Coaching vs Therapy vs Consulting

Coaching is often lumped with either therapy or consulting, or indeed, both. However, it stands distinct from both of them. Therapy is mostly about examining root causes and uncovering suppressed emotions. Consulting is about telling someone how to accomplish something - giving advice. They both have their place and when therapy or consulting is called for, coaching cannot take their place.

Coaching is a partnership between coach and client whose only goal is to have the client grow into their best version. While a coaching session may briefly touch upon “what happened,” the main focus is on the big picture: what are the core values that drive the client, what do they really want? The client may be stuck on something, but instead of offering solutions or advice, the coach explores multiple perspectives on the same the topic with the client and the client chooses the one that resonates with them, in that moment. Ultimately, coaching is about taking action and moving forward. Without this, a coaching session is just a nice conversation.

What does a coaching session look like?

At a very basic level, a coaching session is a conversation between the coach and client. It could be face to face, over a video call, or just a voice call. A session is at least 30 minutes long, but very often 45 to 60 minutes. Some of these are the preference of the coach and some others are choices made by the client from multiple options offered by the coach.

Every session starts with the topic - what does the client want coaching on today? Sometimes, there is an overarching topic that has been spanning multiple sessions, and in other instances, every session has a different topic. Even when there is an overarching agenda, the coach will identify the specific topic for this session. This is critical - without this, the session will lack focus and energy. Once the topic has been identified and clearly stated, the real business of coaching can begin. The mechanics largely involve the coach asking the client a series of questions, but in the hands of a trained coach, the questions are anything but mechanical. The skill and particular style that the coach adopts dictates the trajectory of the session, but at the end of every session is a call to action along with some clear commitment from the client.