What Is The Difference Between Coaching & Consulting?
Professional coaching mines the untapped potential inside a group, team, or individual. A coaching session with a professionally trained coach will feel like a comfortable, seamless conversation in which you discover something about yourself or your situation about which you were not aware. Thoughtful responses to the coach’s carefully constructed and well-timed questions and silences hold space for the evoking of this new knowing.
This new awareness, then, gives you an opportunity to make different choices. These choices take you to achievements and outcomes about which you may not have known before, or about which you had told yourself to “stop dreaming”. You set the goals for the session and for your work. You choose the topics and/or circumstances around which you work. One of the biggest advantages your coach will have is their genuine curiosity, fed by their willingness to “not know”.
A consulting contract is usually focused on achieving goals and tasks within and on behalf of a particular organization or group. These goals are set by those empowered to choose them, usually a designated leader. A specific consultant is engaged due to the expertise they bring to a particular challenge. For example, we have engaged in many strategic planning exercises.
Over time we have come to recognize commonalities in these efforts, which can inform our work with an organization. Though we tailor our work to accommodate the culture of the organization, we are employed, as consultants, to specifically support the strategic planning effort. A consultant enters the work because they are a recognized subject matter expert (SME). They are expected to know better than their clients what the process ~ and a good outcome ~ will be.
How to determine the best coach or consultant for you:
We expect that you will interview candidates, asking hard questions that will help us understand what you hope to accomplish through such a relationship, exploring how we might accompany you. In most settings, we would recommend scheduling at least a half-hour session with three different coaches/consultants before you make a commitment to work with any one of them.
What you are listening for is a kind of “yes!” that comes from a deep sense that there is a connection there, that you can trust this person, and you sense their investment in you. You will still want to check references. You may want to ask for a couple of referrals. That “yes!”, though, is really the key to a great fit in a coaching relationship.
At Potentials, we know that one size does not fit all. We have a diverse team of professionals – experienced coaches and consultants – who bring unique life experiences, as well as exceptional training, to their work. We know that “fit” is important for coaching to be effective, so we work to make sure you will work with the best person for you. We do not get caught up in ego games with each other; we are fundamentally committed to your growth and experience.
Take a moment and remember what it feels like to recognize with the whole of you a “fit”. What emotions did you feel? What curiosities and openings came with it? As you listen into those experiences, remember them in a way that they can help you listen for a good fit. It may or may not take three interviews!
Let us help you begin. Click here to learn more about the Potential’s processes.
