A Happy New Year!
As a change agent, strategist, and coach for leaders and organizations, we had a few extraordinary projects last year. Through the projects, we are convinced that the learning process should tightly involve real business and operation, and which takes time and is complicated. It was our initial belief and hypothesis that training/learning should align closely with the client's work and operation to be able to maximize the impact of the project. This would make client's realize clearly which area needs support, where they lack their skills - or even to make sure which areas they are good at. This OJT (on-the-job) style learning is possible through our hands-on coaching and advisory services.
I started to think combining the practice of coaching and consulting (or advisory), when I was working at AlixPartners, a global turnaround professional firm. A question I had at the moment was "how professionals can be more effective to involve clients as a team?" The management consulting space has been shifting from strategy to downstream, i.e. offering more operational and hands-on services, even for the top-tier firms like McKinsey or BCG. The clients' focus is more on "how" to get business results, rather than "what to do." It was thus obvious that involvement of clients in closer manner is indispensable for success, rather than just providing deliverables and teaching best practices. This is where coaching comes in.
I took coaching program, and learned how to "pull" what the clients implicitly think or even something they are not aware of clearly. In contrast, typical consulting/advisory offers "push" approach to teach solutions. I assume many consultants would claim that they are doing coaching on a regular basis, but I would say they aren't providing pure coaching. The term "coaching" is often misunderstood. What makes coaching different from typical consulting is that it does not provide solution. It may sound weird that consultants do not give solutions or answer, but the essence of coaching is to provide "perspective," assuming the answer or solutions are in clients' mind. Therefore the balance of "pull" and "push" communication needs to be carefully adjusted depending on clients' readiness or capabilities, as well as clients' needs. Our approach is this pull-and-pull advisory to engage and foster leaders. Not only giving them answers, but also force them to reflect what they can and cannot so that PDCA cycle can be quickly processed to improve their capabilities, eventually to become authentic leaders.
Talent management advisory is our key service offering.
Real business matters to make authentic leaders.
Real business matters to make authentic leaders.
Neo Morohashi, Ph.D.
Co-Founder and Partner, INGENI CONSULTING
Co-Founder and Partner, INGENI CONSULTING