The Grass is Greener Where You Water It
Coaching leaders and coaching careers — a top-down and bottom-up approach
As recruiters, sitting at the tables of International Job Fairs or of boardrooms, we question candidates on the course of their careers — their education, their moves, their experiences… and we critique these choices that they’ve made to decide if we think they’ll be an attribute. Are they a good fit or are they in search of idealised circumstances? Is the grass greener on the other side? Pursuing opportunity is what individuals must do for progression, especially when it can’t be achieved within a current set of circumstances. Based on my work with individuals as a coach, I know ‘is the grass greener’ isn’t a yes-no query. The answer is that the grass is greener where you water it… and you shouldn’t wait for someone else to do it for you. I encourage ambition.
Whether I’m interviewing, teaching or coaching, working top-down or bottom-up — I want all individuals to reach their potential and to strive for the best circumstances. As a career coach, having sat on the other side of the table with candidates, I know that opportunity is never about being good enough or privileged enough. Opportunity is about creation. It doesn’t matter if you’re in Africa or Australia, you need to improve your circumstances — ‘water your grass’ to achieve your career goals. I believe in a future where everyone gets the job they deserve.
A young teacher, from Nigeria, whom I coached required guidance on breaking into international schools and on strengthening his recruitment profile. He wanted recruiters to notice him. Being from a remote part of Nigeria and having no IB experience made his pasture appear quite barren. As a coach, I look for the potential and I start helping to water the grass. This teacher’s objective was to gain a teaching position in an IB school or an international school outside of Nigeria.
After working with clients to identify their objective, I help them identify every single pathway possible that could lead to it. There’s never only one pathway and you should cultivate each one to find your way to your destination. How you go about cultivating each one is by identifying pre-existing opportunities that are within your circumstances and exploit those as opportunities. My job as a coach is to provoke the thinking around the creation of these pathways — these opportunities.
These same principles that I use with individuals, I transfer to an organisation or a school. My coaching model transfer involves 1-1 coaching practices as well as auditing systems that are already in place. I distill coaching into two areas: 1-1 coaching and systems coaching. With systems coaching the focus is to improve the quality (and effectiveness) of teaching practices within an entire school and I use context to work with the school on how they can best achieve this.
Young people at the early stages of their career need to understand how to water their own grass… so I coach them to do so. However it’s equally as important that I coach leaders and executives to nurture talent within our organisations — the grass is greener where you water it. Within schools I want to contribute to a culture where every staff member, student and parent believes in continuous improvement. We as leaders need to provide the professional and personal development opportunities within our organisations to achieve this culture. Coaching is a solution and it can be achieved both face to face and online.
‘The grass is greener where you water it’ underpins my belief that every leader/manager should identify how they can maximise the effectiveness of everyone who works with them. Within organisations, once leaders identify how to maximise their teams potential, they can then build capacity by nurturing it. My work in leadership coaching and career coaching is a top-down and bottom-up approach to achieve full potential for individuals in their careers and for organisations. Fulfilling potential through coaching is how you get the best out of people and out of teams.
Chat with me today, take the education that you provide to new levels through coaching. http://deidrefischer.com.au/contact
Artwork: Julius Popp, Mona Museum