Hello, everyone. Good morning. Good afternoon. Excited to, get started today here in just a moment. Very excited to have Beth Cannon joining us, and today’s topic will be Anchored in Accountability, How ECE Leaders Move from Constant Reminders to Consistent Results. As we get started, I just want to welcome everyone. We know there’s still some people joining, getting settled in, and appreciate you taking the time out of your day to join us and talk about this subject. Just a few notes as we get started with ProCare Solutions. My name is Zach Merritt, and I’ll be your host. Getting ready to turn things over here to Beth in just a moment. But we want to welcome you and make sure that you’re familiar with how our webinars work. This might be the first time you’re joining us. And in any case, we wanna call out a couple things so that you have them for your attention. One is you’ll see a code there on your screen, a QR code to help us improve our webinars and provide, the best that we can. 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So, just for being an attendee today, you are automatically entered to win. Again, we will draw twenty five winners at random, and we will let you know within the coming days, if you were a winner or So very excited to see that. Alright, everyone. I’m sure that you are thrilled with all of this information, but it’s gonna get even better from here because I’m gonna go ahead and turn things over to our guest today, Beth Cannon. And Beth Thank you. Is an industry business leadership strategist and author, although you are probably familiar with her already. But I will turn things over to you, Beth. Go ahead. Take it away. Thanks, Zach. I’m happy to be here. And one of my favorite things about webinars is to see where you guys are from in the chat. I absolutely love that. But what I wanna know is if we have met in real life. Like, I seen have we seen each other in real life? I always think that’s fascinating to see how people, come back and forth from the virtual world to the real world. So just an honor that you guys would take time out of your day to be here. So drop in the chat if we know each other. See a lot of you guys are here from Head Starts today. Love the work that Head Start does. And I’ve been in lots of Head Starts in the last few years. So very exciting to see where all you guys are coming from. So thanks for being here. Now, if you have been involved in any of my trainings before, you know that I love for you to take notes. I love for there to be takeaways. I don’t ever want you to just turn on something and listen to it and zone out. So, hey, Brittany Luchi. Oh, Aloha, Kris from Hawaii. Okay. Now guys, this is a quick true story I will tell you. Kris who’s coming on from KCAA in Hawaii on the beautiful island of Oahu, we have met a few times in person in real life and it’s just amazing and I sure do wish that I was in her office today instead of mine. So let me just make that note. I would much rather be in Hawaii than in the one hundred and fourteen degree Texas today. So today I wanna talk to you all about being anchored in accountability. So grab something to take notes with because this is something that I hear a lot. Every time I talk to leaders, they’re telling me that they’re really having trouble holding people accountable that no one wants to be accountable anymore. So what I would love for you to say in the chat and there’s a few ways to work this webinar today. So you got the chat and then you have your Q and A. So if you have specific questions that you’d like for me to answer or if you’ve got a specific scenario that you want me to work through with you, drop that in the Q and A. ProCare team’s gonna monitor that but if you can drop in the chat where you’re, these questions that you’re having. I really wanna know because I think once you speak it out loud it helps you to realize where you’re at. So what’s the hardest leadership issue that you’re having right now? So please drop in the chat and tell me what is the hardest leadership issue that you’re having right now? And I can tell you because I’m in the room with leaders specifically ECE leaders all the time every week and I lead an ECE team of my own as well and there is this broken record that I hear a lot and it goes like this. Nobody wants to work anymore. Why does this feel so impossibly hard? Why is everyone so fragile? Why can’t people just show up and do their job? And then some question, do I even want to do this anymore? And so yeah, something like the constant reminders. Robin, balancing accountability with understanding and support, teaching staff frustrations over closures, teacher absences, staff absences. Yeah, all of these things are and what you feel is real. Absences are up and accountability is down. And all of those things that you’re saying is trying to get people to take ownership. But I want you to think for just a minute is what you’re experiencing when people are asking support. And this is a question I have to ask myself as a leader as well. When someone needs help, am I offering them support or am I teaching them learned helplessness? Am I teaching them that I have all the answers, I know how things should be done, I can get it done easier, faster, more efficient, I’ve done it for longer, I can quickly skip over them needing to learn something because it’s just quicker and easier for me to do it myself. So I want you to just let that sink in because everything that you guys are saying in the chat, the attitudes, the apathy, all of those things are very true. And this is what we know. Holding people accountable is a number one problem. Like if you research what are the number one problems that leaders across the board, and I don’t just childhood. I mean leaders across the board in every industry eighty percent of them say that holding people accountable is rough. And there’s Tiffany. Hey Tiffany you bridge helping yourself with teaching them. Yeah So the CPR that could revive us, which is culture, purpose, and responsibility turns into confusion, and resentment. So think about that number one leadership issue that you have. Does it have a name? You don’t need to write that name down. But I want you to just bring to mind for a minute for those of you that typed in the chat and for those of you who were thinking what your number one leadership issue is, it probably has a name, has a face, probably causes your nervous system to be dysregulated sometimes before five am when the call in start to happen. And I know very well what that’s like. But I want to ask you this, the person who is constantly needing help, needing support, needing that CPR. It is not sustainable for someone to always need emergency care. Emergency rooms are for emergencies. And when people are having issues that continue to come up time after time after time, you cannot constantly be giving someone CPR every single day. Triage is unusual and it should be. And sometimes it’s some of our staff, it’s not. There’s something always all the time every day, someone or someone else is something or someone else is needing them but yet you need them at work. So what happens is you, me, the leaders instead of really being focused on our culture, helping people understand what the purpose of the work that we’re doing is, helping people understand what responsibilities truly lie within them, we’re just giving up. And now we’re confusing because and let me tell you how we’re confusing. Like we are confusing as leaders because if you confuse, you lose. And by us allowing standards to slip and we’re not standing on our standards, by us allowing standards to slip, it’s confusing people because if you say we have an attendance policy but yet you allow someone to miss work one day a week and other people have to get out of their seat and get in the seat of that person that’s missing, that’s confusing because you have a policy but yet you’re not following it and there’s no consequences for it. Or the passivity which is where you just choose peace at any price because you just don’t have it in you to rumble as we say, or we as leaders can become resentful which can steal your peace and of course your joy at your job. So if I am new to you, like I said ProCare was so kind, they bought copies of my book. So if you haven’t read it, you might get a copy of it but it’s called Transform Your Team and it’s how to fix what’s broken and build what matters. And it came out of some of the issues that I had on my own team through a really, really hard both personal and professional season that I refer to it as the long season of suck for lack of a better, more professional sounding word. Doing the keynote speaking and the leadership retreats and the team buildings that I do, I realized when I was open and transparent about the struggles that I was having and it really affected my health and my personal life as well. So many people are willing to say, you know what, me too, me too, me too. And so if you’re experiencing these kinds of things, I want you to know that you’re not alone. But it put me in a state of dysregulation meaning that my nervous system was in constant fight, flight or freeze. And we talk about dysregulated children all the time but I believe this, the adults in the rooms are more dysregulated than the children. And go with me here a little one step deeper. I believe that directors in early childhood programs are the most dysregulated people in the building. Now I saw someone on here from Clackamas County and I was just with you guys in the beautiful state of Oregon last week. And I did a leadership session before I did the full team the next day. So we had the leaders the day before. And what was interesting is they had different departments in their organization. And the early childhood department had some of the hardest struggles and it was because of the team. And it was because of that early educator workforce because there are so many stresses around what it is that we do. So I find that the directors stay somewhat dysregulated because they’re constantly bracing for the next thing to happen, for a child to get hurt, for someone to call in, for attitudes, for culture, for feeling like you can’t do anything right. That can keep you dysregulated. But here’s the good news, it doesn’t have to stay that way when you understand what it is that is happening in your body so that you can gain the courage to move forward. So that’s thing number one. Thing number two is you also may have team members, staff that are dysregulated, that are struggling with mental health challenges. And I wanna say this and I wanna preface this by saying, I come to this subject with a lot of compassion and personal experience and so I understand that mental health struggles are real and I’m not discounting that. However, if that is the reason that you are getting for people that you cannot hold accountable is they tell you they’re anxious, they’re depressed, whatever that situation is. I would love to know in the chat. So if you’re multitasking come back and come back to the chat. I would just love to know yes or no if you have had people point to mental health challenges as the reason they can’t either show up to work or execute their job duties. I’m just curious about that. So while you’re typing in the chat, I’ve done a lot of research, deep, deep study and talked to several counselors and here’s the difference. When someone comes to you and they tell you I did not get my work done. I cannot show up because of this. Here’s the deeper question. Are they telling you as an excuse or are they coming to you and asking for support? Oh my gosh the chat is blowing up. Every single person on this webinar is saying yes and recently. And Erica we have one note. We have one note so Erica Linderman’s shirt hold space for that because that is extremely, extremely unusual. You see all these yeses in the chat and I’ve had it too. And so here’s the thing, you’re not a mental health professional. It’s not our job to diagnose. Are you telling the truth or you’re not telling the truth? That’s a neat point. That’s not what we’re arguing here. What we’re trying to say is how can you hold space for real and true challenges that are happening but uphold your standards at the same time? Just because someone is struggling doesn’t mean that you lower the standards in your culture. Now conversations about, you know, and again, this is a legal issue. I am hashtag not a lawyer. Every state has different employment factors. I know a lot of you are in states to where you may even have unions and there are very specific standards and I am not an expert on that and I just wanna make it clear I’m not here to tell you what to do and how to process through this. You need to know what is acceptable in your area and for your organization and help coach people through what’s happening. So Alyssa said yes but not really excuses. Some might use a day of PO to take a mental health day or go on short term disability to get treatment. I don’t know if it’s Alicia or Alicia, that is what is needed. And if that’s what’s needed, that’s okay. What I’m referring to is I see a lot of leaders who shy back from reminding people of the responsibilities of their work because it affects the whole team. And so just like we’re responsible for taking care about our physical health, we’re also responsible for taking care of our mental health and finding language around talking to people about what tools do you have. So when you go into a spiral, when you feel that panic attack coming on, when you feel yourself sinking into depression, what tools do you have to help you do your life? Because for people who want to be well, they’re going to seek out tools. And again, it’s not your job to diagnose but it is your job as their leader to support, to lean in and to listen. And Sherri says that how far can it go if it’s constant then you should be present without a doctor saying it’s okay. So again, I don’t have the legal advice around that. In the book there’s actually a whole chapter called Holding Space and Upholding Your Standards where there are some resources that can point you back to how do you help someone and hold space for those people but allow them to really kind of come under the culture umbrella and say, I understand you’re struggling. What can I expect of you? When you wake up on days that as I jokingly say, you decide you’re for the sheets and not the streets, How can we encourage you to get here? So that’s one thing but here’s another thing I wanna say about this and then we’re gonna move on. If you see greatness, beauty, purpose in these beautiful people who are telling you that they are struggling right now. If you see the purpose in them and you see what happens when they actually do show up and you see the way that they connect with the parents and connect especially connect with the children, Speak life over them when you see it, become a good storyteller. So when someone decides to call in and it’s repetitive because, and they may not say I need a mental health day. They may just, I’m sick today, I’m sick today, I’m sick today or whatever the excuses are. Remind them of who they are. Be a good storyteller because instead of saying, hey, the result is you’re expected to be here and not miss more than five days. And if you don’t do that, then you’re gonna get written up three times and then we’re gonna move to fire you. Like no one cares about that. What they care about is the beliefs that they have around the work that they do and the experiences that you can remind them that they have created in order to make that impact. This is a very impact driven job. So one of the key takeaways today if you want to stay anchored in accountability is make sure that you’re telling stories that you’re using stories about the people who are slipping on their standards to remind them of who they are because you hired them, right? And in this hard time, you may need to decide is this someone you wanna coach up or is this someone you wanna coach out? Because your ability to connect with them and tell them those stories that’s where your relationship skills begin to count as a leader because you’re not just focused on did they check the box and show up and show up. If you’re a true leader who loves your people and who wants to see them do well, you build relationships and you speak life into them so that when they are struggling, you get to remind them of who they are and you get to remind them of what you see in them. Now, will everyone respond to that? No, but your job as a leader is to do all you can do to stand and to help your team stand. And I’ve seen this go both ways on my own team friends. I have seen me really sit down and talk with someone and work on this relationship and try to encourage them and try to remind them of who they are and it didn’t go well. They were, well, you don’t understand my struggles and what I feel is real and that’s okay. That’s okay. They are absolutely entitled. Again, it’s not my job to judge at all. I’m not a mental health professional. I love my team. I love my people and I want them to thrive in the role they’re in. That didn’t go well and she ended up being coached out. Now I had another girl who was an amazing and she was an amazing employee, loved her dearly, her husband was deployed and she’s a military wife and she found out that her husband was going to be going, into on a ship into the Strait of Hormuz. And this was back in the spring when things were very, very, tense over there. And she just reached out and said, I can’t function. Like I’m not sleeping, I’m terrified, I can’t function. Can I have a few days? Absolutely. And a few days later, hey, I’m checking her, hey, how are you? And she’s like, okay, can I just come in in the afternoons? Yes. But here’s the difference. She was struggling but she was able to verbalize what she needed in a professional way so that we could help and support her. And then once she got on her feet, things turned around. So just know and understand understand the circumstances and I think that will help you. So that’s about people. I’m going to shift back to you the leader. You the leader, you’ve got to manage between two lines when it comes to holding people accountable. And that is this, it is your personal fear and personnel behavior. Here’s the difference. There is a reason that every single person hearing this today is afraid to hold people accountable. We all have inside of us this story that scared us. And until we can identify the story that scared us, we can’t step into the one that’s going to set us free. Let me break that down. Sometimes we hold back and avoid conflict because we’re afraid that people will leave us. And maybe you’ve had that happen. I’ve had it happen. You have a hard conversation with someone and then they quit. They’re like, well, if my work’s not good enough, well then I quit. And that’s okay because it wasn’t meant for them to be. So, but I sometimes am afraid to have that conversation because it’s happened before. However, if I don’t have the conversation, nothing’s gonna change and I’m not okay with mediocrity. Like so if you’re struggling and you’re sitting in mediocrity, I just want you to say to yourself right now, take your hands clap them together, boom. Break out of mediocrity. Because when I stay in that dysregulated fear stage, we have this like perceived danger. We go into that amygdala hijack, right? You know about this because you work with children. You know how the brain works. Same thing happens with grownups. Our nervous system doesn’t know the difference between a bear attack and someone sending you an email that says, can we talk? Our body still elicits that same response. It’s physiological. So we have this fear. So we fear people leaving. I’m gonna break those down a little bit deeper but it’s a personal fear versus the behavior that you’re trying to address. So you’ve got to figure out what are you afraid of and how is that affecting your personnel behavior? So a big question that I think is important for you to ask yourself is whatever is happening, I ask you to drop your biggest leadership issue. I want you to think about the thing that you dropped. How did you shape it and how can you shift it? Because if if it if you’ve got employees that aren’t great employees, you hired them. You trained them. And maybe they were the right fit. Maybe it was not a great hire. We’ve all done that. We put We’ve had the wrong people in the wrong seats and that’s okay. But we hired them. And then did we onboard them well? Did we coach them well? Do they have a mentor system? Somehow everything that’s happening on your team, you somehow shaped it but now you have to decide can you shift it? So again, a takeaway for today is the thing that you wrote down your biggest leadership challenge. Can you actually shift that? Is more relationship building needed? Are there conversations probably a thousand percent yes that need to be had? Are there shifts in the schedule? Are there shifts in the org chart? What can you shift in order to get a different result? Because what if every problem is a leadership issue? And I don’t say that to put blame and shame on you. Lord knows in ECE we do not need any more shame and blame. But I wanna tell you about an example and this should scare every one of you. So if you’re multitasking come back. In North Carolina, just in the last few weeks, there was a teacher and I don’t know what the situation was but abuse happened in the classroom. A teacher physically harmed a child in a classroom. The assistant director, the director, and the regional director allegedly knew about this. They knew what happened. No one reported it. Guess who was arrested? All four of those people were arrested. The one that did the crime but also the three who did not report it. So that’s a leadership issue. That’s a, where did the chain break? What was the disconnect? That’s a massive, huge far reaching example but it sometimes goes back to a leadership because of course you can’t prevent things from happening. However, the culture around what is happening is a leadership issue and somehow within that building a culture issue was going on. Some environment was created to where number one that happened and number two there was some sort of don’t ask, don’t tell something, something going on. So yeah, Tiffany, you said it’s also a culture issue. And I agree with you a thousand percent Tiffany, you’re right. That’s what’s happening. So what if every problem is a leadership issue, which means possibly you can affect it. You can’t predict it but you can try to protect your culture around what you see with your eyes. And I wish and it was when I so wish and if you guys have seen me speak live you probably see me do this slide. It’s one of my absolute favorite slides to do. When I play this on the stage Taylor comes behind singing it’s me, hi, I’m the problem, it’s me. And so I just want to say a lot of times we are the problem. Here’s a new statistic. Are you ready for this? Ninety five percent of people think they’re self aware. Only ten to fifteen percent actually are. So there are some things that we can do and I say that to say it’s not always a staff issue. Your culture is a combination of what you create and what you tolerate and I would add to that what you celebrate. So if you are tolerating it you are teaching it. So for today I want you to think about the stages of accountability. Okay so when you’re breaking down the stages of accountability, the routine, the leader, yes you, you need the discipline to do life and business with clarity and consistency. Clarity I think is really, really, really important. I just did this and I have a group coaching program called Learn to Lead and we just had our last summer session yesterday and we talked about clarity. And what does that mean? If you are not clear on your policies and where you’re going and what you expect from your team, no one else is gonna be. And like I said, if you confuse you lose. So your routine and that consistently calling it when you see it, addressing it when you see it that matters. Here’s another thing. I often in a lot of workshops that I do will have the leadership team bring a staff roster and we’ll do it’s called the people probe. And we analyze each person on the team and say, okay, are they a team b team c team? Don’t be like, sounds kinda harsh. Sounds kinda judgy. Here’s the deal. As a leader, you absolutely need to be judging because guess what? The teacher that lost it with those kids where all four of those people were arrested, somebody wasn’t judging hard enough because that one incident was probably not isolated. There had to be clues and signs for someone to absolutely lose it in a typical situation, right? So the consistency matters. So when someone tells me they have people on their C team and I recently had a school director tell me that of the forty people on her team, thirty of them she would put on the C team. Broke my heart because she’s exhausted. And I said, do they know they’re on the C team? And she said, no, no one knows. So there’s all this C team behavior and she sees it and she feels it every day that hasn’t had the courage to talk to her team about it. So that’s a big issue. So clarity, consistency. Next is ownership. Stop blaming. We are famous for blaming in early childhood, right? Like especially during COVID, think about COVID, I mean, good grief. If there was a case, it was like, who’s the typhoid Mary? Who’s patient A? Who brought it here? And then they’re shamed and blamed and now everybody’s got to stay home from work. Mean it was crazy but it happened, right? And so think about a parent like they bring their child the next day and they’ve got a bite mark on them and they want to know immediately like who was the vampire that bit my kid? So we’ve got this blame shame head game cycle going on anyway but when you’re looking at what part do you own, ask yourself what part of this mess might belong to you and then the influence. This is really important. You as a leader, your influence matters. And it doesn’t mean that again, that you’ve got the loudest voice. It means that you are trusted and that your presence matters. Right? And so that building trust with your team is your superpower. And how do you do that? It’s built through time and it’s built through experiences. And when people learn to trust you, it’s because you’ve taken ownership of your role and you’ve been consistent and consistently clear. So just kind of like a self check, a self assessment on that. And to do that, you take your pulse. So when you look around why you maybe act, speak, retreat, here’s maybe, you know, take some notes on this. So your pulse, p u l s e, your past baggage. Think about past experiences that you’ve had that have made you shy away from that direct confrontation, that have made you feel shrink smaller? Some past trauma, right, that you’re bringing in. Think about that, your past baggage. Also unclear expectations. Where have you been unclear with your team? Or if you’re managing from the middle, meaning that you have people above you, are you unclear with what’s expected of you? And I would say this, if you’re ever unclear, go to the person who is above you on the org chart who knows more than you do and say, I’m unclear. Help me understand when X happens, what is the Y? What comes next? So that’s thing number one. Thing number two is your leadership. Do you ever question if you’re a good leader? I mean, I’ve done this almost thirty years and I still question, am I really a good leader sometimes especially when behaviors happen on my team and I have those, I didn’t see that coming moments. So your leadership and a big question is to say, is anyone following you? If you’re leading, is anyone following you and what does your influence look like? Okay, the S is scarcity mindset. Now I have to admit, gonna tell you a little bit of something about me that I’m not proud of. For many, many years, I struggled with the scarcity mindset. And when I get in an unhealthy place, I still do. I know where that came from. I unpacked them in the book and if you’ve heard me talk, you’ve heard me talk about when my dad lost his job when I was in college. And my mom had never really worked and they weren’t prepared for it. They couldn’t have predicted what happened. And in my mind, I’m like, Oh my gosh, we’re gonna be at the soup kitchen in a month. Like as soon as all the money runs out, that’s it. And so that put me into the spiral of workaholism to where I felt like, Okay, I’ve got it, I’m going to school. I’m gonna work while I’m going to school. And then when I get out of school, I’m gonna have a job and I’m gonna have a side hustle. I mean, I still to this day have three jobs friends. I don’t need three jobs but in the back of my mind, I’m like, well, that one didn’t work out. That would make, I mean, it’s crazy. And I’m okay, like we’re okay. But sometimes I go into the scarcity mindset which makes me fearful of making changes on my team because I’m like, well, that’s the devil that I do know versus the devil that I don’t notice. Can anyone relate to that? Please someone tell me, yes, I can relate to that. It’s like, I’m gonna keep this employee because at least she shows up. At least I can even though she’s not great, least I know she’s going to work. And sometimes we just settle, right? We just settle. And then the E is just to evaluate. Really look around and evaluate. Evaluate, here’s your three questions. So again, you’re making notes, here’s your three questions. What’s working? What’s not working? And what needs to change? So, okay. Thank you to the Amen crew. Oh, Betty White. Betty White. Hey, Betty White said yes, it’s a yes. So in ECE realm there are kind of three general not all encompassing but kind of three general roles that keep us where the accountability chain kind of comes through. So you’ve got owners. So if you’re an owner in ECE right here, like owner here, like tell me in the chat, owner here. Owners I know sometimes are frustrated with their directors because their directors avoid making the hard calls. And they come in and they’re trying to teach their directors how to have the courage to have these hard conversations because they realize that things are hard. Oh, hey Tara Lynch. They realize things are hard. So owners can sometimes become frustrated with directors because they want them to act. Then I see directors who are drained and exhausted managing a disengaged team. And they’re like, oh my gosh, you want me to hold them accountable? You want me to have these hard conversations? Well, ma’am or sir, would you like to be in the toddler room? And the owner’s like, well, no, I don’t wanna be in the toddler room because they’re teacher killers. And so then, okay, just leave it. And I say that jokingly, but I see it happening all the time. And then the directors get frustrated with the teachers because the teachers are burnt to a crisp and they’re operating in constant overwhelm. So does that feel accurate? I mean, that’s just kind of my assessment in the people that I talk to. And again, of course, in running my own team. As an owner, I have directors and then we have a team of teachers as well. And understand that. And it’s a challenge, but once we understand why we fear accountability, why teams resist it, it helps us to build this culture of ownership and responsibility. Now these are the things that you’re likely afraid of. And I want you to tell me in the chat which one of these things do you feel like is what you’re most afraid of? So just tell me one, two or three. We’re gonna try to gauge this today. One, two or three. Number one, if you hold your people accountable, they’ll quit. Number two, if someone quits, you’ll be right back in the classroom doing their job, which means that you feel like there’s no one coming to save you. Right? You feel like maybe that your employee funnel is dried up and you’re worried about that. Or if you let someone go, zero people will want to be your friend. Meaning that you don’t want to lose the friendship and the relationship and the camaraderie of your people. Catherine you said two and three. Thank you guys for your honesty on that. Thank you guys for your honesty on that. Yeah and again and what you said Brittney you say all the above. Same. So let’s break that down and I just want you to unpack it. And I want you to imagine yourself on the other side of a hard conversation because seven different studies say that having a hard conversation usually isn’t as bad as what we thought it was going to be. Seven different studies say that. But on the other side of that conversation, you have the talk. What if all these things that we fear happen? But what if they don’t? You know and I’ve heard this years ago where it said you know what if you spend all this time training people and they quit? Well, what if you don’t train them and then they destroy your culture? That’s a big issue. That’s a big issue. So let’s get down to that fear of conflict. So leaders might fear addressing performance issues that are gonna lead to that conflict because they don’t want that reaction from the team. Like there’s that deep fear that is gonna result, that’s gonna make someone leave you. Like you’ve got that maybe fear of abandonment. So this fear can result in avoids of accountability and discussions and allowing these issues to persist. Again, we go back to that story that scares us and this gets deep, but basic psychology says this. Okay, this is just basic psychology and there’s not a slide for this so maybe jot it down. Basic psychology says there are three basic lies that people believe and we operate sometimes out of those lies which means they’re not true but sometimes we operate out of them and here are those three lies. Number one, we’re helpless. Number two, we’re worthless or number three, we’re unlovable. And if I’m honest, I would tell you that mine would be I’m worthless. And that ties back to if I’m not working and producing and performing and doing well, then what am I even doing on this earth? Like, I don’t like to think I don’t have a lazy bone in my body. I don’t want to sit around the house or sit around not getting anything done like it’s important to me to be really really productive because I think if I’m not productive then everything’s gonna go away and I’m gonna be at the soup kitchen, right? It goes back to that scarcity mindset. Some people believe that they’re helpless like that no one’s coming to save me and so I can’t do anything. I don’t have the power to do anything because the things that I do aren’t gonna produce good results anyway and then some people believe they’re unlovable. So I’m not gonna ask you to put that in the chat but I am gonna ask you to just think about in your soul, which of those lies do you feel like is playing in your head that keep you stuck in avoiding some of these hard conversations you know you need to have. So that desire of approval, this one leads back to the I’m unlovable, right? So leaders often want to be liked and they fear employees that like if you go to hold your people accountable, it’s going to jeopardize your relationship with them. Like if you’re, you you’ve got a good relationship and you felt like you’ve built trust, you play a game of I like to call it who’s the jerk. If someone is late constantly but they’re my friend and I’ve got a great relationship with this person and I love them and when they’re here they’re hitting on all cylinders but when they’re not works my last good nerve. I’m afraid if I go talk to this person about it they’re gonna be upset with me. And so I may which I know a lot of ECE leaders do this avoid that conversation because they don’t wanna play the jerk. Are you the jerk for showing up late twenty six times or am I the jerk for having to keep asking you again? So that desire for approval can absolutely lead to reluctance when it comes to addressing the problems. However, your team is not being successful because you’re stuck in your desire to avoid someone not loving you. And I know that’s very deep but it’s very real. Also just lacking confidence in communication skills. Sometimes we want to be liked and we fear that holding them accountable will jeopardize those relationships and the same thing that lack of confidence can hinder effective communication. So not having the confidence in your skills to know what to say. Now let me just stop right there. Most of you on here are using AI. You’re using Chattypeteer Claude. Is anyone here not using AI is what I want to know. Because that’s a whole different subject. I mean, is just the world. If you do not know how to have a hard conversation, grab your phone, open up your chat and just start riffing. Chat, this is what I’m dealing with. This is what I’m telling you. Help me to know what and how to say what I need to this person. And Amanda if you’re not using AI I want to encourage you today to get an account because AI is it’s definitely the way of the future and it’s not I don’t think it’s certainly not going to take ECE jobs however it just is a model that kind of helps you know what to say. And when you, the more you use it, the more it knows you. So I have my chat set up to where, you know, like where I like I have a whole board of advisors and that’s, again, this is a different webinar but just do some research and talk to people who are using it. And even if you just use it for some basic confidence and communication skills, it’s crazy how it will help you find the right words to have that conversation. And then another thing that we do is we avoid discomfort. We address the situation because we don’t want to be uncomfortable. This is why Gen Z and if you’re listening to Gen Z, if you’re listening and you’re Gen Z born after nineteen ninety seven, I’m your mom. And it’s our the way that my generation parented is that we had it harder. No one was paying attention to what we were doing. Gen X is the riskiest generation, right? I mean, our parents thought we were homeless sleeping in bed and we had crawled out the window to go smoke weed in the field and driving around with a boy driving a Trans Am. I mean, if if you that resonates with you, give me a thumbs up. But we were the riskiest generation. So because we took so many risks, we had kids and we’re like, oh, we didn’t die and I don’t want my kids to die. So I’m gonna wrap my kids in bubble wrap and watch what they’re doing and pay attention and track them and know everything that’s happening and try to keep them from putting themselves in hard situations. And research says that kind of parenting created the most anxious generation because we had to sit in so many uncomfortable seats. We didn’t want our kids to have to sit in uncomfortable seats. So think about, are you avoiding discomfort for that reason? We’re almost on the homestretch guys so basically this, why don’t people want to do their work? When tasks aren’t completed it usually comes down to four reasons. Okay number one, they haven’t been trained. They were never shown how. That’s a you problem. Number two, they don’t understand. Expectations were clear, we were not clear or confusing. Number three, they don’t want to do it. They may know how, they don’t want to do it. Lack of motivation, lack of alignment, or there’s no system and that’s a you problem. So there’s only one of these on here that is a they problem and that is they don’t wanna do it. Okay. Yeah, Britney, if you dreamed of the bubble wrap for your kids. Yes. Don’t you wish we had But that’s a you problem. They don’t wanna do it. You can’t change someone that doesn’t wanna do it. You can inspire them but unless they wanna change you’re not gonna change them. All three of those other things you actually can affect. So accountability is a two way street. You as the employer have to provide a safe and inclusive culture where employees can thrive. They, here’s the basic thing, show up, do their job well and contribute to a positive environment. That’s it. And when I do team trainings, I speak the language of this all the time. We talk about accountability. It’s a personal choice that everyone can focus on to take the steps to get the results. Now accountability looks like this. You see it, you own it, you solve it, you do it. That’s what it looks like. Now there’s those two belief systems though. Right? If you’re above the line, that’s above the line behavior. But when you go below the line and we don’t have a lot of time to break this down today, but anytime this is happening, it’s below the line. And you have to teach your people and I teach my people how to identify what’s below the line. Oh, wait and see. I mean, there’s trash on the ground. Let me see if somebody else is gonna pick it up. In the infant room, let me see who else is gonna change that diaper. Or people sitting around, wait, tell me what to do. Just tell me what to do, it’s below the line. If they don’t know what to do, that’s a you problem. That’s a systems problem. That’s a training problem. If you’re clear about the system and the process and the training, then that’s a personnel problem. Right? Or people say it’s not my job. They ignore or deny. Like, didn’t see it. Wasn’t me. I didn’t know. No one told me. They point finger, blaming, shaming, playing head games. And my least favorite is when people say, I don’t have the energy for that. I’m sorry. There are we all have low energy days, but I mean, I had a girl that told me that some in that the the full moon affected her energy and that there were just some times that she didn’t have the energy to do her job. Well, ma’am, would you like to be paid fifty percent less on your low energy days? We all are responsible for managing our own health which includes energy. And on those low energy days, which we all have them, that’s why we work in teams with people, right? So you may have a little bit low energy today. That’s where you rally with your teacher. You know what? Today’s not a good day for me. But the next day you’ve got to figure that out. And sometimes people go through harder seasons to where they need a little bit more support. And that’s okay. But this is the standard. If the standard is they don’t have the energy to do their job, that’s not gonna work and that’s below the line. So I mentioned to you about the storytelling. The result is you need to know what success look like for you and everyone on your team does too. Like what does success look like? This is the result I expect. Teach them how to get that result. But then this is where it goes a layer deeper friends is the beliefs. What beliefs will inspire someone to take ownership align with those goals? And those beliefs go around, do they believe in the work that they do? Do they understand their why? Do they understand the impact that they make? And do they feel it or are they just showing it for a paycheck? Because this you know in our industry, the paycheck is never gonna be enough. Like they can get the same paycheck probably stocking shelves at Target or working at the grocery store or driving DoorDash, whatever it is. You know, there are many jobs that you can do for the same pay is my point. However, for people who believe that they are wired to teach and it’s my personal belief that teaching is a gift. It’s a spiritual gift that you either have it or you do not. And those who do not are about to hate their life because school’s starting and they’re getting new kids. And if they don’t really enjoy young children, they’re not gonna like their jobs. So they’ve got to have some sort of belief around that. And then finally the experience. And this is where you as leaders get to make the impact. What stories can you tell people to inspire action? What feedback can you give? How can you recognize their success? Remember, your culture is a combination of three things. What you create, what you celebrate and what you tolerate. What you tolerate is what you’re teaching. What you’re creating is a space to where people want to show up and hang out. So I’m going to give you one last strategy and this is called your glow grow meeting. So in the last few minutes and if you scan that QR code or you go to bethcannonspeaks dot com slash culturecure and Zach or Kim, if you guys would drop that in the chat that bethcannonspeaks dot com slash culturecure for those that are maybe watching on their phone and they can’t snag that QR code. And I think you guys are gonna send the slides as well. But the GLOW Grow meeting is this, it’s almost like a three sixty meeting to where you sit with your employer and there’s only two questions. Where do you glow and where do you need to grow? And you just wanna find out where someone is doing a good job, where they think they’re doing a good job, where you think they’re doing a good job. And this goes back to you. So you’re gonna ask your people, what am I doing well for you? And you’re gonna say what you think you’re doing well. And then you’re gonna ask your people, what’s my opportunity for growth? And you’re gonna ask them to tell you what your gaps are. And that can be uncomfortable But what it does is it puts you in a situation of a little bit of vulnerability but vulnerability creates trust. And if you want your people to trust you, you have to be willing to sit in that seat of vulnerability. So truly, if my team has something that they can tell me that they want me to do better, I wanna know and I wanna hear it. I might not like it. I don’t have to agree with it. But there’s a little bit of truth in everything. And so I wanna hear what their thoughts are but then it’s gonna flip back. I wanna ask them, hey, tell me what do you think is your opportunity for growth? And then I get to hear where they think their gaps are and then I get to come back and say, well, hey, I think here’s some ways that you can grow. So I wanted to give you the strategy today and I know some of you guys have heard me speak before. This is the tool that transformed the culture on one of my teams. Prior to COVID this team was great and it just really since COVID it did not, and it was issue, right? It was not able to get itself back up off the ground. And I had a leader and in the book I actually named her Jolene, longtime Dolly Parton fan, which by the way had some morning to do in the past week with her passing. But Jolene was a home wrecker and it was this person had a lot of struggles in their life that greatly affected their ability to show up at work and it affected the team and negativity and bitterness and frustration. And that kind of attitude can’t live and it’s not sustainable in a leadership seat. And I have to own that I tolerated a lot for a long time because I was afraid. And all those reasons that I asked you were you afraid of? And Brittany said all three, all the above. That was me, all of the above. And until I realized how it was truly affecting my team, I was finally able to turn it around but this is how I turned it around. It was in the one on one, the building relationships with every single person on that team. And some of them, I mean, was their direct leader but I needed to get in, pull back the curtain, dig down deep and figure out what’s working, what’s not working and what needs to change. And so when I began to implement this GLOGRO meeting strategy, I heard a lot of information. Some of it really surprised me but had I not asked, it probably would not have come back to me. So I just want to encourage you that getting and receiving feedback from the people on your team matters so much. And if you’re thinking, I don’t have time to do that. Listen, these only take about ten to fifteen minutes. You can pop in a nap time. But if you go through your team, I don’t think it’ll take you a super long time. And I really wanna encourage you, don’t miss out on this key step. It will transform your team and it will help you hold your people accountable. So hopefully that was helpful with you guys. So ProCare team, we have any Q and A’s up? Awesome, thank you so much, Beth. First of all, I appreciate all this information. Great stuff. I know for me as well as a leader of people, like these are things that I definitely, take to heart and and hope to use some of this as well just with, our leadership and with our teams that we have. Real quick before we jump to q and a, because I know we do just have a few minutes left. I wanted to make sure to throw this slide up on here for anybody else who maybe wasn’t here at the beginning or still would like to take an opportunity to, just share their feedback on the webinar. Again, this is just very helpful for us so that we can understand the information and content that, folks would like to learn more about. Also, if anybody, fills out the webinar or the feedback form here, then you are automatically entered to win a one hundred dollar Amazon gift card, and the winner will be announced later. And quick call out, don’t forget, as an attendee, you are also entered for one of those twenty five books that are being given away for Beth’s new book. So we’re excited to share that as well. We did have one question that came through earlier. I know a lot of folks have been engaging in the chat. Been great to see. We did have someone who had asked I love that. It’s like a dopamine hit. Like every time you guys, like, say stuff in the chat, it’s like a dopamine hit. So thanks for doing that. Yeah. Lots of great conversation. Lots of good stuff for sure. So and I apologize if I mispronounce the name on this. I believe it’s Inez Owens is the name, was asking about can you share how to address when accountability is needed above your pay grade? I might need a little bit of context around that. So when it’s above your pay grade meaning that you want the people above you to be held accountable. That’s the way I am I’m wrong. Say that that is not correct but I think it’s honest conversations. I think everyone deserves an honest conversation and a lot of leaders are not maybe emotionally ready to hear those kinds But I promise you you’ll be doing someone a favor if you do. I think do what it is that you do to get courage and wisdom and discernment and maybe start with, hey I have some things I’d like to share. But first I want to get your perspective on that or I have some things I think would help us work better together is it okay with you if I share some ideas that I have? Maybe start out like Is that helpful? I hope that’s helpful because that’s hard when you’re going up the chain. But I always just go with you hope to be able to assume that someone is ready and willing to hear that feedback. It’s just your timing and you know what the goal is of the feedback I think is important. Okay. I and Ena has wrote back she said you are spot on things. Okay. Good. Good. Good. Wanna make sure we we understood that correctly. And I know we’re right about out of time. This one is connected, though, to that last one, so I think we can squeeze this one in real quick before we head out. Was just like, what if you need your leader to hold your peers accountable? So you’re looking to your leader Please tell them. Please tell them because who is asking this question is someone who’s showing up and the other people not showing up are probably affecting this person. And this person is watching that leader. And again, don’t think the leader’s a bad person because she’s not wanting to address the conflict or because she’s not, you know, You heard today that is some deep rooted fear that that leader is probably dealing with. It doesn’t mean that they’re not doing their job. It means they’ve got some deeply rooted fear. So maybe share this webinar with them, share some resources that you know and just say hey I just want you to know that because Ms. Candace is late every day I’m left out of ratio. I’m doing my job and her job too and I really need some support and ask for it. Think you know again in the way that you frame it hey I have some ideas that I think would help us work better together and I’d like to talk to you about that. But humility stay humble if you stay humble you do not fumble It’s my rule. But I also say this, here’s another rule from my dad. If you don’t ask, the answer is always no. So if you don’t have the courage to ask for it, you’re for sure not gonna get it. And always go with positive intent. Believe that your coworkers and that everyone on your org chart above you, below you, around you, between you, that believe everyone has positive intent until they show you differently. Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Beth. This has been wonderful. I just love all the information you’ve shared. Lots of great stuff to really reflect on, and hopefully, our our audience feels the same. I think we are based conversations in the chat. So this has been great. Again, there will be a recording sent out too, so if you’d like to revisit this later or share with your teams, you can do so. We’ll get that sent out here from our, ProCare. And thank you again, Beth, for coming on and just, spending time with us today. Thank you, everyone, who was able to attend, and we look forward to the next time that we get to chat. Always a pleasure. Thanks for having me. Bye bye. Bye, friends. Thanks for coming today. Thanks everyone. Bye bye.