The space between education and business is where I do my best work

I keep coming back to a question. How can a young person choose a future they have never had the opportunity to see?

We ask students what they want to do when they leave school. We ask businesses where their next generation of people will come from. Yet too often those conversations happen in separate rooms.

There are brilliant young minds in our schools, and there are businesses doing extraordinary things, sometimes just a few streets away. I want them to know about each other. More than that, I want them to understand what they could make possible together.

That is the place where I do my best work. The intersection of business and education.

The opportunities on our doorstep

In my earlier article, Manufacturing does not need a rebrand. It needs a better entry point, I explored how we help people see the careers inside an industry they may know very little about.

A student might drive past a manufacturing business every day without realising it needs people in design, finance, logistics, technology, marketing and project management. They see a building. Inside it is a whole world of possibilities.

That thinking reaches well beyond manufacturing. Young people deserve to understand their local economy. Who operates here? What problems are they solving? What does the work actually involve? Where might my strengths be useful?

And businesses need to see the potential in the young people growing up around them. Waiting until someone applies for a job leaves an awful lot of that discovery to chance.

What this looks like at school

My work as an academic advisor with Caloundra City Private School’s Agile Graduate Programme brings this into very sharp focus.

What I love about the school is its willingness to look at future possibilities and ask how the experience of school can help students explore them. There is a real commitment to doing things differently, with purpose behind it.

The programme creates room for students to combine their academic learning with experiences beyond the classroom, including opportunities to spend two days a week exploring work, training or other approved pathways. An ATAR and university may be part of that picture. So might a qualification, an apprenticeship, a traineeship or a direct move into employment.

Whatever the pathway, I want the student to understand why they are choosing it and what it will ask of them.

My conversations with students get quite practical. What are you working towards? How are you using your time? What are you finding difficult? Who could help? What have you discovered about yourself through the work you have tried?

I care about their results. I also care about whether they can recognise when they are stuck, ask a useful question and take responsibility for what happens next. Those capabilities will travel with them through study, work and the inevitable changes of direction.

Give them the chance to try on the role

My involvement with QPEC ECOMAN comes from the same conviction.

Through the business simulation, students take on roles such as managing director, finance manager, production manager or marketing manager. They make decisions and experience the consequences as they work together to run a company.

There is so much power in being able to try on that hat.

Suddenly, a decision about price affects something else. A great idea needs resources. The team has to agree on a direction and explain its decisions. Business becomes something they can participate in and begin to understand.

That experience gives students more to draw on when they think about their future. It can spark an entrepreneurial idea, reveal a strength or help them discover that a role they thought they wanted is quite different from what they imagined. All of that is useful learning.

The business side of the conversation

Alongside this, my work with NECA Queensland and RE3 keeps me close to the realities businesses are navigating.

With NECA Queensland, that includes business mentoring, member engagement and understanding what electrical contractors need to run stronger businesses. Technical expertise sits alongside decisions about people, profitability, processes and how to communicate value to customers.

With RE3, my strategic marketing work involves helping explain specialist resource recovery capability and why it matters to the people making project decisions. There are commercial, technical and environmental considerations behind that story. It is a fascinating example of the kinds of problems businesses are working to solve.

These are the worlds I want young people to be able to see. The people behind the job titles. The decisions behind the outcome. The range of skills needed to make something work.

Across these different roles, I find myself asking connected questions: what can people do, what do they need to develop, and how do we help others recognise the value they bring?

That connection shapes my work. It also gives me a clear view of how much more we could achieve by bringing education and business into closer conversation.

Mentoring helps people make better decisions

I have spent years mentoring business owners, and I see the value of that conversation again when I sit with a student.

Sometimes someone needs a different perspective. Sometimes they need to be challenged. Sometimes they need someone to notice a capability they have completely overlooked in themselves.

And sometimes the most useful outcome is deciding to stop. To let go of an idea, a direction or an opportunity that is taking them away from what matters.

I have seen mentoring help people grow their businesses, make clearer decisions and walk away from things that were the wrong fit. Knowing what to leave out can be every bit as valuable as knowing what to pursue.

Young people deserve access to that kind of thinking, too. They are making significant decisions, often with a limited view of the possibilities. A good conversation can help them work out what to explore next and why.

We need to make the connection clearer

After hundreds of conversations with business owners over the years, one question still cuts through: what problem do you solve?

It is the question I ask when we work on strategy, purpose or the words on the front page of a website. Your customer needs to recognise why your capability matters to them.

I think we need that same clarity here. Businesses need capable people who can learn, contribute and grow. Young people need opportunities to understand the world they are preparing to enter and recognise where they could make a contribution.

Schools, employers and mentors each have a part to play in making that connection practical. That means opportunities to experience work, tackle real problems, meet people doing interesting things and reflect on what the experience teaches them.

For me, this is where strategy, mentoring, education and marketing come together. I help businesses understand and communicate their capability, and I help young people begin to recognise and develop theirs.

I want a student to discover that an exciting future could begin with a business on their doorstep. I want that business to discover a curious, capable young person it might otherwise never have met.

That is why I am so passionate about this space. There is an enormous amount of possibility here, and I want to help turn more of it into something real.

If you are a school leader or business owner who can see that possibility too, I would love to talk.

Related reading: Manufacturing does not need a rebrand. It needs a better entry point