Coaching or consulting? What is the difference?
How can you tell the difference between coaching, consulting and therapy?
How do I decide which one is best for me?
Professional & Personal development professions overlap.
There are many kinds of professionals that come in to provide support and guidance to help their clients live and work better. While the differences may be obvious to some, most often there is some confusion as to who does what. Sometimes even the people practicing these different professions are unable to tell you where one starts and the other ends…so it should not be surprising that clients are confused.
“What is the difference between coaches and consultants?”
Although all the professionals below provide support to your work and life, there are key differences that I have tried to explain in the table below.
In the sphere of personal and professional development, one person also may take on two or more of these roles and has probably received professional training in more than one expertise.
In real life, the separation between each type of service is a little less clear. There are plenty of coach-consultants, coach-therapists, and consultant-trainers etc... Please treat the information provided as a helpful guideline so that you can distinguish between each kind of service, but keep in mind that there are no absolutes here.
Psychologists and Therapists: Professionals (often licensed) who provide a variety of treatments and rehabilitation for people with mental issues. Specializes in helping clients develop better cognitive and emotional skills and reduce symptoms of mental illness.
The client needs that this profession responds to: “I want to understand my past and how I got to be the way I am.” The time orientation for psychologists: The Past. For those clients needing and wanting to comprehend, release and heal. In general, a longer-term commitment than other forms of guidance.
Corporate Consultants have more of an advisory role: When the ask is “I want to be able to do this, show me or tell me how,” is when consultants are brought on board.
A business consultant is an expert that analyzes and advises you on how to make your business or some aspects of your business work better. Consultants provide specific advice and strategies – essentially, they tell you what to do.
Time Orientation: Present to Future-Oriented
Corporate Trainer: When the ask is: I want to learn a new skill or acquire new knowledge we call in corporate trainers.
Training is about transferring knowledge. A trainer has knowledge to share on specific subjects and teaches you concepts or specific tasks in a pre-defined area of competence. You then need to practice to become proficient.
Time Orientation: Present to Future-Oriented
Individual and Executive Coaches:
If someone needs to move towards and achieve a specific and near-future-based goal, this is when coaching can provide a powerful springboard.
The coach will take you through the experiential and experimental process of:
Where am I now and where do I want to go?
What do I need to do to get there?
The coach-client relationship is an engaging partnership. Over time a coach will help you learn to look for, experiment with and apply solutions for yourself. The concepts of self-authorization and autonomy are integral in coaching.
Your coach asks questions that guide you in defining and refining your goals. A skilled coach also uses a variety of coaching tools and protocols to help you acquire greater self-awareness so that you can use your skills, abilities and resources more effectively.
In coaching, you will experiment with solutions and ways to move the cursor towards your goals.
A coach's job is to guide you and explore the questions:
“How to get from where I am, to where I want to go?
What is stopping me from getting there?
What might help me get there?”
Coaching concentrates on experiential learning and development.
Coaching teaches you to get a higher perspective so that you can make better decisions for your work and your life. You get a holistic view and gain the ability to step back and examine, to get perspective...in other words to meta cognate. You develop your own strategies... that best suit your needs.
