Consulting, Coaching, Mentoring - What’s what?

This weekend I was working and learning more about how to create a coaching program online. To get the right start I began listening to the training videos Brian Campbell has created as part of the Social Media Marketing System.

He is describing in a lot of detail how a person who wants to coach and make the online world part of the revenue generating stream should proceed.

In his systematic approach Brian, at one point, mentions that a coach tells other people what to do. My immediate reaction was: “that’s not really true, at least not as I see my coaching work”. He goes on to compare this coaching to the coaching done in sports , where the coach actually tells the athletes what to do – or does he? 

Come to think of it, especially with the Olympics fresh in all our minds, we have seen many coaches passionately talk to their teams or athletes when things aren’t going right. At the same time we all know that claim that the coach is not actually performing the sport and has to depend ion the execution of the player or athlete.

In business or individual coaching the same thing applies. It is really not so much telling someone what to do but to remind him or her how to best apply their talents.  I dug a little deeper and found the following definition in the most recent issue of T&D Magazine, the publication of www.ASTD.org.

They say:  Coaching is: ‘Lifting individuals beyond their comfort zone’ The editor, Paula Ketter goes on to describe her view of the situation around coaching as follows:

“Coaching, historically, has been viewed as an opportunity to improve relationships or behaviors, create mutually satisfactory solutions, and attain positive outcomes when differences arise between and among people. But that’s just one form of coaching.

Coaching has become more sophisticated and can involve everyone from the C-suite, to teams, to new hires. A coach can play myriad roles—designer, facilitator, instructor, and coach—and employ many solutions to help individuals or teams become more effective and productive.

It is becoming commonplace for executives to have coaches. While there used to be a stigma attached to having a coach, the fast-paced competitive business environment is forcing individuals and teams to get up-to-speed faster than ever before.

That warrants having a coach—an independent observer from the outside who can be objective when examining the organization, the roles individuals play in that organization, and the expectations placed upon those individuals.

Coaching should be a partnership with willing participants. With formal training, coaches can be invaluable in inspiring clients to maximize their professional potential through a creative and thought-provoking process.

Coaches should be ready to provide feedback, focus on rapid results, and take clients beyond their comfort zones.Retaining talent, promoting from within, and creating high performing individuals and teams should be a critical part of your organization’s business strategy.”

I believe coaching is acting as a guide to help individuals, groups, or businesses utilize their talents and strength, discover ways to achieve their dreams and vision, and provide guidance on the path of success.  In that sense, the consultant is probably more the person to tell someone or an organization what to do, often after a lengthy and expensive analysis of all the circumstances.

In this context it would actually be great advice form a consultant to suggest for a person, leader or organization to get/hire a coach to help guide the suggested process, so the suggestions aren’t becoming shelf knowledge and collect dust.

To round out this trio, the mentor is a little bit of a coach and a little bit of a consultant, but also a cheerleader for a certain direction or on behalf of a person.

When a coach should have experience and broad knowledge about the field he is coaching in, the mentor, at least in business and life mentoring needs to have detailed knowledge and experience. He is mentoring someone to learn form him or her how to do something. It’s is mainly a transfer of knowledge and wisdom form one individual to another or to a group.

I hope this clarifies what the differences in the tree terms are and what one can get out of each profession. It should also show that it wouldn’t be unusual to have a consultant or consulting company, a coach, and a mentor all serving the same company or organization on different issues and goals.

It can be confusing and the media has a tendency to use there terms interchangeable. Maybe this little description will help you keep them apart in the future. If you have your own definitions, like to add to my thoughts or feel you can’t agree with my views, please send me a comment and let’s talk about it. 

Axel Meierhoefer, AMC LLC