, creators and inventors of the future.
24:28
This is a fantastic opportunity and I really believe it is a privilege to work with these children.
24:36
What I would say to those educators who maybe are feeling undervalued is to do a little bit of self reflection, OK, maybe the environment that they’re in isn’t right for them.
24:51
Think back again to what I said about when people work in their innate strengths.
24:56
Just because a nursery isn’t right for you doesn’t mean the early years isn’t right for you.
25:02
OK?
25:03
My nursery has always been you’re either going to come and you’re going to love me or you’re not.
25:09
And that’s OK.
25:10
You know, I don’t set out to be all things to all people.
25:13
I set out to be authentic, authentically me.
25:17
OK, if that fits with what you’re looking for, great.
25:20
If it doesn’t, that’s OK.
25:22
So I will say to educators, really think, do some self reflection on why you want to work in early years.
25:31
And I promise you, there are businesses out there.
25:34
There are nurseries out there that are looking for you too.
25:37
This is that mix and match situation, isn’t it?
25:40
It’s about looking for where you find, if you are an educator looking for the ideal nursery, think about what you want to know, what is their mission, what do they value, what is important to them and find the ones that fit.
25:58
Yeah.
25:59
And I think you said, you mentioned something earlier when we were talking about retaining staff.
26:03
I think it’s important to work in a in a nursery setting where their goals and your goals align 100%.
26:11
I think I do an activity quite often with people and it’s called my dominant hand exercise.
26:18
OK, It’s where I would say to you, take a pen and a note piece paper, sorry, and write down a sentence.
26:25
May be right.
26:25
I think Lucy’s amazing, OK, And I get people chuckle like, oh, do you want me to write this?
26:30
I’m like, no, actually just just with your dominant hand.
26:32
Play with me here and they write it.
26:35
OK then I say simply swap hands now with your non dominant hand.
26:41
Write the same thing.
26:43
And what changes straight away is all of a sudden it’s not as easy and as comfortable to write with your non dominant hand unless you’re ambidextrous.
26:53
And kudos to those people in the world.
26:55
You missed the point of the practise point of this.
26:57
But anyway, but what is really powerful in that exercise, and I urge you after our podcast today to just to give it a go because what that shows is what it’s like to work in your strengths.
27:10
When you’re using your dominant hand, it’s easy, it’s light, it’s simple, you can do something else.
27:16
If you’re using your non dominant hand, it’s more difficult.
27:20
There is more cognitive, cognitive need or you have to think harder about it.
27:26
It’s draining.
27:27
Yeah.
27:27
That’s what it’s like to work outside of your strengths.
27:30
It’s not impossible.
27:31
Like swimming against the current.
27:32
Almost 100%.
27:34
Yeah.
27:34
So find the place or the people.
27:38
I would also say one of the things that has transformed nursery culture for me is real, genuinely honest, candid feedback.
27:50
OK.
27:50
And what I mean by that is not being nice.
27:54
Now I’m not saying go around, be horrible.
27:55
It’s the polar opposite of what I’m saying.
27:57
I have a mantra and I explain this to my team from the get go.
28:01
And that is everything that I do comes from a place of kindness and love.
28:05
I genuinely want humans to reach their full potential now, whether they’re humans and nappies or or grown up humans.
28:12
OK, for me it is.
28:14
You’re all human development now.
28:17
For me to get the very best out of you, sometimes I need to probably say things that are going to come across as a little bit not nice.
28:25
Yeah, truthful.
28:26
But remember, I do it because I care.
28:28
I care personally enough about your development to challenge you directly.
28:34
It’s not easy for me.
28:35
You have to rumble a little bit with that sense of that feeling of uncomfortableness to feel brave.
28:42
I changed the narrative again.
28:44
We used to call them difficult conversations.
28:47
OK, So that difficult conversation with a parent or a difficult conversation with a colleague or even a difficult conversation with a child.
28:53
And I thought, no, wrong mindset.
28:55
Again, these conversations, yeah, OK, difficult they are.
29:00
But you know what?
29:00
I believe they are courageous.
29:03
I believe if you think I’ve got to go and have a courageous conversation right now, all of a sudden that’s empowering.
29:10
That’s I’ve got this, OK, same conversation, same words, very different place where you start from.
29:19
Yeah.
29:19
Which means the land, shifting it, the language so it doesn’t feel so negative like something yeah.
29:26
And so difficult to have versus something that’s going to.
29:29
Yeah, empower you to, to running away from those conversations destroys culture.
29:35
OK.
29:35
So, you know, you mentioned toxic environments.
29:38
I would say in a toxic environment, you’ve got a combination of people that are nice, so wouldn’t ever challenge the status quo because they’re nice.
29:44
They think that being nice is how you behave, which it is, but not to the point.
29:51
Yeah.
29:51
Yeah.
29:52
No, I understand.
29:52
Yeah.
29:53
In this context with.
29:54
Yeah.
29:54
Mixed with lots of maybe some people who are the opposite of that, where they are obnoxious, they’re aggressive, they’re to the .0.
30:03
Can I give you some feedback?
30:04
That was rubbish.
30:05
Oh, can I can I give you because I hate that.
30:07
By the way, can I give you some feedback?
30:08
Blah, blah, blah.
30:10
It already feels negative.
30:12
Yeah.
30:12
Ask the question.
30:13
Hey, can Ioffer you some feedback?
30:15
Now if they say no, you say OK, that’s great.
30:17
I’d really value some time.
30:18
Can we make some time tomorrow or later or whatever contract first set the intention.
30:24
Also remember that all of my team know everything I say comes from a place of kindness and love.
30:28
That’s from day one.
30:29
I mean, you’ve said that that tone already from the beginning.
30:32
So and I don’t Well, we as a team don’t say it to pick fault.
30:39
We say it because I truly believe if you walk past something that’s below standard and you let it happen, you’ve just created a new standard.
30:46
And actually children deserve the very best of us.
30:51
They deserve us to show up at the very best.
30:55
Now sometimes we get off course, sometimes we we go down a different direction without realising it.
31:03
And that’s what feedback does.
31:05
I see feedback.
31:06
Here’s a metaphor for you.
31:07
Stay with me.
31:09
Bowling 10 pin, bowling your goal or where you want to be or the perfect outcome are the 10 pins at the end.
31:17
What feedback is, is if you’ve ever gone bowling with children and you pop those sides up, OK, without them, you’re going to fall down there with feedback.
31:26
They’re going to keep you heading down towards your goal.
31:30
And if you see it like that, if you see it as professional challenge, The other thing I think within people is professional dialogue, professional dialogue, professional discussion.
31:42
And having a psychologically safe culture where you can fail but fail, knowing that it’s a stepping stone, it’s a learning that’s going to move you towards something even better is really important.
31:55
You know, we celebrate failure within my organisation more than we celebrate success because we know that in that moment you’re growing, you’re growing, we’re growing and failure happens.
32:10
And it’s when you see it as a lesson to learn.
32:14
Complaints are the best tool for improvement.
32:18
You want to know how good you are?
32:20
Ask people.
32:21
But don’t just ask them when you know you’re on top of your game.
32:25
You know, don’t come down the stairs all dressed up for a night out and say, hey, how do I look?
32:29
Start early.
32:30
Yeah, how?
32:31
Ask people when you are in the depths of something deep because that’s when you’re going to get true answers.
32:38
And that does lead quite nicely into the the fifth pillar, which is professional development.
32:42
Professional development, in my opinion, isn’t something that is saved for the good days, OK.
32:49
When everybody, you know, when time and money is of abundance, that’s when we develop.
32:55
No, that’s wrong.
32:56
No good athlete, for example, wins the Olympics and then gets a coach, OK?
33:04
Professional development needs to be integral, even in the darkest days.
33:09
In fact, when the chips are down, professional development is your vehicle to move you away from there.
33:18
Now, I know that in a sector at the moment where we are cash and time, poor me sitting here saying, yeah, yeah, what you need now is go spend some time and money on training.
33:32
You know, most leaders, the managers go absolutely not, haven’t got the time.
33:36
Well, here’s the thing.
33:37
Rather than taking your team out of the day-to-day to put them on a manufactured artificial course, why don’t you take the learning to the classroom?
33:50
Why don’t you make the day as much about their development as it is about the children’s development?
33:59
Bring professional development through the lens of professional discussion, reflection, bringing in experts.
34:09
Do it in the moment.
34:11
Develop your team as a as naturally as you present.
34:15
Snack to the children.
34:17
Yeah, if we again change our perception on what we’re doing in a day, we don’t have to find more time.
34:26
You know, you’ve already got a captive audience of 10 hours a day.
34:30
More than that in some settings where you’ve also got all of the, the, the children that you need to practise to see if this teaching method works.
34:39
Why I find it so fascinating that in early years, most of our training or learning and development happens in, you know, village halls or conference centres where we then go, OK, we’re going to role play now and everybody goes, Oh no, I can’t do that.
34:56
Well, here’s the thing.
34:58
Here’s an environment where you’re not role-playing, you know, video, you’re practising.
35:02
You can actually put it to the test here.
35:04
And this is where you’re spending the most amount of hours.
35:06
So it’s real, it’s relevant, it’s timely, it’s cost effective, you’re not doing anything.
35:12
And share it with the children, you know, say to the children, Lucy’s learning today.
35:17
I need to practise telling you a good story.
35:21
Should we see if I’m any good at it, you know, and, you know, then what did you think?
35:26
Children?
35:26
Do I get a thumbs up or, you know, there is no more greater critic?
35:32
Yeah, that’s what I was going to say.
35:33
Children are the most honest.
35:35
They will tell you that.
35:36
They will give you honest.
35:38
That is a bit of a boring story.
35:40
OK How can I prove it then?
35:43
But, you know, why?
35:44
Why not?
35:45
Why not give that a go?
35:46
You know I would say though the key to all of this links back to strategy.
35:54
OK, pick out what you want to work on 1st.
35:59
I will always say brain dump it or mind map it.
36:01
Get a big piece of paper and you know big colourful pens.
36:05
Write down everything and this is from unqualified through to apprentices, write the way through to owners, leaders and managers.
36:14
Sit down and really get everything out of your mind what it is that you want to be achieve.
36:21
Do your firefighting list.
36:23
What’s stopping you?
36:24
What’s getting in the way?
36:26
Because in all of that colourful madness is the very early beginnings of a great plan.
36:34
I also have in my organisation Rd maps for every single member of my team.
36:40
Everybody’s got a career development pathway.
36:43
Some of those paths lead those people out of my organisation.
36:47
OK, so some of them want to become teachers, some of them want to become social workers.
36:54
By having a path even that it leads out of my organisation means that today when they show up, I get the very best of them because they 100%, yeah, they know that they’re on their own pathway, but for today, that’s for tomorrow, but I get the best of them today.
37:13
So rather than seeing professional development and career pathways that go outside of your company as a negative, see them as a really, because you’re getting the best of them now.
37:23
Yeah, yeah.
37:24
You know, and I think it’s Richard Branson famously said, treat people, train people well enough so they can leave, treat them well enough so that they stay.
37:33
And that’s kind of been really core of all the kind of talent, people and professional development strategies that I’ve always had.
37:41
I want you to be on your journey and I want to play that really small part so that you can be the very best that you can be if you choose to go on to other things beyond me.
37:54
Thank you for being a part of our story and come back anytime.
37:59
And I think, you know, testament to that is the amount of people that I’m still connected with who have been part of our journey over the last 1415 years.
38:11
And it is really lovely and heart warming to think that, you know, some of these people have gone on to done some incredible things in early years or at least in education.
38:20
And I’m so proud of them, and I wish them all genuinely well because for me, having that strength in where they’re going, like you said, it brings them to be their very best today.
38:35
And actually, selfishly, today is where I want them.
38:40
Yeah, Exactly.
38:41
Is that like, win, win, isn’t it?
38:43
Yeah.
38:43
They’re happy because they’re on a journey.
38:45
I’m happy because I get a really good version of them.
38:47
Yeah.
38:48
I think that’s some really good advice.
38:50
Yeah.
38:50
Really, really great advice.
38:52
Lucy, Thank you so much for coming today.
38:55
It’s been really a pleasure to have this conversation with you.
38:59
So if someone wants to get in touch with you, what would be the best way?
39:03
Yes, I am on LinkedIn.
39:04
You can find me there, Lucy Lewin, or you can visit theprofitablenurseryacademy.com and take a look at some of the things that we’ve got there.
39:11
Amazing.
39:11
Well, thank you again.
39:12
Thank you.
