A JOURNEY TOWARDS SELF REALIZATION – THE 5 LEVELS OF SCHOOL OWNERS

*THE TEACHER*

 

1. A) Almost Everyone starts out here. Every teacher is a potential school owner. The teacher earns salary, obeys instruction, performs optimally only when his work is inspected regularly and if he’s in the private sector as most of us are, he operates under this subtle fear of losing his Job. Bottom line, he’s afraid of loosing his monthly pay alert.

 

1. B) This informs most of his decisions, actions and performance. There’s really no fixed behavior to expect from employees. Their performance is dependent on three basic things – Pay alert, Welfare packages, Oga’s interests, emotions and their own personal emotions. They cannot run their own vision in the business. The best of teachers only find a meaningful interpretation and expression for their own life’s passion and vision through the employer’s vision…. *And that is being smart*.

 

 

*WERE YOU A SMART EMPLOYEE?*

 

1. C) Now I know I’m speaking to school owners, but access yourself holistically in light of the above statements…when you were a teacher, were you smart?

 

1. D) Many school owners find it hard now that they’ve started their own school because they missed the two most important reasons to be a teacher before starting their own school

 

1. To gain managerial experience, *not necessarily teaching experience*
2. To save up and raise enough capital to start strong

 

1. E) Ok, so you were the best mathematics teacher or a very experience biology mistress. With you in the external exams team, your proprietor/tress is rest assured in that subject. It’s a proud thing to be almost indispensable.

 

But teaching experience is not the major kind of experience to start a school and run it successfully.

 

Ever wondered why there are many who own mega schools today and are doing well in business but were not really teachers in the the educational field? Well, you may argue that they’re only in it for the money, but you’re in it for the passion.

 

*You may need to re-access that judgment.*

 

Truth is, teaching experience is not the only form of experience you need for running a good school business. You need a sound grasp though, but you need much, much more than that.

In all of your 15, 20, 25 years of teaching experience, how many times did you (as a person) recruit, hire, negotiate salary, bargain with book suppliers, terminate staff appointment, interact with estate agents, settle with omo-onilè (Land Agenys) and CDA….the list goes on.

How many times did you go and practically beg parents at night not to withdraw their 4 kids abruptly from your school knowing this might create a ripple effect since these parents are highly influential? Yes! School owners do. I know you know now.

How many times did the bank call to remind you to fund your account to repay your credit, or how many times did you rack your head when the month is about to end and you have salaries to pay?

See, all you did was remain loyal, work extra hard, spend time, teach well, avoid queries, and most assuredly collect your salary every month.

So you may not have learnt to be a school owner. You only learnt to be a very good teacher.

If the above describes you (when you were an employee) then it may explain why your learning curve was long.

Please visit esmspro.com/a-journey-towards-self-realization-the-5-levels-of-school-owners-part-1/

 

Summary: 

 

1. Learn how to run a business (innovation, marketing, negotiation).

 

1. Attend a Business Class, get an MBA, Enroll for leadership Classes, pick a book on Emotional intelligence, negotiating, communication, project management, etc. Learn to Lead, manage, market and create new trends.

 

1. Let others help with producing the product the business sells. You will simply pay them

 

III. Courage means having fear and doubt but taking action anyway. So, shift your thought process from that of fear to that of trust – in God, in yourself, in that you’ll make mistakes and recover.

 

The lesson here is that we must never live any season or any time idle. We must cease to engage in activities that don’t add value for tomorrow. We must however strive to maximize the now.

 

*WHAT WE ARE NOW IS A FUNCTION WHAT WE DID YESTERDAY*

 

So don’t take time for granted. The School you have today is a product of yesterday’s dream. How large or good or established it is now is how much you saw of it few years ago.

 

*So it’s time to dream another dream, see a bigger vision, chart a wider course, fly a bit higher and see a farther horizon.*

 

*The SELF EMPLOYED SCHOOL OWNER*

 

You started your school with very little capital, this is usually the first jump on the school entrepreneurial ladder and for most, it’s the only jump. They just stay there. It’s a little above the teacher level because the school owner still does some chunk of the teaching and running around. You may even find yourself driving the children to school at times. You probably also cannot afford to pay yourself salary yet.

 

The Self employed school owner may see him/herself as still having a teaching job. That must change

 

It Looks like a sense of newly found freedom, but it really is not, its harder work. Harder than that of the teacher. There’s a lot of hope and ambition as if it’s going to just become mega in just a few months.

 

More often, what informed the self employed school owner is this:

 

You were working for someone else and you keep thinking these three things to yourself:

 

I can do a better job than them

 

How come they get all the money, when I do all the work? And

 

If I owned this school, I’d be the boss, I’d make everyone else do the work, I’d relax, I may not need to be in school always, I’d work a lot less. For everyone who jumped from being an employee (a teacher) to just becoming a self employed school owner, one thing runs through their mind

 

*I’m finally going to be the boss*

 

And with that, the race starts

 

Most, if not all of us have taken this step. It’s the most rewarding step you’ll ever take, But it’s certainly not the bus stop. Let’s see how to step up higher

 

*HOW*

 

Whearas, the emotional driving force behind most teachers is *JOB SECURITY*, You as a Self Employed School Owner is driven by another force:

 

*The desire to Control Our Own Lives And Our Own Destiny*

 

1. A) PLEASE AVOID THE TRAP

 

If what you know how to do best is TEACH and you believe you’re the best teacher in the world, then chances are you may be trapped if you have a school. Because you know almost everything about every other person’s job and you want to do it with them or for them if they fail. You may not have time to do anything else (dangerous). So you just find yourself working round the clock – doing what everyone else is doing and doing more than everyone else.

 

2) DREAM ANOTHER DREAM

 

Now you’re in control and you think you’re the best guy around, more experienced than all – But it’s dangerous if you don’t have a vision of doing something else. Don’t let your entire vision be limited by your previous training as a teacher.

 

When you start a school, you must start with the end in mind. You should know that you’re creating something that will work without you. So don’t Micro-manage – involved in every nitty-gritty. *RAISE PEOPLE* to do things

 

If you’re on this Level, then do the following

 

*NOW GO AHEAD AFTER TODAY, DISCIPLINE YOUR MIND TO ENVISION WHAT YOU SEE AS THE FUTURE OF THAT SCHOOL, THEN TAKE THE PAIN TO PUT IT ON PAPER. AS MUCH AS YOU IMAGINE AND AS FAR AS YOU CAN SEE – FOR YOUR SCHOOL*

 

It may take days, weeks, months or even up to a year. But do it, until you have a document you can go back to.

 

3) For you as a Self employed School Owner – know that business is not necessarily being busy working *in* the school, but being busy working

*on* the school. You’re not an employee in your school, you’re the employer. Your job is to grow your school

 

*WHAT YOU NEED TO LEARN AT THIS STAGE*

 

1. A) School Registration, Tax filing, SUBEB, WAEC, NECO, JAMB, Ministry of Edication, etc

 

1. B) Basic Accounting and Book Keeping

 

1. C) Becoming a great sales person – marketing, getting prospects and discipling them

 

1. D) Now, you still work long hours, but certainly not teaching or coaching or marking, but doing the 3 items above and 3 items below

 

1. E) Smart Cost Reduction means – saving, borrowing, recycling, improvising etc

 

1. F) Make as many connections as possible using yesterday’s methods of enlarging your sphere of influence.

 

1. G) Learn Self discipline, Responsibility and accountability to self and to others – even to subordinates

 

Break down the new enlarged vision you wrote down above into goals, create a position chart of who should do what (even if they’re not yet available). Write position statements for each position and identify where you are on that position chart. Then as you grow in resources, systematically push to fill those positions with the best possible individuals at reasonable costs.

 

 

*THE MANAGER*

 

This is a whole new level. Now You have and pay staff – academic and non academic. But you still work even harder – longer hours – than any of them, doing your own work and fixing up the mistakes of everyone around you. You’re probably the accountant yourself and so your head is always bubbling with figures and merchants.

 

THANK GOD YOU’VE LEARNT ALL YOU DEEDED TO LEARN AS A SELF-EMPLOYED SCHOOL OWNER

 

Now growing your school from level 1 to this level 2 is not easy at all as some of us may be facing now. If you have skipped any of the learning items in level one, it even gets more daunting

 

*THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE HERE IS WHO DO I DELEGATE MY SCHOOL’S VISION GOALS TO. CAN THESE SENIOR EMPLOYEES BE TRUSTED. HOPE THEY WILL NOT HIJACK MY SCHOOL FROM ME IF I GIVE THEM TOO MUCH POWER.*

 

At this level, your school is already seemingly looking ‘big’. Please don’t be tempted to stop working long hours secretly on your school. Don’t ever say, ‘Ive made it’. Cashflow management, team building and leadership setting is what you need most at this stage

 

The size of your wage bill is not an indication of how successful (more than the rest of us) you are. The more you hire, the finer your processes must be. Otherwise, the school will run into hitches

 

IF YOU’RE ON THIS LEVEL, HERE’S WHAT YOU SHOULD BE LEARNING AND DOING

 

1. Team building. Read a book on team building . It’s the toughest subject at this level, your school is growing, you need to build teams among your employees to handle various aspects of the school. You need to stop seeing your staff as just teachers. They should be mentored to mentor, trained to market, raised to sell, and so on. You owe them all these. If you succeed at building them effectively into teams that will teach them new things, you’ll have more freedom and they’ll trust you more with their lives.

 

1. With team building comes the challenge of delegation and leadership

 

III. Learn to handle growth, cashflow, suppliers, taming and discipling impossible parents/teachers and so on

 

1. Look for a book on emotional intelligence Read and digest it. That’s all I can say here.

 

1. NOW THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT – Learn Resource allocation. The manager must listen to all but do the most important things first with the limited resources at every given time. Don’t allow desperate and aggressive mechants (marketers and suppliers) pressure you into paying for products or services not on top of your priority list. Please don’t wait for a big mistake to teach you this.

 

1. Learn to process many decisions in your mind at the same time. The school is always very busy, active and sometimes volatile. Spending an hour at least everyday to think through the possible happenings and outcomes of the day will seriously help you through this.