Coaching verse Consulting (Veteran Edition)

When looking at ways to better yourself and reach goals for either your company or yourself you will see two types of direct support: coaching and consulting. To most people these words are interchangeable, however they provide two different types of support. I like to explain the difference in the following analogy.

Imagine you were given an op order to set up an outpost on top of a mountain. You can see the mountain so you shoot an azimuth and start patrolling in that direction. The terrain at first is easy to maneuver but before long you come to woods with multiple steep terrain features. As you scout out the woods you notice multiple avenues of approach that will get you to your objective. Some look like they lead directly straight the mountain, and others look like they attack the mountain from sides. While you are standing there a NCO (coach) comes along with a map. You ask the NCO the best route get to the mountain. Instead of telling you which path to take the NCO provides training utilizing questions in a crawl, walk, run manor. Based on how you answer the NCO helps you eliminate certain avenues until you decide which approach is best for you. You then take that route and the NCO follows you to repeat the same process if/when you come to another area with multiple approaches.

Now let’s consider the same scenario but instead of an NCO (coach) that walks up, it is an officer (consultant) with the map. You ask the officer (consultant) which avenue of approach is the best route to get to the mountain. The officer tells you can take paths A, B, and C to get there the fastest. The officer then tells you the distance and incline of each path. Then leaves it to you take the path you want and tells you to report in at your checkpoints and call if you need further direction.

See the objective of both the NCO (coach) and the officer (consultant) is the same; to get you to the mountain. How they help you get there is very different. The coach will guide you allowing you to decide how to get there, and a consultant will give the fast way there but it may not be the best route for you.