A.  Each of these disciplines involves a skilled provider of services assisting a client. But each is a distinctly different form of professional support.

Coaching is a relationship between someone who wants to grow professionally, the Client, and a skilled facilitator, the Coach, who can help the Client achieve his or her professional development objectives.

Sometimes the Coach is on the staff of the same organization that employs the Client, but more commonly, the Coach is an outside resource who provides confidential services to the Client. A Coach from outside the Client's organization brings an independent perspective and no potential for the conflict of interest (or power issues, or concerns about confidentiality) that can arise when one co-worker tries to coach another.

And while the Coach may support a single individual, the Client can also be a team of people who are working together with a common purpose. The team may be charged with guiding an entire organization, or delivering a particular project. The Coach's role remains the same--to prompt, prod, inquire and inspire higher levels of learning, productivity, and achievement.

Consulting consists of services provided by subject matter experts on organizational projects. A consultant usually provides analysis and recommendations on improving specific organizational processes (such as hiring methodologies, strategic planning, workflow design, software selection, and so on). A consultant may serve one individual within an organization or scores of them with the intent of improving the performance of the organization rather than an individual’s personal effectiveness.

Counseling is a healing or problem solving relationship between a client and therapist. A counseling relationship tries to restore an individual’s well being, usually by addressing personal challenges that have their roots in the person’s past. Coaching, on the other hand, essentially “book marks” the past, starts in the present and directs energy toward creating a better future.

Mentoring reflects a professional development relationship between two people; often, both are employed by the same organization. One is a very competent and experienced person willing to devote personal time and energy to the other person who wants to learn particular skills and techniques from their more experienced colleague.

Back to Question List

A. When considering a coaching relationship, a distinction can be drawn between a Personal (or Life, Success, or Career) Coach and an Executive Coach.

The Personal Coach is usually hired by an individual who pays for the coaching services from his or her own funds. The focus of a personal coaching relationship likely centers on achieving individual or career goals, and may include such topics as planning a personal career path, achieving financial objectives, or improving personal relationships.

In contrast, an Executive Coach focuses on helping clients to improve the performance of their executive duties within a specific organization. The Executive Coach’s fee is usually paid for by the organization that employs the individual(s) served by the coach.

The organization pays the fee as an investment in leveraging the productivity and effectiveness of the individual executive or a small group of executives who work together on common goals.

Back to Question List

A. It's all about greater achievement accompanied by increased personal satisfaction.

In virtually every domain of high performance--sport, music, theatre, and, yes, business--the most accomplished achievers maintain and sharpen their edge with expert assistance.

A good coach doesn't make you into something you are not. Good coaching helps you become more fully what you are capable of being.

The coaching experience is one of those rare occasions where you can increase your capacity for greater accomplishment and derive greater satisfaction from your work. And the best part: with good coaching you'll feel as though you are achieving more with what often feels like less effort. That's the power of focused development.

Coaching has become so popular because it works so well.

A capable coach brings you seasoned, outside perspective to:

• Understand yourself--and your unrealized potential--better,
• See what personal capabilities (or organizational dynamics) you might have been overlooking,
• Consider possibilities you might not have otherwise,
• Enhance existing skills
• Develop new capacities,
• Draw new inferences, energy, and possibilities from your familiar circumstances.

Using a variety of tools and processes, a good Coach helps you to discover and develop your very best self--to make the greatest contribution with the highest satisfaction.

Back to Question List

A. Circumstances where you stand to gain substantial benefit from the assistance of a capable Executive Coach include:

• Finessing a special project or circumstance with high stakes or significant pressures
• Undertaking new responsibilities
• Improving relationships with colleagues such as peers, teammates, direct reports, other people in your organization, or perhaps shareholders, customers or even vendors
• Reviving a stalled or recently troubled project (or career)
• Resolving division between you and your colleagues over direction, priorities, or targeted outcomes
• Motivating your staff
• Retaining your staff
• Learning how to coach your own employees as an enhancement to your leadership process
• Improving the performance of your team or your direct reports
• Boosting personal productivity (by redefining priorities, re-igniting your energy, reducing stressors, and improving your time management)
• Managing a large or complex project
• Acquiring or improving skills
• Defusing acute tensions with key constituents
• Reinvigorating your personal motivation
• Preparing for increased upward mobility

Coaching can help you most when you are expected to make your greatest contribution or face your greatest challenges.

Back to Question List

A. The Coach and Client agree on objectives for the coaching engagement. This understanding is captured in a Coaching Agreement, a brief written document. It outlines the measures for success and specifies the responsibilities of both the Coach and Client.

With a clear understanding of what the coaching relationship is expected to achieve, the Client and Coach work together to achieve the goals within the specified time frame.

The Lead Well® Coaching process is well defined so that client objectives are attained productively. Details are available here.

Back to Question List

A. The Executive Coach's job is to help you think through important issues in ways you might not otherwise. And to both challenge and support you to become your best self sooner than you otherwise would.

Given that charge, there are two basic criteria for selecting your Coach:

1. Wisdom.

Do you sense deep insight in the person you are about to hire? Are both the depth of their personal experience and the clarity of their thinking going to serve as enriching resources to you?

2. Rapport.

Do you respect, trust, and feel comfortable with your Coach?

You will get the most out of a coaching relationship when you feel that there is a good "fit" between you and your Coach. That's because a good Coach sometimes will:

•  Ask you to wrestle with tough questions about yourself,
•  Encourage you to stretch beyond your normal comfort zones, and
•  Challenge you by playing "devil's advocate."

You are much more likely to take these occasionally uncomfortable growth steps if you have a positive, trusting, peer-to-peer relationship with your Coach.

Back to Question List

A. That varies depending on the scope of the coaching assignment. Usually the Coach and Client work on a set of objectives to be achieved within an agreed upon timetable.

Our Fast Focus™ coaching often take places in just a few phone calls.

Typical time frames for more thorough Executive Coaching range from three months to more than a year, depending on the nature and scope of the assignment.

For a review of standard plans offered by Lead Well® Coaching, please click here.

Back to Question List

A. Our Fast Focus™ coaching by phone usually requires a very modest investment—often it's less than a couple hundred dollars. (Check around. That is an extraordinary value.)

Most Lead Well® Coaching engagements, with in-depth involvement and very personalized attention, represent an investment of between $3,000 and $15,000.

No matter how you engage our coaching (most of it done personally by Don Blohowiak), we believe very strongly in building your indepence. We do not want you to become dependent on our coaching.

Our philosophy is simple: Our coaching helps you to get what you need, so you can get on with your life without our coaching!

For more information, please contact us.

Back to Question List