There is often confusion between the nature and content of consulting, training and coaching. Even though you think it sounds clear, there are practical differences that shifts each of these disciplines into another category and approach.
CONSULTING:
Consulting is the practice of providing expert advice and/or service implementations to third parties in exchange for a fee. Consulting requires an unbiased perspective for them to successfully occupy and play out their role. In today’s world, the role of a consultant is typically associated with focusing on things such as business strategies, management, operational processes, and technologies within the management and the list goes on.
Typically your trusted consultants don’t just practice with confidence because of their advantage in having knowledge on the field or topic at hand but the experience behind their name is generally what makes or breaks the trust a client has in the consultant.
Where knowledge & experience isn’t outweighing that of the clients, then the consultant is generally called in to play a role of “sound boarding” and advising from an unbiased perspective that can point out flaws and sustainable successes, because we have all been there whether your a CEO or a janitor, working with something for a long time can cause us to get used to what we are looking at or working with resulting in missed problem areas and KPI’s that can highlight huge areas of success.
Strength Synergy provides consulting to corporate business teams who want to take their awareness stage within the Clifton Strengthfinder tool further and implement its psychology & ideologies throughout the company's structures and procedures.
"A consultant is only as good as their last project." - Jon Taffer
TRAINING:
Training is a practice that involves the increasing or enhancing of someone's knowledge and/or skill, typically in exchange for a fee. This requires a trainer within the respective field of knowledge and/or skill you would like to improve on or gain. Much like consulting, training has a heavy base of providing answers, but more in a teaching sense, where a consultant is asked to advise on certain topics within a respective area of expertise, training provides all the information within their respective field of expertise, whether you may know the information or not.
Typically in training, the trainer will use a combination of teaching and consulting with a hint of coaching to achieve the training at hand. Thus, after providing the lesson/s which provide the bulk of information required to obtain the knowledge and or skill, the trainer will follow with practical application to see and assist the client with the areas of skill and knowledge they may need to develop in training. It’s generally in this part of the training where a consulting and coaching element is introduced, by providing answers when a client may have questions and coaching where the client may need guidance more than answers as they most likely already have the answer because of the teaching that already took place and their awareness throughout the training as a whole.
Strength Synergy provides training within the field of coaching, specifically providing a 7-week course for ICF coach-specific training that accredits the clients/students as professional coaches. By standard, this ICF training is accompanied by one or two direct one-on-one consulting sessions with our ICF accredited coach-specific trainer.
Strength Synergy also provides training courses specifically focused on the understanding and usage of a Strengths-based approach, like applied with the CliftonStrengths Assessment.
This is split into 3 levels, Core (Level 1), Enhanced (Level 2), and Master level (Level 3) training. The Core training is provided as an online course which you can complete in your own time, once you have achieved your core level you can advance to the enhanced level followed by master level training which is both online classes provided via zoom on specific starting dates for each.
"I’m building a fire, and every day I train, I add more fuel." - Mia Hamm
COACHING:
Coaching is the practice of helping a client identify their current barriers which are preventing them from reaching a goal or developing themselves more, along with forming an action plan through commitment toward the established agreement of what the problem or topic at hand may be. Coaching sessions are typically provided in exchange for a fee, and the length of the coaching journey is completely up to the client/ coachee. Metaphorically speaking, the client nor the coach knows how deep you have to dig before getting to the treasure buried below, what the client and coach do know is where they want to go, and knowing what you’ll need to do to get there can only be figured out once the coach and client start digging and pulling strands apart to see what is making up the clients current world, circumstances, and relationships among other things. Only once that has happened, can the client start to have their “ah-ha” moments, looking at themselves for the first time, truly giving a new perspective as to what their next step may need to be.
The field of coaching is heavily based on the ideology that every person carries the answers they need within, and that unraveling the information, the answer can be found. This is typically done by asking many questions from an unbiased and curious mind, will result in the client/ coachee discovering their actual barriers and how they can best move forward and away from what is blocking them from growth. Although it may be beneficial for the coach to have pre-existing knowledge and experience surrounding the established agreement, it is by no means a requirement, if a coach has managed to assist the client to make any kind of movement towards the better, then they have successfully provided their services. Promoting growth from within with the help of a partnership centered around the agreement.
Strength Synergy provides coaching within the positive psychology realm with a Strength-based approach by making use of the Clifton Strengthfinder tool.
"A coach is someone who tells you what you don’t want to hear, who has you see what you don’t want to see so that you can be who you have always known you could be." - Tom Landry
If you have questions on these topics or are maybe interested in our training or coaching services then send us a message via our contacts page and we will get back to you asap!