There are many titles for people who are trained, learn through experience or through classes/seminars on how to counsel businesses in some form. I am going to discuss the three most common ones: Consultant, Advisor, and Coach. The purpose of my article is to help leaders decide what kind of approach they need, are most receptive to, most likely to implement and is best for the situation/problem they are trying to solve.
Consultant
A few of the largest consultant organizations are McKinsey, Deloitte and Accenture. They are very good at what they do. Their primary focus is to consult with large organizations about the future directions of management practices. They are hired by large companies on the latest trend in how the company should present itself to investors and customers. They develop the latest management techniques and organizational structures.
Companies pay a large amount of money for these insights and want to be seen as operating in trendiest fashion. The company presents to the employees this new business orientation. The problem is that the consultants collect their fee for their brilliance but rarely stay around to see the new directions are fully implemented.
Three to four years later they are hired again, and the process repeats itself. Companies renew these contracts due to FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) or FOP (Fear of being Passe).
This is not the same formula for smaller or single-practitioner consultants. They are more custom oriented, catering to solve the problems of their clients and if the clients are smart, keep the consultant involved to ensure the company implements their solutions.
The main role of the consultant is to tell the client WHAT TO DO based on their knowledge and experience.
Advisor
Advisors are generally smaller firms and single practitioners who have a different approach in aiding businesses to solve problems. They come into a firm to understand the management style of the leaders and make recommendations based on their knowledge and experience. They gather key information about the leaders and key employees. They work to identify a problem and develop systems and organizational structures to improve the firm’s operations.
They are custom and detail oriented in trying to solve the problems of their clients. The clients normally keep the advisor involved to ensure the company implements their solutions. Advisors tend to be more deeply involved in the organizations they advise.
The main role of the advisor is to tell the client WHAT THEY SHOULD do based on their knowledge, their understanding of the client’s business and their personal experience.
Coach
The coach’s role is likely the most misunderstood role in the problem-solving industry. Coaches are often thought of as a luxury, a lack of ability for the executive who uses a coach and is an unneeded expense. This is definitely not true.
In today’s business environment leaders are constantly being evaluated for performance. That is fine, it should be the measure of a leader’s value to the organization. However, almost all leaders have the business skills to run an organization, but the true leader also has the “soft” skill abilities. Some of those abilities are:
- Is the leader viewed as trustworthy by their staff?
- Is the leader viewed as approachable?
- Is the leader aware of and responsive to the ongoing physical, mental and emotional needs of his staff to keep them in the right frame of mind to ensure the success of the company?
- Is the leader aware of their own strengths and weakness?
- Is the leader aware of their staff’s strengths and weakness and how they can be utilized to balance their own strengths and weaknesses?
- Is the leader not only a great communicator but more importantly a great listener?
- Great leaders have the ability pull their team from the front instead of pushing them from the rear.
- The better the leader the later in a meeting do they speak.
Does the leader have an outlet, a source, a person in their corner, a person whose goal is to make them a better leader and grow at a faster pace than their competitors.
- This is a role a coach performs. This path is about the client learning and developing a leadership style that fits their capabilities and that fits with their personality, knowledge and the balances the skills of their staff.
- Coaches also work with teams or leadership groups to ensure more cohesiveness and better communication in their operations.
A coach’s goal is to assess and improve the leader, his staff and teams’ “soft” skills.
The main role of the coach is to understand the leader’s knowledge, skills, and experience, and to HELP THE CLIENT UNDERSTAND AND LEARN for themselves WHAT IS BEST for the company in their role.
A Quick Review
Hire a consultant when you don’t have time to investigate or don’t know what to do about running your business, team or a difficult situation.
Hire an Advisor if you think you know what to do but you want another point of view.
Hire a coach if want to know how you as a leader can best approach situations now and in the future, in essence become a not just a better leader but an outstanding one.
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About Coach David Phife
David Phife is a serial entrepreneur who has launched multiple businesses that operated throughout the US and around the world.
He has excelled as an advisor to leadership teams, guiding small businesses to think strategically and pivot based on market changes as well as helping larger businesses become innovative and nimble. He assists executives to be better leaders by understanding and taking advantage of their strengths while managing weaknesses.
He utilizes his years of experience to assist smaller firms and executives to make the change to a larger, more structured organization while maintaining a nimble business model. David can advise on how to consistently calibrate and realign businesses, accelerate innovation while exiting nonstrategic ventures, and provide stabilizing leadership during challenging periods.
Great coaches, whether in sports or business, are the most successful because they can identify the talent of their personnel and maximize their skillset to build a winning team. An executive must add to the company’s current abilities and increase the company’s capabilities. Talent alone is not a measure of fit.
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