Coaching Day 2022: The Waterfall Effect from a Participant Perspective

What comes to mind when you picture a waterfall? As someone who grew up around meandering rivers with gentle falls and the occasional dam, I picture a babbling stream in the valley below from my childhood home, later dammed by beavers who’ve long since abandoned their project, leaving a marshland in their wake. Or the brook through the softwoods across from my grandparents’ farm. Or the dare-devil leaps into the deep river pools below Bristol Cliffs. Mostly, I see an image of water coursing along and navigating the stones and rubble, always finding away around those impediments.

Graydin co-founders McKenzie and Quinn offered the image of a waterfall as a metaphor for the ripple effect of how small, incremental shifts can create change. Throughout Coaching Day, we were encouraged to practice and embed our skills through learning, coaching demonstrations, networking breaks, and ample opportunities to practice coaching each another. I came away equally exhausted from the intensity of the experience and energized from speaking with so many brilliant coaches from around the world!

One thing that surprised me was the extent to which I enjoyed Kumospace as a platform. It fostered a much more lively and choice-rich experience than a Zoom conference, giving each of us a great deal of agency in how we traversed the day. Facing true-to-life etiquette questions such as “would I be interrupting if I joined that group” and “it’s such a comfy-looking couch, but am I sitting too close to that person” and “how can I gracefully step away from this conversation,” Having the liberty to move freely and meet up in pairs or trios was remarkably effective. It was altogether more rewarding than being sent to a pre-populated breakout room with a countdown timer hovering.

What did you take from Coaching Day and “The Waterfall Effect”? How is your awareness of scaffolding showing up in your coaching? What are you noticing as you become more intentional about checking in throughout your coaching? These are some of the concepts that I’m holding front of mind, recognizing that I am where I am on my journey, and the power of coaching becomes clearer each year.

Most of all, I send my gratitude to each of you for coming together to make for a spectacular day (or night) of learning together. And to Quinn, McKenzie and Amy for making it all possible.

— Rachael Elliott, Longy School of Music