Week 4 - Coaching vs Consulting Essay TDW

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Feb 20, 2024

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Coaching Integrated Essay

When it comes to the idea of mentoring, coaching, consulting, and counseling, many terms are used and can be confusing or misleading. Business consulting is when one obtains advice and specified directions to obtain a desired business outcome. In consulting, the business often has a problem, and they don’t have their own answer for the challenge they are facing. Mentoring occurs in a business environment where one seeks career advice and guidance from someone who is an expert in the field. Therapy (which is often referred to as counseling and will be referred to as such from here), and/or counseling often is working to identify trauma and work through it before moving to coaching. Consulting and mentoring tend to be more of a one-directional conversation where employees and individuals ask questions and a mentor or consultant answers the questions and provides solutions based on their expertise and knowledge. Examples of mentoring would be an attorney who wants to level up in their firm to become a partner. In this example, the lower-level attorney would find a partner-level attorney who can provide advice regarding how to achieve partner-level status in a firm. Consulting is often used in an organization where one in higher management looks to someone outside the company for advice. In this case, a business would look for a consultant who has worked with similar businesses and can understand the elements that are at play for the consultant to provide advice for meeting the directional goals of the organization. Consultants offer expertise, resources, and advice to reach specified goals. With expertise and experience, consultants have a new perspective they can offer to solve various problems. Consultants are often able to determine business trends and competitor strategies for a firm to obtain a competitive advantage. Coaching is meant to develop solutions to reach specific goals that have been identified by the client, mentoring is one method to assist one to achieve the goals. Both coaching and Woodward, Tricia OPSY 515 Week 4- Integrated Essay

mentoring are future-based and are aimed at finding solutions. On the opposite side, counseling/therapy and consulting are past-based. They work to determine what might have “gone wrong” in the scenario and use that to identify the problem. Once the problem is determined, they create a plan to fix the problem. Coaching works with the foundation that the client has the resources they need and encourages them to find the answers through careful questioning and encouraging introspection. With the forward-thinking basis for coaching, individual strengths can be identified with their unique attributes being part of the foundation in the relationship between coachee and coach. Coaching provides a guided conversation based on exploration of the issue where it questions the person to identify problems and potential causes of the problems. With guidance by the coach, the individual is provided the opportunity to carefully think through the issue and come to their own solutions. In the business setting, coaching works with the firm to provide leadership and development training services, develop business strategies, identify growth opportunities, implement the best efficiency, streamline business operations, and assess business performance. Coaching key ideas focus on client initiative and collaboration between coach and coachee. The coachee must be a willing participant and be willing to do the work. The primary goals of coaching are self-awareness, self-improvement, and realizing the achievement of desired outcomes or the lack thereof. Discussions in coaching are open-ended acting as a guide for the coachee to learn about themselves and come to personal realizations they weren’t aware of. Many studies regarding coaching have shown many benefits for an organization. One study found that coaching a group of executive directors improved leadership skills by, “increased their confidence in leadership, improved ability to connect with the organization’s vision, increased confidence in leading the organization toward fulfilling the vision” and Woodward, Tricia OPSY 515 Week 4- Integrated Essay

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increased management skills by “increasing task completion and productivity, improved personnel management skills, fostering better relationship with staff and board of directors.” (501 Commons, n.d.) Coaching in the organization environment often works on a one-on-one basis but frequently with more than one person in an organization. Coaching works with each coachee to identify their strength and build on them to grow from the coaching experience. Differently, consulting is more than merely providing advice for a business, rather it encourages a business to determine its goals, prioritize each goal, and then work with management to work toward meeting the goals. Consulting can focus on different activities taken by a firm even taking it deeper by determining specific areas within the business such as the organizational strategies, analyzing competitiveness, and operations management. When goals are identified for a firm and then prioritized, then a consultant can do various things such as diagnosing problems, making recommendations, and assisting in strategy implementation. Consulting and coaching each have a place in the development of businesses and individuals. In consulting, there are hired experts providing new ideas. These experts are hired for a set time period and it is often related to a predetermined issue the firm is looking to address. Consulting tends to be prescriptive using research and industry standards to provide solutions. Some critical questions that come into play with consulting is asking how the value of the consulting can reach its highest value, how can a consultant provide their service without any influence by the business culture and politics, what is the amount of involvement the consultant has in the transformation of the business? There are some gaps in the research related to coaching and consulting. One that is seen often is related to cultural considerations. Depending on the location of the services, different states and nations have varying methods and attitudes related to the services which must be Woodward, Tricia OPSY 515 Week 4- Integrated Essay

understood. If a business has a multicultural staff, the methods and procedures being implemented should be looked at with the core question regarding how to make it work in various groups and locations. Additionally, while there is much research regarding consulting and coaching but they have not had much on the two being integrated. Integrating the two methods or specific elements from each one, may provide a more comprehensive structure for a business wanting the services. Finally, consulting and coaching both have easily identifiable short-term outcomes yet there has been little long-term research to quantify if business methods such as coaching has any long-term impact to justify its use in an organization. Additional questions to be researched are elements such as modern-day digitization and how that may impact consulting and coaching. This is increasingly important in the modern era of increased use of technology, more working from home and internet-based human interaction such as Zoom meetings. Another element is related to AI (artificial intelligence) and consulting and how human business consultants will be able to survive and outperform AI services. Sustainability is another element that can benefit from research as the world is becoming more interested in sustainable practices. Research can be used to determine what role coaches and consultants can have in assisting businesses in increasing sustainability. Consulting and coaching both provide different perspectives and methods and can be useful for increased development in both businesses and individuals. While coaching creates a partnership between the coachee and coach to enhance individual growth and personal awareness while consulting brings information, options, and insights to the individual or business. Both methods have benefits and detriments and each individual or organization should carefully determine what they hope to achieve from the interaction before determining which method is the best approach to meet the identified goals. Woodward, Tricia OPSY 515 Week 4- Integrated Essay

References 501 Commons (n.d) What’s the Difference Between Coaching and Consulting? Retrieved from https://www.501commons.org/learn/career-resources/whats-the-difference-between-coaching-and- consulting Cannon‐Bowers, J. A., Bowers, C. A., Carlson, C., Doherty, S., Evans, J., & Hall, J. (2023). Workplace Coaching: A Meta-Analysis and Recommendations for Advancing the Science of Coaching. Frontiers in Psychology, 14. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1204166 Crane, T. G. (2002). The Heart of Coaching: Using Transformational Coaching to Create a High- Performance Coaching Culture. San Diego, CA: FTA Pres Forbes Coaches Council (2018) Key Differences Between Coaching and Consulting (And How to Decide What Your Business Needs). Forbes Council. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescoachescouncil/2018/06/14/key-differences-between-coaching-and- consulting-and-how-to-decide-what-your-business-needs/?sh=4cdc6f303d71 Latiff, S. (2018) Consulting vs. Coaching vs. Counseling vs. Mentoring. Retrieved from https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/consulting-vs-coaching-counselling-mentoring-sue-latiff/ Shelton. S. (2024). Coaching vs. Consulting: Important Differences and Similarities. Executive Leadership Consulting. Retrieved from https://executiveleader.com/coaching-vs-consulting. Turner, A. (1982). Consulting is More Than Giving Advice. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/1982/09/consulting-is-more-than-giving-advice Teversham, L. (2022). The Difference Between Coaching, Counseling, Mentoring and Consulting. Retrieved from https://savvyselfgrowth.com/the-difference-between-coaching-counseling-mentoring-and- consulting. Woodward, Tricia OPSY 515 Week 4- Integrated Essay

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