Coaching vs. Consulting
When I graduated from college in 1999, I found myself inundated with the term consultant. I’d ask my friends and peers, “Hey, what are you doing after graduation?”, and regardless of who they were, or what they studied, I was overwhelmed by the response - “Oh, I will be ‘consulting’ with [fill-in-one-of-the-biggest-Houston-firms-here].” It was perplexing – what did that mean, ‘being’ a ‘consultant’? Did we study anything that would make us good at that? I too, without really coming up with an answer to the question, decided that I could ‘be’ one as well. It only took one failed interview experience for me to determine that whatever it was, it wasn’t something I was equipped to do – then, at least.
So, on my professional journey throughout education, I have been surprised to find it re-introduced as a term used by many non-profits and programs to describe the working relationship between themselves and the groups they partner with. And yet, there are about as many other programs that attach themselves to the term, ‘coach’ to describe a similar working relationship. Hence my quest to determine what others have to say on the subject.
Indianapolis CS partner educator, Kelly McGuinness, coaches students through the Navigator
In my first search, I found that I am not the only one who struggles with this question. I happened upon David Mason - president of Mason Performance Development Inc, who says that consultants advise their clients on how to solve a problem while a coach helps guide the client to their own conclusions.
Simplified – “You hire a consultant to produce a certain outcome and you hire a coach to support and guide you to achieve the outcome yourself.”
I then decided to look at a world renowned consulting firm, Deloitte, who is a major partner in our work at College Summit. Here is what they offer as a definition for their method of consulting:
“At Deloitte Consulting LLP (Deloitte Consulting), we don’t just leave our clients with in-depth reports or simply deploy the latest software package. Instead, we work side-by-side with our clients to develop innovative strategies and solutions. Then we help execute the plan — because we believe that’s the only way to create real and lasting value.”
And yet another leadership group, called PATHOS, offers a hybrid of sorts:
Coaching - Coaching is a method of directing, instructing and training a person or group of people, with the aim to achieve some goal or develop specific skills. There are many ways to coach, types of coaching and methods to coaching.
Consulting - Consulting is providing advice in a particular area of expertise. The “program” guidelines are well established and the implementation procedures determined in advance of the assignment.
They posit, “Our years of experience in the consulting field (Change Consulting) have allowed us the opportunity to deliver a method of coaching that often utilizes a hybrid methodology, mixing the best of consulting and coaching.
So, it seems clear to me that there is not a definitive answer to the question of what distinguishes consulting from coaching. When we think about how College Summit can best interact with our school partners, we know that we must somehow strike a workable balance between consulting and coaching. But how do we begin to do so? I’d be curious to know what my peers in this work think.
