Having an amazing culture within your school is foundationally the most important thing that drives the success of your program. In order to create an amazing culture, as a leader, you need to take time to craft a set of core values for your school and incorporate them into everything that you do – from your leadership style to how you hire, train, and even fire employees.
Creating a set of core values that you and your leadership team live out will pave the way for how you except the rest of your team to perform, and based on who follows your example or not, you will quickly discover who your A players are versus your D players.
In the video below I provide my insights on why the culture of your school is one of your most valuable assets and share tips provided by Ann Rhoades, “The Queen of Culture,” on how you can get started creating or updating a set of core values with your team.
Here Are the Key Takeaways From This Video:
- If you’re a B2B or B2C business, the people who represent your brand are the people that make or break your business. This means that your teachers and staff are responsible for making or breaking your parent experience, your child experience, and your team experience that they have working for you.
- If your school does not have a set of values defined yet or needs they need some refreshing, get started by grouping together, “the right people in the room.” Invite anyone within your organization that you believe is an A-player to help craft your values, regardless of their seniority or position. Your A-players are the ones that you want everyone else to model after and follow in their lead, so they should be a part of the conversation and share their insights on what values they believe they are already living out within your school.
- In order to have a culture of excellence, your team should only consist of A and B-players. Once you have a culture of excellence instilled in your school, your C, D, and F players will start to realize that they do not align with your values and will self select themselves to leave.
- According to Ann Rhoades, a company should have no more than between 5-7 values, but she prefers three, which is how many she helped craft for Southwest Airlines.
- Ann Rhoades, author of Built on Values, presented at the Child Care Success Summit 2018 in Dallas and is featured on Child Care Rockstar Radio Episode 36.
