ECE CEO Biography Podcast

Welcome to ECE biography Sage wisdom for child care leaders my name is Tony D’Agostino. I’m the founder and CEO of Inspire Care 360 in this series of exclusive podcasts we will meet with tenured and growing leaders in the child care field typically operating medium to very large Child Care operations from tens of schools to thousands of schools. Our incentive is to learn what has been the path and traits that make outstanding leaders. Join us to glean the sage wisdom from these experienced individuals. Now, let’s get started with ECE biography: Sage wisdom for child care leaders. Welcome to today’s podcast of ECE CEO biography Sage wisdom for child care leaders. Our special guest today is Jeff Wahl the CEO of Big Blue Marble Academy also known as BBMA. A leading figure in the early education industry, BBMA serves 14,000 children at 71 locations across the US. Their team ensures children are developmentally, socially and emotionally prepared for kindergarten and beyond. Jeff brings an impressive 35 years of management and Leadership experience in the service businesses with a focus on early care and education for the past two decades. He became the executive chair at BBMA in 2019, later being appointed to the CEO spot in 2020 right in the middle of the pandemic. Prior to his tenure at BBMA, Jeff served as chairman of Glen Lion and the CEO of Edison learning Jeff also had numerous senior leadership roles with GE for over 15 years and was One Heartbeat Away from the management and Leadership for the highly celebrated CEO Jack Welch. With Jeff’s corporate and education industry he brings a unique perspective to the ECE industry, offering fresh and insightful ideas, empowerment and accountability for the growth of his organization. At BBMA, his impact extends beyond the classroom and significant influence in the way we think and learn and educate ourselves about the early learning industry. So I look forward to our conversation today with Jeff Wahl.
Jeff how are you today
I’m well good to see you Tony
Good to see you too it’s great to see you again and I do think the last time is we had an opportunity over at Kathy Ligons SHIFT conference I get to see you probably once a year face to face least
That’s one of the two things that I always recommend to people in the industry join ecec and attend SHIFT. Yeah and by the way you got to have a
little bit of a wallet to join ECE just from if you’re not a big siiz school
like you guys are and you know we actually try to the Consortium does its best to try to accommodate every sized
organization yeah so but yeah it’s been so helpful to me it was so helpful during covid and uh you know being a K12
person that kind of stepped into early care I just I’ve learned so much from
Tom and Joe and Mar and Maryanne and Chad and Gigi and Ricardo and Kristen
and uh a lot of those folks have become good friends and it’s one of the things I really love about the space is how
everybody’s in it together everybody’s trying to help one another out you know it’s not like that with many Industries
you’re exactly right you know it’s funny because we’ve had G on here we’ve had Chad we’ve had Ricardo I’m happy to have
you on here today and is great because I’ve get these slightly different perspectives from everybody but the
camaraderie in such industry that is really sort
of in a way on its own that has to advocate for itself to move forward and
we’re in a very unique position because we’ve got something genuinely as a why
Factor our why is so strong you know obviously the next generation of kids to make them amazing you know and so for
all work together is key yeah and and I think if there was a positive with the
co Co era it was that child care is essential and then we
saw people back that up financially and now this this now now
we’re now now they’re stepping away from that so we need folks to lean in and and
help the providers and the parents out the way that they did the last couple of
years moving forward so absolutely and to get us kicked off
today Jeff um let me ask you a question it’s one of the questions I like to sort of start with and it is is you know if
you want to think of a memory when you know you were young uh not saying you’re not already
and still young but a favor memory or maybe a funny childhood memory that sort
of sparked your interest I’m not going to say so much in child care because you came into child care a little bit later
than some have but I want to get into that story and I think it’s great but I would say really for leadership if you
look at it when you were young was there anything to you that said wow I might have a little bit of a propensity to get
into the leadership game yeah well I I at my eighth grade graduation they gave
me a leadership award really it was a yeah it was a uh it was an American
Legion John F Kennedy leadership award wow and uh I was proud of that thing I
wore it around my it was a metal that I wore around my neck um yeah no I mean I think I think I
you know I grew up second of six boys you had to be a good team
member uh especially around the dinner table if you wanted to if you wanted to eat you know we all participated in the
growing of what we ate the catching of what we ate so I think for me leadership
was was looking at my pops you know looking at my mom and seeing how they
were leading us at home and then we you know growing up it was it
was your home it was your church and school and it was your sports so on the
church and school side I could look at church leadership with our pastor on the school side I could look at our
principal and our teachers and then on the sports side I could look at my co coaches and they
were all leaders and I think I played a lot of sports so for me being captains
of teams yeah made you a leader um and you know this is long before we
knew about EQ or people orientation or you know things like that so I had a
natural kind of thing for it and for people and I really found as I grew up I
was much better in those situations than I was in an individual contributor kind of
situations and so talk about that a little bit you said that you were possibly were you a team captain with
one of your teams or a few of them me many of them many of and not and it’s
what’s so funny about it Tony is it wasn’t because I was the best I I regularly I was regularly in
frequently not the best okay well you’re you’re showing some humbleness there but so why was it
why were it’s true it’s true why were you the team captain then no I mean I think I think I like to Rally people I
think I I love the way that coaches and Educators would sort of lay it out for
you and you know I think about my high school basketball coach and he would put up uh our agenda for practice you know
and it would show you know we are spending the next 2 hours and 53 minutes the following way and we’re going to be
doing this and these increments and these intervals and I knew like okay
well if we go in and we do this and I do this and I bust it and I work hard for this guy and for for my teammates it’s
going to be a successful session and it it usually was so I think with me they
saw that I was willing to make that kind of a commitment you know it wasn’t about
it was it was about being a part of the program it was about it was about putting that all together and the whole
of all that being bigger than us or me individually so I think I think a lot of
times my coaches my teachers my leaders saw that I was a
decent enough listener that bought into their system and tried to act accordingly you know insightful in the
fact that you were a listener as you mentioned that yeah well my dad was my
dad was a great listener um yeah I I tell people about this on his Tombstone
that says yes dear that’s most of what I heard my dad
say well you know what if it’s on his Tombstone bless his heart you know
that’s wonderful so when you look at like your father and you looked at what you were
starting to do and you started so one of the first things that seems to make sense here is when you looked at early
on leadership funny part is is you go right to listening is one of the first
elements of it and that’s what I that’s what we try to do today that’s what my team tries to do we try to ask we try to
listen we try to act on what our people tell us when they see that we do that we
develop trust with them and then it happens all over and and and that’s how
credibility is built you know yeah we try to do the same thing with our parents and our
NPS we try to ask them what we need to work on we’re much more focused on what do we need to work work on then what are
we good at and then we try to we try to implement and I think when you show
people when you ask and you act um it builds a circle of trust
so let me ask you about that I agree because a lot of this gets back to trust right it’s all about speed to trust in
my opinion now we’re going to jump all over because I’m G want to learn more about your background but one of the things
you said is when you listen and you hear feedback how do you process feedback
especially if it’s something that let’s say you don’t want to hear let’s say it’s feedback that’s coming to you that
someone’s being very authentic whether it be about your team whether it be about yourself whether it be about
something that you’re involved with how do you process feedback that may not
always be positive I think the human instinct is to try to rationalize and I
always tell myself and my team let’s not rationalize now you know let’s not let’s
not say why they might have said that let’s not say why that might be what’s in their head but it’s not reality let’s
take that as our real reality and and let’s start with that right whether it’s
true or not no and it’s very true that’s their that’s their reality that’s their reality well and they’re also this is
they’re trying to let you they’re trying to communicate and right right and when
parents tell us things you know we like to listen
because they’re entrusting us with the most valuable asset in the world yeah
and when our employ always tell us thing we things we like to listen because we feel that if we
do we can not be a staffing company we can be an early care education
company and you know I give our Chief Human Resources officer and our chief operating officer
and others a lot of credit because anything that comes to us man whether it’s a note on LinkedIn or it’s a survey
result we take it very seriously and we act on it I think I think I think
as a result of that that’s why you know knock on wood um we’ve done all right with
Staffing in the midst of all these Staffing crises yeah I think that we’ve I think
we we jumped out ahead of it with implementing a lot of employee based initiatives based on what people told us
would keep keep them with us and then we keep asking and I think the other thing
Tony is like it changes with people every year some years they talk to us
about compensation another year it might be uh 401K matching another year it’s
leadership development another year it’s like all of those things um and I also I sometimes people
like ask us about how we do this and what I say is like just know that if you
create a culture where you’re setting this up for yourself you got to see it all the way through because you can do
yourself damage if you don’t and um they’re going to keep
telling you so our folks now they know like okay This Is How They Roll we’re
gonna keep telling them I’m gonna keep sending a message you know and it’s good because you know what I’d rather they
tell me than some third party well and you know I love what you’re saying there
and by the way like Mary and H are amazing people when you look at
execution and this is very much it almost reminds me of now why you’re a team captain for some things because a
lot of times it’s about like you know when you’re I remember when I was playing football and stuff like that you
know I was a tight end and that was a horrible tight end I was a tight
end but he’d be like do not run for the you know first down Run for the goal
line every time execution get to the goal line and run right through it sort of like Forest gum run right out of the
stadium if you have to and and and if you’re lucky enough to get in that end zone act like you’ve been there before
exactly so when you look at it now and I am I am G to get back I promise but you
talked about something I think is really important about listening but then following up and really following
through when you look at building that into a culture what do you think are the critical elements to get a leadership
team as well as your teammates your staff to do that which is so important it’s difficult in cultures today is to
follow up and follow through yeah so I mean for
me I I’m really the product of uh Management training and working for
General Electric company which at one time was the biggest best company in the world and they had uh and I know you
know that with your New York presence so Jack Welsh hey yeah yeah Jack Welch was my boss’s boss
for 15 years and I’m so blessed um so you know they would they would do kind
of the three-day to set vend diagram with people process and technology and if you start with people
and you get the people side of it right um everything else Falls in line yeah so
for me I knew that if I wanted to operate our company this way the only
way it was going to going to be successful is if I flank myself and I
build a team that was willing ready and able to operate that same
way W and you know the other thing too Tony is for us and I think a lot in
early care you have to make sure that every position and some of the positions
you might not think of Chief Financial Officer general counsel Chief marketing officer officer
you have to have people that care about what you do yeah it makes a big difference our people that are the most
successful are the ones that care the most about what we do well and let me
ask you about that too because you have a blend of people who’ve grown up in the
industry right and you also have people who’ve come from outside of the industry because of obviously some of the
leadership and the development talent that they could bring to a a really well
flourishing organization like Big Blue Marble Academy right when you look at
that blend have you found those people from outside of the industry really gravitate and sort of get the taste of
what child care really means and how do you yeah yeah and you
know for me if someone is a multi sight
operator they have the Ops background maybe they’ve worked in
education in some form even if it’s highered maybe they’ve worked in health
care services yeah there’s a lot of commonality with our industries that way
and then it becomes a matter of really understanding appreciating different state regulations
and laws yeah right and then if so so that’s the stuff you have to learn if
you’re going to oversee people that operate in those States um but yeah I mean we we were
very intentional about wanting to have folks from inside and out and we were
also very intentional about trying to um promote from within as much as
possible and we have we’ve done a lot that’s awesome yeah you know so heading
back a little bit to you and your development if you were to look at you know you talked a little bit about your
basketball coach wunning down an agenda but if you look back at maybe a teacher
or a coach heck maybe even your mom or dad what are some of the philosophies
that just really grounded your who maybe one of those people that you were just like you gravitated to and like it was
their style that you like you grab so much from do you have one or two people who were like that in your life yeah you
know I mentioned my mom and dad um they were very very humble uh
hardworking folks um a couple of coaches come to mind
um I think I I think like people
that people that show you that model the right things for you are so influential
um and I was just really lucky to have that uh and to have that privilege
growing up and sometimes it’s like in retrospect
it’s a lot of the folks that were pretty tough on you in the moment yeah um I did
really well later in my career as a matter of fact this is the first time that I’m golfing without a swing coach
this is the first time that I haven’t had my executive coach who I’ve had last
four employers wow because he is T is soft as
smoke and tough as nails and he made sure 20 years ago that I was the most
self-aware executive that I could be and a lot of us think that we’re self-aware
but we’re not a lot of us think that we have a heavy and high emotional quotient
um but it can be greater and more war and um you know a lot of books have come out
recently about working with folks that aren’t necessarily self-aware and and uh
working with narcissism and different things like that and these are a lot of things that this guy like shook me and
made me realize about myself that I didn’t really realize myself so it’s
been a nice continuation of family teachers coaches
other leaders and executive coaches and I’ll tell you this too I mean the other
Blessing about you know being a CEO for 30 years being in the workforce for 40
something years is not only like what you learn from people that you want to
be but also seeing those other models of what you don’t want to be right and I know I’ve been Mo both to people um so
those are just a few of the things and few of the types of people that come to mind but my father was a heavy influence
my high school basketball coach Bruce Brown was a heavy influence uh my executive coach Tom o
shout out to Tom um it was a was a it is a great influence
um and my family’s a great influence you know my my wife keeps me trust me keeps
me extraordinarily hum humble because she’s a very humble person and one of
the other benefits that I’ve really had in the child care space is the fact that
she recently retired she was a three four year-old teacher for 20 plus
years um my middle child my my middle girl is a is a three four yearold
teacher and um you know knowing from them as I made the switch from K12 into
early care about what was different and what’s
important they’ve been good teachers and good role models to me and they really
helped me get some like quick credibility with my new people uhuh when
I was able to say like my wife teaches this age level you know um so okay well
you get it then and I honor the center directors because I know what oh man
from her every day what her Center Director went throw yeah absolutely and I’ll tell you Center directors might
have the toughest job in the world honestly and I couldn’t be more respectful and proud of my directors too
at my schools yeah you know love tough game you mentioned early on about
self-awareness tell me a little bit more about your philosophy on self-awareness because we have a a variety of people
who listen to the podcast and some of them might be just hanging on there a little bit and going Jeff you know what
do you mean by self-aware what does that mean to you yeah well and and the and the other
thing is like one of our four cornerstones and it’s tightly tied to it our second Cornerstone is that of
mindfulness and what’s commonly referred to these days as social emotional learning and just being very mindful of
others and the importance of teaching children that at a very early age so
just being really mindful of people and where they come from and knowing more
about their history I I wasn’t a huge Jimmy Johnson fan when he was a a head
coach but I admire the heck out of the guy yeah um and you know he had an adage
which is you don’t want to treat everybody the same you actually want to treat people very differently you want
to be fair to everyone but you also want to understand what makes people tick being aware of
what’s important to someone else not assuming that that which is important to
you is important to them so whenever I I
really talk to them about what they want to be how they want to get there
um and I and you know people used to people used to talk to me about money
and money didn’t motivate me money was the byproduct of what happened you know
I wasn’t focused on doing well you know I was focused on doing good and I
thought if I did good I would do well uh It’s Kind of a Funny Story too with me um not to get too off track but
you were talking about like influential people ironically my Educators talked me
out of Education I thought I want I had a period where I thought I wanted to be a priest they didn’t they wouldn’t have
me um had a per I had a period started my high school career in the Seminary
actually I started um so but my teachers
my teachers thought you you’re G to be really good at business you know go into
business and then help out education afterwards that’s exactly what happened
to me I had a 20-year career in business and in the last 20 years I’ve worked in
the business of Education I’ve worked in education isn’t that amazing how that totally
amazing man it’s totally amazing you never planned it I never planned it it’s
but it’s what they told me to do that’s great Jeff yeah well you know
when you look back at I wasn’t very self-aware as I gave that explanation you asked me to talk about
self-awareness about that other thing that talked about something that you talked about a little bit ago but I think part of self-awareness is just
am I you know in the moment how am I being right now am I
listening right now am I yeah yeah um if I schedule an
hour to do a town hall I make sure that we don’t spend any
more than half of the time talking got to spend half the time hearing half the time listening half the
time being aware of the experience um I love the Gen Z folks I
love how they want to be involved with great social causes I love how they
expect us time to provide
them with time to work on things that are important to them you know yeah if I
just came in there as a baby boomer operated like a baby boomer I’d have a
very high turnover rate yeah you’d have a very low amount of staff members right
right right but I but I love that about them I love that if you ask them they’ll
tell you oh yeah it’ll be straight up for you and so you talk about that generational because you know between
Millennials and geners they’ve gotten a little bit of a black eye from you know the ones who’ve been in leadership a
little bit longer and those are the you know baby Boomers and then you know gen xers and what have you right and it and
and what I hear you saying it’s a little bit not fair because we’re sort of not listening to them of what’s important
yes we’re not hearing them things are things are of different import to them
than might have been important to to us yeah and we think about the influences
because of when we were growing up like you mentioned you had parents who were hardworking who are very humble you know
everybody these Generations come from a very technal technological age social media for their parents even in
themselves and so there’s totally different influence styles that they up
with yes it’s interesting because you do have to really adapt because you’re
serving so many different types of demographics absolutely and to your
point you know with them growing up with technology full stop the way that we
didn’t I’m always amazed with that with my own children how they know what to do
and you know yeah how they can give us tips oh
gosh that’s all my kids do it go beyond tips it’s my it support team right that’s right so you also mentioned about
your executive coach and you even named him out there you know one of the things
a lot of people who listen here sometimes I think struggle because a number of us you know candidly lead
leadership is a lonely job it can be a lonely job because you sometimes can’t
share things with your direct team that you want to sometimes you definitely can
you use an executive coach for those whether they invest in executive coach or they find a mentor what have you
found over the years as the value of a mentor or an executive coach that is really helped you get to next
levels yeah well I it kind of goes with with leadership like we are raised As
Leaders to think we have to have the quick answer to think that we have to be
the one that has the say one of the biggest best
fastest things that he taught me was you you don’t always have to be the
one popping your head up you know it’s sometimes it’s best to kind of keep your head down a little bit um I
I’m I’m a reader I I for years like anything that John C Maxwell put out I
was the first to buy and uh and and his 21 indispensable qualities of a leader
you know he gave the stories of of General Norman schwarzkoff General col
Powell and the fundamental beliefs of how you have to let other
people learn so sometimes you know you dispel Their Fear by stepping
in that field of landmines before them but then there are other times where you
have to allow them to take the steps that you were allowed to to take in
order to become a leader right and uh I think that’s an important thing that that’s one of the many important things
that that Tom has taught me um you know I think uh I think one of
the things he taught me was you don’t have to be all things to all people all the
time you know expand on that what does that mean to you I think sometimes we’re taught you know like I said we have to
have the answer we’re taught we have to be the guy we have to be the person
you’re the CEO you know and um no no I mean we’re a
member of a senior leadership team that’s laced with people filled with
talents and one of the big things I loved about GE was don’t be threatened
hire people bigger and better than you in every area and he was he wasn’t as
big on that too I really try to do that I did that today you know you know I
hired somebody onto the team where or am hiring somebody onto
the team where we don’t have it in our plan we
don’t have it in our budget I think she’ll really be able to help us you know train others as to how to do a
certain thing that our company can benefit from some people are going to be
threatened by that it’s going to be the best thing for the organization I love hearing that you
know one of the things I hear the word you haven’t said it but you’ve said it in so many ways other than saying the
word and that is really empowerment I if you ask me my leadership style that’s what I would
lead with yeah that’s what I hear all through this is all empowerment yeah I’m an empowerment-based
leader I was lucky to be at GE at their height they were an empowerment-based
company um I try to build the best team I can and stay the hell out of their way
you know but I’m I’m always there for them when when I need to be and I find
that with the successful leaders not only in this industry but with other successful CEOs and leaders I’ve talked
to really having a grasp around true empowerment and like you said not trying
to be everything to everybody all the time has been part of their success
because they’re not putting the weight of the entire company on their shoulders they are spreading out the weight and it
makes complete sense it’s like you know one person cannot carry a stone to put it on that Pyramid in Egypt you know you
have to distribute the weight to make those things happen where have you found and I’m GNA challenge you just a little
bit where have you found where you were making some decisions possibly in your past when you’re like you know if I look
back a it I should have just handed this over to the team oh countless where do I start right
countless but but I’ll tell you this a on the way I learned of this tool this
decision M making Matrix that had time along the X and buy
in along the the the Y okay and and I I
get it out I put it up and I use it today so that folks know you
know there are going to be times where we take time there’s going to be times where we build Buy in and where those
things converge kind of in the lower part of the axes it’s decide and
announce there are going to be times that I’m going to decide and announce there are going to be times as we move
up the X and the Y where I’m going to gather we’re going to gather information
and we’re going to make an informed decision and there are going to be other times where we’re going to do full-blown
fullbore consensus building um
and I’ve seen a lot of leaders that think that the answer to success is to decide and announce everything and I’ve
seen other leaders that think that the answer is to take the time and build
consensus with everybody every time and along the way with these different
quality Six Sigma tools um I think what I’ve learned is the best thing you can do is to use the
right one at the right time um so that’s how I’ve tried to adjust
and when you think about that from decide and announce to informed to
consensus building you know that obviously comes from a lot of practice applying it see
where it works see where you’re getting the feedback and getting the challenges if you were to coach someone who’s like
listening on in here and you know let’s say they have one two maybe three schools want to get up to four or five
schools you know when it comes to sort of structuring and putting together a
management team what do you think are some of the cre the key things when you
you know you talked about empowerment what have you what you do but when you were recruiting like you were just talking about
recruiting what do you really look for as the kind of people you want to bring
in to sort of become part of that culture that you’re trying to establish yeah we talked about it a
little bit ago Tony with people who care I mean it’s amazing to
me how many people
care and it’s amazing to me how PE many people look at these posts as
opportunities to advance their careers and um
one will serve you well in the long term and the other one will only serve you well in the short term so one of the things we’ve tried to
do is build out our teams based on not only
the company that we are today today we’re 75 centers yeah but we’re going to double
in size in the next three years so we’re trying to build spent time with Mary on
it just a little bit earlier we’re trying to build build out our infrastructure and our team wherever we
can afford to do so in advance not in a rear right um so that as we as we add
and we add five different ways so but as we add we’re we’re there and we’re ready so
I think the other thing too that I would say is in addition to caring um I really
look for flexibility because I find that our employee one of the things I learned during covid was how flexibility will
serve you well you know parents need more flexibility
on number of days um employees need flexibility on
the days and the hours that they work we we used to have two schedules
and we used to say we have schedule a and schedule B and you’re new and you will be working schedule B and we’ll see
you on Monday and now I would say our staffing schedules probably look
like a Jackson poock print they’re
just splattered but that’s us being
flexible and and anything that we do for a new employee we want to make sure we do for an existing employee and then
some so I think I think flexibility is key I think the other thing is um I really
appreciate you know you mentioned and Mary they really appreciate people that have a willingness to roll their sleeves
up and do things themselves they are very proud about the fact that they can
guide and direct but buddy if they need to they roll up their sleeves and they get right in there and they’re doing
things so it takes people with a certain level level of energy and
enthusiasm to not only be reviewers but to also be
doers and I think that’s really valuable if you can identify that
especially upfront in the interviewing process because yeah I don’t want this term to
come across wrong but there’s a lot of people who can interview very well and give good interviews you know have
you found to be any secret sauce I want to get back also to your larger staff Beyond corporate in a minute here but
have you found in the interview process is there anything that you’ve really gotten to that authentic caring
flexibility and being genuine that you seem to go you know what this is maybe
this a little bit of my own secret sauce and how I recruit and hire because I honestly think that for a CEO because
I’m a CEO of my little company here is my number one job is recruiting it’s
just quality what’s your yeah well and and
the other thing that we do is on a cross functional basis our folks
get involved in the recruiting too because it’s not just for the manager
who will be working for the person or with the person but it’s for the people
that will also be working with the the person that are very that it’s very important yeah so you know I’ll get
involved with every district manager hire but Mary
will get involved not only with that but with every Center Director hire wow um
and that’s I mean that’s that’s I think that’s saying something um it’s a little bit rare in this industry that’s great
assistant director hires Regional educational specialist hires
um Quality folks hires compliance folks
hires um because making sure that that
folks are different but have important traits are very important yeah when you
look at the greater challenge that our industry’s had you know since the pandemic started till now has been
really about staff recruitment and retention where have you guys gone to take this
head on because I know that every school in every industry has been challenged
here and if someone says oh it’s not a challenge then you’re doing one or two things you’re way way way overpaying to
the point where they’re going to stay with you no matter what or you’re doing something so amazingly right you don’t
even realize it but I know most schools have had that challenge with recruiting
and retention how are you guys attacking that yeah so I think one of the things I
found when I try to do benchmarking four years ago uh when I came into my role
that one of the things that I found that was very consistent was everybody was doing things and measuring things
differently um so people were calculating turnover differently people were calculating utilization rates
differently uh we as an industry haven’t necessarily put forward a spec it’s
something we’re working on but we still have a ways to go so we tried to get
inside of some of those kpis and and measure a little bit
better and look more at
okay what do the people that are staying have in common or when do they tend to
stay after they’ve served a certain period of time um or after they’re fully trained
up um and one of the measures that we created was looking at the number of
open positions so I can tell you as of today because I
looked at it today we have 2,222 positions
and we have 28 openings wow that’s pretty impressive
yeah yeah 1% yeah and our goal is always to be inside
of 4% wow that’s fantastic and Mary
monitors that daily I’m sure she’s right on top of it
yeah that’s some amazing stuff the the other thing the other thing Tony where that came from
is I’m I’m big on doing Center visits I don’t really like home office days we
don’t really have a headquarters per se the way that companies did back in the
day um one of the things I love about our people is the way that they’re not shy
about getting up in my grill you know and they do that man
and I had a center visit at a certain center in the state
of North Carolina and the sener director that particular
day gave me an earful about the num you know we had centralized
recruiting she didn’t have enough staff she was getting a high number of
call offs and I was like trying to understand like
okay well how are you managing this and I knew something was off because when I went there she was deep in the play area
because she had to keep us within ratio you know so she felt badly that
she couldn’t greet me and sit with me in her office and things like that so she
gave me my butt kicking out out in the back 40 um but it had a mo like it had an impact
on me and uh if you if you watch below deck I want a little captain Lee on
people myself because this is not how I and we want to operate um so we then
instituted a rule that we will never have uh five staff openings or more at
any Center knowing that they average two call offs a day right you know so I look
every day to see staff openings by Center
and I ask people what we are doing about this site I had three yesterday that had
five in our um operating review so we spend time
where we’re read we spend time talking about not everything that’s going great
but what are we doing to help those Center directors so that they they don’t have
those openings because one of the things I’ve learned especially with folks in early care is they really like to work
with the age level that they signed up for yeah um and you know people working
with infants don’t necessarily want to work with fouryear olds and and vice verse they want to come in they’re not
looking for a lot overtime like they want to come in work with these children
then want to go home to their own families and that’s a good thing so I looked at it like if we get nothing else
right Tony if we can get Staffing right yeah it’s gonna cure a lot of other
evils for us and it has it makes people
the the the best thing you can do for your center-based people is help them be
fully staffed because if you want them to be happy that’s where the game begins
it’s a little bit of maso’s hierarchy of needs right oh it’s it’s a lot of it and
what you’re naming Jee is so spot on in a sense that Staffing is the secret sauce you mentioned it earlier when you
were talking about being with GE and the conversations around staff you know that
is the common theme I hear is if you can get your staff in the right area and the
right mindset and the right teamwork you’ve got the secret sauce down there other things a lot of things fall in
place yeah you know yeah so that’s I’d say I’d say that’s one of our key
differentiators is Staffing that’s wonderful we staff well we try to create
the global citizens of tomorrow through our education program you know through
Global World learning through language immersion through mindfulness through
Service Learning and I think the other thing that we do a little different
is we grow five different ways so we grow through increasing our utilization
within the company at our existing sites and centers we acquire both through Banker
Le processes and through proprietary processes where we’re
Farmers um we open our own Green Fields you know I did a tour of our upcoming
green fields in the greater Charleston area last week that was really cool um
we also do brown Fields where we take somebody else’s Green Field and make it our own okay um and then the other thing
that we do is our initial company was in
smaller kind of like next city over kind of situations where we might have small
100 um student size centers but the
market might say well you could really stand to have a 200 Center Ser uh size
Center there so we might like move a mile down the road into a new Pro
property bring those students with us double triple it size and we refer to
those as Green Field relocations or or Green Field expansions so we’re doing like each of
those things but the reason I bring them up in this conversation is you can only pull those things off if you get your
Staffing right oh gosh yeah oh gosh yeah because if you don’t have the right person in the right seat that’s a that’s
a big challenge especially for you guys who being pretty aggressive in your growth strategy which I think has been you know pretty well founded I see it
often times like I say on LinkedIn and I’m always loving it watching how you guys are out at sites opening up new
places and the like it’s been great yeah and you know we we did a lot of uh educa
Advanced analytics um and found that we’re going to be able to grow within
our existing seven of our existing eight states three to four times so our
strategy has been to backfill in our existing States
um we’re going to start to take on adjacent States you know because we’ve
been a Southeastern company so now we’re becoming more of a Southern Company and then we’re going to go kind
of up the coastline and into the Midwest and then the third stage is going to be
you know more Outpost related getting out to those bigger cities where a lot
of our uh premium competitors are because we think that that offering that
I talked about Tony really works well uh
for anywhere in the country so why not bring it why not bring it elsewhere yeah
no and it sounds very reasonable especially from what your approach is what would you say you know we’re
starting to get a little down here in time we’ve come through it really quick actually what would you say some of your
very best practices are Jeff when you think about the growth of your
organization and looking at who you want to bring in whether it be from a green
field or Brownfield or you’re looking at Acquisitions what what do you find is
really the best practices for yourself of what you’re looking for and what
others could be doing that make them attractive to Someone Like You whether it be an acquisition or to get involved
with them in Partnership somewhat yeah great question so for us because I think
Staffing is a core competency we’re happy to take on a
center that may be underutilized but we believe that we’ll
be able to get it staffed up that’s what our team has done time and time and time
again and you know we went through our own process last year so there were a
lot of cohort analysis performed on us and what the teams accomplished with
that has been great because they’ve been able to staff so they’ve been able to increase our utilization rates
accordingly so um that’s certainly important I think you know look in this
space safety has to come first so safety and compliance is something that we’ve
invested in and we’re investing more in this year we like to look at good safety
records and protocols um that’s extraordinarily
important our fundamental belief like when we acquire a
center we want to acquire the center in full and our belief is let’s create a
situation where the center director wants to join us because if she does
then her parental base her staff will will want to be will want to
join us and be happy with us too so uh and then the other thing that we do
we try to be a buyer of of choice um we
find that with the education elements that I mentioned that we’re
providing a lot of times there are particular sellers that have wanted to
provide those things to their family bases but they just haven’t been able to
they haven’t been able to find language teachers haven’t been able to do this kind of
365 approach to Service Learning um they haven’t been able to
make the investments in the curricula but but they and their their they and
their staff are good fits and would like to in
the future so when we find that those things are appealing to them then that
makes for a nice conversion for us and then what we try to do Tony is and this
is aggressive we peel the Band-Aid a bit we spend 60 days converting branding
converting all those things wow and and peel the Band-Aid in a way that that’s a
Big Blue Marble you know within 60 to 90 days
thereafter well it sounds you’ve really built in a lot of solid process that’s
starting to demonstrate results which is fantastic I shouldn’t say starting it looks like it has been doing for a
period of time well we’re we’re always learning though we’re always asking how we could do better knowing that this is
what we want to continue to do and we’re far from perfect so you know our Center
directors tell us we need more direction we need to know the Playbook
we need who to turn to for what so you know they tell me that when I make my
visit so we’re not there I don’t want to make it sound like we’re there yet we’re not there yet but we’re trying to get
better at it every day well you mentioned a little bit about your director in Carolinas I
think recently in the child care space here what is an example maybe of a
misstep that you took that you were like well we sort of blew that one and what
was the lesson learned from it yeah
um there were some decisions that were previously made about site
locations um sort of roads that lead to Nowhere um you know locations
that were heavily populated or locations that were supposed to be built out or
locations where signage was supposed to be permitted and then what we found was in
those locations not everything went according to hoil
and as a result you know it took us a year it took us two years it took us
longer to get it to the point that we like to get it to in the first six to
nine months so I think one of our biggest learnings has been about you know the importance of center
location the importance about visibility the importance about being able to make
that left turn in and that right turn out y um our chief development officer is
extremely passionate about those things and uh we we we we try to get that right
now well that’s that’s absolutely wonderful I think I have one more question for you and then we’re going to
probably come close to the conclusion here and that is because we have a number of people who are listening who
are either owning their own School or operating their old schools and if you were to give someone
advice whether they were starting out or they’re just trying to get to the next level and they need to bring some
additional leadership game to the table what kind of advice would you give them at this
point I think we are all best as Leaders when we are true selves
um we were talking a little bit earlier about coaching and
mentoring and um I’ve been a formal Mentor I’ve been a formal
mentee I love to do a lot of informal informal mentoring uh today I’ll meet
people at Kathy’s conference and then they’ll say hey can I have a followup with you can we talk I’d love to hear a
little bit more about and before I know it I’m I’m doing like a monthly Zoom with that person and the rest of her
team and I love it I’m because that’s where I’m at my career sure so that’s me
trying to be my self yeah um the biggest advice that
I try to give to people Tony is like be be you do you be your true
self I think I’m at my best I think other people are at their best when they
don’t try to be somebody else you know I’ve been given praise to these GE programs they largely T taught me how to
be and that was great but I think working with my coach
and being what’s commonly referred to these days as the best version of
myself um I think I became my best when I no longer had to work
I don’t think and I don’t want other people to wait until then I don’t want other people to wait until you don’t
have to work anymore to be a better version of you right you know I was
always trying to be like this guy who was one level ahead of me because be you
be you you know that’s awesome I I try to be you know I like to think that I’m
good with people I I want to be good with people I like to spend time in our centers I’m going to spend time in our
centers you know and I think that’s where I’m at my best I feel good about
our conversation you know why because it’s so informal it’s it’s me and my
buddy Tony and we’re just talking right that’s it right well that’s we had an hour fly by I’m like oh geez I thought
it was only 10 minutes yeah I mean I prefer this format to a lot of the more formal things that I have to do you know
to testify before you know I’d prefer to do this that do that well you know what
though we I we really learned it I really learned a ton here I hope other people get out of it because I have to
say unfortunately or fortunately for those who listen out there I get a lot out of this myself my own personal
development and there is I guess a little selfishness there myself you know
when we look at this Jeff since we are wrapping up right now um I know that you
guys are doing acquisition and things of that nature if there’s anybody who has an l or an interest you know about Big
Blue Marble Academy or you’re going forward is do you have any thoughts about where you guys want to go and if
anybody is interested in being part of your world um you know yeah I mean let’s just just reach to us reach to me reach
to Lee Bose bohs reach to David O’Hare reach to anybody at Big Blue Marble and
let us know of your interest and where you’re where where you’re located um you know and if we’re not a
good fit for that market I’ll let you know one of my friends that I mentioned earlier on the call that I thought think
might might be well that’s absolutely wonderful and you did mention some really good people and I’m happy to know
those people too because like yourself Jeff they’re really salt of the earth and I’ve had a a very good time in
having a chance to talk with you it’s not been an interview but it’s really been a good conversation yeah why I we
we appreciate everything you do for our industry my friend you do many different things and we appreciate all of them so
well thank you so much and that’s very kind of you so hopefully one day I can ask you to come back and you would
accept my uh request in the future you got it but with that said I’d like to
thank Jeff while for coming and joining us from Big Blue Marble Academy Jeff has obviously been an outstanding leader in
his field and continues to show us a way where he’s both humble and kind but very
thoughtful and I’m very appreciative of the time you spent with us so thank you so much Jee for showing up this is Tony
Di austino with inspir care 360 and this is the ECE CEO biography Sage wisdom for
the child care leaders out there I’d like you to uh continue to join our
conversations and please provide us any feedback you have we really enjoy doing this for you and if you have any
feedback for us we’d like to take that and Empower us to the next podcast thank you everybody and have a wonderful day
you have been listening to ECE biography Sage wisdom for child care
leaders thank you very much for listening we are greatly appreciative of your time we will continue to produce
these programs on an ongoing basis and please hit the download button and
subscribe to our podcast so you do not miss an episode thank you very much and
hope you have a wonderful day