269: How Can Child Care Leaders Make Confident Decisions Under Pressure?

In this episode, Kate and Carrie chat about making confident decisions under pressure, something every childcare leader faces! They swap real stories (like Carrie’s wild tree-on-the-roof incident), tackle decision fatigue, and share clever tips for managing overflowing emails and communication chaos. You’ll pick up resourceful strategies for streamlining your tech tools, setting boundaries, and handling tricky moments with a little more ease. If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed running a center, this is the perfect episode for you.

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Transcript

Marie 00:00:03  Welcome to Child Care Conversations, the podcast where early childhood leaders like you get real world strategies, honest talk and a whole lot of support. Whether you're running one center or many. We're here to help you lead with confidence and clarity. This episode is brought to you by our summer partner Child Care Business Growth, your go to solution for filling spots, increasing revenue, and scaling your child care business without the burnout. We're proud to partner with a team that's as committed to your success as we are. Learn more at Childcare Business growth.com. Now let's get into today's conversation. One we think you're really going to love.

Kate 00:00:50  All right Carrie what we're going to make confident decisions today.

Carrie 00:00:55  Okay I do that all the time I'm wrong sometimes. But that's okay.

Kate 00:00:59  But I think that's valid because you've at least made them quickly. Because sometimes if you wait till you're 100% sure, you're too late. So the thing is, to make.

Carrie 00:01:10  Decisions like a toddler, they're 100% confident that they do not like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, or that they do not like that shirt, or that they love penguins and that they would like a pet penguin.

Carrie 00:01:25  They're 100% sure every time.

Kate 00:01:27  Well, how about today? We talk about making decisions under pressure. Kind of like the song Under Pressure.

Carrie 00:01:33  Okay. But I like the I like the toddler analogy. You do, you do the queen I will do. I will do toddlers.

Kate 00:01:43  All right. So, Carrie, what is the decision that maybe you waited too long for? And how did that affect you as a, as an owner or even as a director?

Carrie 00:01:54  It's possible. I waited too long to close the school where the tree fell on the roof.

Kate 00:02:01  Okay, so tell me more about that.

Carrie 00:02:04  Okay, so we had a school, and there was a thunderstorm, which we like to have here in central Texas. And one of the best parts about that program was all of these live oak trees, these huge oak trees on the property. But during this one storm, a branch that was probably like 30 or 40in in circumference fell onto the roof and our landlord would not get the roof fixed for various reasons.

Carrie 00:02:41  And we kept trying to work with the landlord and work with the landlord. and by the time we made the decision that we were going to have to close the school and then fight with the landlord to get out of the lease. We had some mold growing. Definitely up in the attic and maybe in the walls or ceiling, so we may have waited too long on that.

Kate 00:03:11  But again, that wasn't entirely your fault. Right? So. And that was probably one of those sessions where you probably had a lot of decisions. Right? There was a lot to do and perhaps even and I don't know if anybody else has ever had this happen. Decision fatigue.

Carrie 00:03:26  I think we all have decision fatigue. I think that's part of the reason why some programs go to uniforms, so that at least the first decision of the day is made for your staff, because they're going to have to make decisions all day long about, can this child do that thing or the other thing? And, you know, can they bring their blankie onto the playground? Can they eat only the blue Froot Loops? You know, there's going to be plenty of decisions throughout the day.

Carrie 00:03:55  and so sometimes, yeah, we get to that decision fatigue.

Kate 00:04:00  I know that sometimes, and I was really glad I wasn't a director when everybody and their brother had computers and sent email, because currently I think I get a couple hundred emails a day and there can be a lot of decision fatigue just sitting down to respond to email.

Carrie 00:04:18  Absolutely. And that's why being better at email than I am. There are people who are great at setting up folders and they go, okay, at 9:00 am, I'm going to look at all the email that went into this folder. And at 10:00, I'm going to look at all the email that goes into the other folder. I have a tendency to, when I open email, to want to go through all of the email, and that can take me two hours, and then I've blown through two hours of my day, and I don't feel like I've accomplished a dang thing.

Kate 00:04:51  Well. And I think and my approach with email is very much a decide, delete or delegate.

Kate 00:04:58  So, One of the very first time management workshops I ever, ever attended was when you touch a piece of paper. Deal with it right then and there. So back in the day, we got almost everything by mail. And so it was not, oh, it's going to go on a pile to be filed. It was you opened it and you filed it or you threw it away or you dealt with it. And that philosophy, that mentality that I've now had for over 30.

Carrie 00:05:34  Okay, over 30 is fine.

Kate 00:05:36  We'll go with over 30, over 30 years. Here's how I pretty much take care of email. And so I'm kind of one of those people that get really frustrated by the quantity of junk mail, even if they're emails I've subscribed to. If I don't really want to look at you right now, I delete you. Or I do file like I do have a fair amount of those resources I'll look at later. I would say probably the majority of them I don't. And so once a year I do go back through those resources and delete things I haven't looked at.

Kate 00:06:11  And over the course of the last year, if I haven't looked at you in the last year, I'm just going to delete.

Carrie 00:06:18  So, I mean, so that's one kind of decision. The what do I do with all of the email or messenger inquiries, etc.. But the whole thing is, is if you've got multiple ways that people are reaching out to you, if you've got people who are calling you, people who are emailing you, people who are reaching out through your parent communication app, and then maybe reaching out to you through social media, or.

Kate 00:06:49  Lord, be the people who do all of the above.

Carrie 00:06:52  Oh, I hate those people. The people who send me an email, send an email to support and message me through social media and leave a phone call.

Kate 00:07:02  And call me.

Carrie 00:07:03  And call Kate. And then we've got four different people trying to work on their problem, and we may have four different solutions. Oh, it drives me crazy. I get that they want an answer right now, but I'm sorry you can't have an answer right now to what is going on with, you know, the legislature.

Carrie 00:07:23  Like, that's going to take some actual delving into for me to look up what's happening in the legislature. Or I heard a rumor that this thing is going to change in regulations. Well, then I'm going to have to chase that down. And you call in Kate, who's then going to call me, and you're calling me, and you're sending me an email and you're sending me a message on social media. I'm not. It's going to take me twice as long to get that answer, because you've hit me four different ways.

Kate 00:07:53  Well, not only that. I mean, in our situation, we have staff. And so chances are in your child care center, you probably have somebody who handles your social media, you might handle your email, and then you might have somebody else who handles the phone calls. And so if you've now taken a one touchpoint question and it's now become the work of three people.

Carrie 00:08:15  Yeah. So I think that.

Kate 00:08:18  But that's not the people necessarily listening to us. This is just a little rant.

Kate 00:08:22  Sorry about y'all. But but here's.

Carrie 00:08:24  The thing is that making there be one channel for each different type of communication. So if the parents want to ask a question or tell you something about the health of their child, is your preferred method the parent communication app or is your preferred method them calling you or is your preferred message method that they email you? I don't care which method it is, but you need to pick one and communicate it to the parents.

Kate 00:08:55  But is it about what's easier for us or easier for the parents?

Carrie 00:09:00  There's some of both of those, but you need to have a preferred method for each type of communication so that it doesn't become three people's worth of work. And that's part of why we recommend that. Maybe you use an outside company for the enrollment specialist position, so that they can have all of the messages coming in through social media. All of the text messages, all of the phone calls, all of the emails, all going into one. For lack of a better term, funnel, even though it's not what we typically call a funnel, but it's all going in to one catchment basin.

Carrie 00:09:40  And then what they need you to give feedback on, they communicate to you.

Kate 00:09:45  You know what? That brings up a really great point. And I know it's not the rabbit hole we plan to go down, but I think it is something that if you're listening to this episode, that I do want you to find some folks in your local chamber of commerce, your local community, to help you with your tech stack and tech stacks should be something that you review every year because so many new applications are created. So there's always new apps. A lot of what you probably have has probably added 18 new features just in the last year. So you might be paying for 2 or 3 programs that now all do the same thing. I mean, I think about, you know, the child care industry apps where there used to be some that just handle your parent communications and some that just handle billing and some that just handled the paperwork, the paperwork. And now you've got some that do all of them and you may or may not know that.

Carrie 00:10:42  And they also might do staff scheduling and payroll.

Kate 00:10:45  And then you might also have just a good old fashioned QuickBooks. And you might have also a newsletter software. So there's a pretty good chance that you've got probably at least two pieces of software that do the same thing. So if you haven't done a tech stack, but also when you're thinking about your tech stack, think about what the example Carrie and I just shared. mine was about the quantity of email. Carrie talked about how there might be somebody who reaches out 3 or 4 different ways. We know that parents do this. Sometimes staff do it when they're sick or they're having issues. So talk to the professionals, and you may have to talk to more than one and find out if there is a a tech solution or a way that. So example like contact forms on your website and your support at emails, like all of those things can probably come into one place. I even know of an app that will take all of your digital presence and put all of those into one place.

Kate 00:11:48  How cool is that? Like, you don't have to remember. Did you see them on Facebook or was it Instagram or was it TikTok?

Carrie 00:11:55  Okay, so now Kate is talking about herself and how she communicates with me and she will send me a message on social media on one thing, and then five minutes later, send me an email, and then she will text me, and then she will come and they're on seven different things. And then we have to remember which social media platform did she message me about that, or did she send me an email or text me, or was that just me?

Kate 00:12:19  Not just me?

Carrie 00:12:21  So she's writing herself.

Kate 00:12:22  Out here.

Carrie 00:12:23  But all of that makes it hard to make a decision. Because if you've got a staff person who's reached out to you for different ways, or reached out to your team in four different ways, and you made the decision that, okay, that staff person needs to be out for three days because of what they said they have, and you've already figured out who's going to substitute for them for three days.

Carrie 00:12:48  And then they get your assistant director. And the assistant director is like, great, so I'll see you tomorrow. And then they talk to the lead teacher in the classroom, and the lead teacher in the classroom said, okay, well, with that, you're probably going to be out for a week. Now, that poor assistant doesn't know whether they should be out for one day, three days or a week.

Kate 00:13:10  Or or one of those people wrote a piece of paper down in a note and gave it to you, and now it's in a stack of piles that you're looking at. I got to get to without realizing you already dealt with it.

Carrie 00:13:20  So I think you have to make the decision about how long that person's going to be out, because the health department says this person had influenza, so they had the flu. So they have to be out for this many days and other people are making the decision. I don't know based on what they're left. But cheek says, I don't know how they're making those decisions, but you have to make the decision based on the actual facts.

Carrie 00:13:47  And in a health care decision, it is based on what the state health department says about how long that person has to be out of your program.

Kate 00:13:54  All right. So hopefully we haven't totally overwhelmed you.

Carrie 00:13:58  Okay. But we were supposed to help them make confident decisions.

Kate 00:14:01  I know I'm saying we've given you some examples.

Carrie 00:14:07  Of some problems.

Kate 00:14:08  Of some problems. So one method for a solution is for you personally. Because we're all going to handle this differently is to decide some personal filters. What are you going to make a decision. What types of things do you make decisions on immediately? What kind of things do you delegate and what kind of things you delete.

Carrie 00:14:32  That.

Kate 00:14:32  Whole.

Carrie 00:14:33  Do you need an answer right now?

Kate 00:14:35  I love that.

Carrie 00:14:37  And if they say yes, I need an answer right now. Kate, what is the answer?

Kate 00:14:41  No.

Carrie 00:14:41  Right. So if somebody is asking you a question and they're not giving you time to think about it, then your automatic answer is no.

Kate 00:14:49  You know what I just realized? And this was not you could tell I'm a little slow on the draw today.

Kate 00:14:54  This whole topic ties back into our book on don't Chase the monkey. So if and that's exactly what we're doing, right? We have all of these things that people are throwing at us that are really monkeys. There are things we have to make decisions on, which is why you and I probably are going, well, why is this a topic that people have any issues with? We have already resolved all of this, but it is. It's there. We get phone calls, we get people who stop us at conferences, who go, I always have so much to do and and they do. But if you're shuffling that same piece of paper, even if it's a digital piece of paper 27 times, instead of making a decision to either delegate, delete or do whatever, and whether that do whatever is, you're going to resolve it. And again, when's the last time? And I'm not I mean, I'm looking at Kerry, but I don't really mean Kerry. Like when you're listening. When's the last time you went through all of your emails and unsubscribed from the crap, or went in and changed and had that go to maybe a different email, maybe it now goes to your personal email, because really, that's more of a personal thing because I do that.

Kate 00:16:03  I get personal things on my work emails all the time, and I've tried, and then I get business things onto my personal thing, right? So sometimes just taking that designated time once a month to go in and clean up.

Carrie 00:16:16  That's a good use of Tiger.

Kate 00:16:17  Time, you know, go go in and clean up the unsubscribe. So in other words, yeah, you've saved those resources for a year and you realize you haven't used any of them. So instead of getting another 52 next year, you're going to unsubscribe. maybe you're going to just this week move 1 or 2 things out of your business account and into your personal or out of your personal and into your business, and start with small things. Yep.

Carrie 00:16:42  And know that you need to make decisions as quickly as you can. We call it ready, fire, aim. And we don't really mean that you don't give things serious thought, but you cannot be mulling over for four days whether you're going to hire that person. Because if you're taking four days to decide whether or not to hire them.

Kate 00:17:12  Know that.

Carrie 00:17:13  Person has gotten another job in those four.

Kate 00:17:16  Days. And there's obviously a reason why you haven't said yes.

Carrie 00:17:19  Because if you were thinking about it for four days, your gut is saying that they're not going to be a good fit. So do not spend four days obsessing about whether or not to hire that person.

Kate 00:17:29  Because we probably don't do it. I mean, let's think about this on our grocery list or on the menu. Something's either on or off the menu. Yeah.

Carrie 00:17:37  Do you need more goldfish? Yes or no? If Murray was answering the question, the answer would definitely be yes.

Kate 00:17:44  It's always.

Carrie 00:17:45  Yes. So the question is, when you're in that situation where you're having some decision paralysis, you've got two options, which is make a decision or make an appointment for when you're going to make the decision. there's a book that I love that I have to reread about once a year that's called Eat That Frog because I am a procrastinator. I'm a procrastinator, and I need the reminder that I need to deal with the pile that is currently about six inches tall, of paper that people have given me or put on my desk, including artwork.

Carrie 00:18:28  And I need to go through that. And for me, I have to set aside about an hour to deal with the pile that has developed. I don't necessarily put the stuff in the pile. Other people put the stuff in the pile for me, and dealing with a pile is not something I want to do. So I have to make an appointment with myself to deal with the pile.

Kate 00:18:51  That's a great example, because sometimes that's appointment is with yourself. And sometimes, again, depending on your role, the size of your organization, you might be listening to this and have an assistant director have an office manager. You might also have a cook or a bookkeeper, where you've got a whole team that handle administrative tasks that sometimes need you. And so if you have a bookkeeper, there's probably times you've probably set up that appointment already for days that you sign checks.

Carrie 00:19:23  And that can also be when you make a decision about, okay, it looks like the budget is not matching the actuals. We need to sit down and make some adjustments to the budget because the actuals aren't making sense, because I don't know, there's been a significant increase in costs in a kitchen staple or a substantial increase in payroll costs, or there's been a substantial reduction in enrollment in a specific age group.

Carrie 00:19:56  So you have to sit down and make a decision. And sometimes those decisions are hard and sometimes they're the wrong decision. But one of the things that I have to remind people of is very, very rarely do people die from making the wrong decision in child care that you are.

Kate 00:20:20  Trying.

Carrie 00:20:21  To decide whether you're going to expand and take on infants, and you've never taken on infants before. If you make that decision, and we're going to start taking infants because we don't have as many pre-K kids as we had. Is that a reversible decision or not?

Kate 00:20:37  Yes, that is a reversible decision.

Carrie 00:20:40  Then are you going to die if it was the wrong decision?

Kate 00:20:44  No, Carrie, I am not going to die if I make that decision.

Carrie 00:20:48  So we have to remember that a lot. Almost all of our decisions are reversible. If you fire somebody, it's hard to reverse that decision. But most other decisions are reversible if you get into it and you're two weeks into this decision and you're like, oh, I was wrong.

Carrie 00:21:07  I was really, really wrong. We should not have a giant dump truck full of sand dumped on the playground for the kids to play in.

Kate 00:21:14  Well, it's better than dumping it on the driveway, because we're going to take a wheelbarrow and take it to the back. That's. That's a worse decision. So anyway, hopefully we have helped you kind of understand the decide delegate, delete what's going to work for you, whether you're scheduling Tiger time, whether you are going to treat these as all monkeys and you're going to say, do you need an answer right now?

Carrie 00:21:41  If they say yes, then I say no.

Kate 00:21:43  And hopefully we've given you some tools. This might be an episode that you might want to go back and listen to. Take some notes, because we know a lot of you listen to our episodes while you're driving to work, so hopefully nobody took out their post-it notes at a stoplight to to write down their notes. But with that.

Carrie 00:22:02  If you learn something from this show. Share it with somebody else who needs to know, and we'll talk to you next week.

Carrie 00:22:09  And again, as I've always said, definitely tell us what you thought about this episode. We think this one was pretty good, but maybe we're wrong. Let us know. Talk to you next week.

Marie 00:22:21  Thanks for tuning in. We love bringing you real talk and fresh insight from the world of early childhood education. Be sure to follow us on social media to stay connected and catch all of the latest episodes. And if you're planning a conference, training, or special event. Kate and Cary would love to speak to your audience. You can learn more about their keynote sessions and workshops at Kate and Carrie. If you learned something today, share the show and leave us a review below. We'll see you next time on Child Care Conversations.