There is an old saying that predictions are difficult, especially about the future. Many times, when we run into problems, we blame random chance as the cause of the problem. For example, we might have scheduling problems due to random unpredictable events:
- Three staff are out sick on the same day.
- A critical staff person leaves for more money or to go to graduate school.
- Several staff members are on maternity leaves.
Sometimes the children we serve have problems that we blame on random chance:
- He was asking to go outside, but we had to say no because it is raining.
- I was there to do the session, but he had to use the bathroom and I missed most of my time with him.
- We were working on the iPad, and the battery ran out just when we were going to work on the reading program.
Sure, random unpredictable things do happen and you can’t prevent all of them. The mistake is thinking that the event was unpredictable and there is nothing that I could have done to prevent all the problems that the random event caused. I just have to deal with it.
No, you don’t. You might not be able to predict the time exactly, but you know that sometimes multiple staff will get sick on the same day–at least occasionally. What’s the plan to handle that? Why can’t the child be asked to go to the bathroom before critical sessions?
Having a plan–a system in place to handle these types of “unpredictable” events–often means the difference between success and failure.