Coaching versus Consulting
Both consulting and coaching involve the use of a skilled, experienced or formally trained professionals to assist a client in identifying opportunities to improve or change, achieve goals, or take decisive action. The coach is a facilitator of change and the consultant is an executor of it.
But each professional approaches their activities from a different perspective; e.g. coach analyzes then facilitates the client before they take action themselves. The consultant analyzes, evaluates, provides a plan, and then takes action with or without the client taking part. This is especially true in consulting work with troubled or transitional small companies.
The coach, working one-on-one with the client will ask the right questions so that the client can arrive at the destination via the road-map that is personally best for them. But once the destination or goal is satisfied the consultant leaves the picture. A coach remains on the scene to encourage the individual client to stay the course and continues to act as a sounding board when new problems are encountered.
The consultant generally is more expensive since they or their teams will often spend up to full-time engaged until the goal is met, the change is made or the problem is resolved. The coach generally does not work full-time, normally employed in blocks of time or individual sessions much like guidance counseling. As such, coaching is a lower cost alternative and useful under appropriate circumstances and budget constraints.
There are many more differences between a consultant and a coach. Some of them are:
- Consulting focuses on problem solving, strategies, action plans, and accomplishing very specific tasks.
- Coaching focuses on facilitating and empowering action by the client while using the process of self-discovery that leads to decisive action.
- The consultant is an expert in his or her field and brings the knowledge and expertise to the situation that makes the difference in the clientís success or failure.
- The coach guides the client in a journey of self-discovery through the use of analysis, iterative questioning and introduction of factual tools aiding that process.
- Consultants take care of specific work for the client or provide a part of a process leading to resolution of a problem or task.
“In the simplest form, motivating an owner to tackle their business problems is coaching & tackling business problems on behalf of an owner is consulting.”
- Jim Mayer, Senior Coach, Veteran Consultant and Managing Member of DiversiCorp LLC
