Now that your staff members have been hired, how do we bring them together? How do we build relationships? How do these individuals become an effective team?
You, as the leader, the director, the principal, hold the key.
I learned that of the seven most desired work skills, communication, teamwork, and interpersonal skills rank at the top. People skills.
Interesting! When I entered the workforce, it was only what you knew that mattered. People skills were never mentioned.
But what I did learn, from years of experience working with and building teams is that, if our relationships, our connections to one another, have a solid foundation; and are built on trust and a deep respect for one another; and, if we have learned the skills and strategies to achieve this, as well as the awareness to use them effectively, then everything else in our childcare program will fall into place.
It is that important.
In our early education field, being able to build effective relationships is as important as cognitive ability to predict outstanding performance. Did you read that? How you relate to people is as important as what you know—and sometimes, more important.
In my book, Beginning to End: The Life Cycle of a Child Care Center–A Director’s Story, I have detailed in great length how to develop our people skills. Everything I used, effectively and successfully for forty years, I pass on to you. As readers have written (to me), “this book is a valuable resource that I return to over and over again.”
Chapter three includes many many team-building training ideas that get to the heart of how you can create highly functioning classroom teaching teams, as well as building the broader, larger team of your organization. I have included a variety of activities and exercises—all of them eye-opening and enjoyable. In the process, everyone will learn a lot about themselves, as well as their colleagues, and together they will build their relationship/s. In these training sessions, there was generally lively discussion and many “aha!” moments of insight.
Bottom line? These strategies worked.
I was privileged to lead four different early childhood programs during my career—and my former teachers still comment about their incredibly positive experiences working with the children, teachers, and parents within the larger community that we all created and loved. Together, we built an effective team! Many, many of my teachers moved on to become directors of their own programs—and use these same team-building strategies. And so, it continues.
My best to you as you develop your people skills. Learn to communicate effectively, manage conflict positively, work with others productively, find solutions or reach agreement, motivate, and inspire. And then, pass all of this on to your colleagues.
For more tips, techniques, and how-tos that worked for me, take a look at Beginning to End: The Life Cycle of a Child Care Center—A Director’s Story, at amazon.com books.
