The distinctions of Private/Executive Consulting make it uniquely suited to working with executive clients and assisting them in enhancing their personal and professional performance, and getting their organizational business/outcomes.
I call the primary form of work I do with individual clients, Private Consulting. From my point of view this work concentrates on performance issues that can be individual or organizational, or both. My focus on performance leads me to taking what I choose to call a “private consulting” approach vs. a “traditional coaching” approach more often than not in working with my private individual clients.
I differentiate this approach, i.e.: Private Consulting, from traditional coaching in the following ways:
Consulting
Coaching
My preference for what I call Private Consulting—or sometimes just Private Work—has to do with my recognition that a more directive approach than I’ve most seen used in typical coaching engagements often gets to the intended outcome more elegantly. It also rests on the type I clients I most often work with ... e.g.: senior executives, entrepreneurs, business owners, professionals ... these clients tend to want very direct input and specific advice that comes across in a “Do it this way ...” type of expert assessment statement. In order to deliver this kind of advice, and have it accepted, the client must have a high degree of trust in the advice being given ... and the advisor.
The competence required to deliver specific situational advice becomes a must-have trait for the Private Consultant. This kind of expertise extends beyond pure process skills that would adequately serve in most coaching situations. This kind of expertise requires both theoretical knowledge and practical “lived”; experience - as well as the process skills to work effectively with clients in delivering expert advice, and then sometimes also in implementing it with them.
I would say however that I prefer the coaching process when the issues are primarily about live personal relations issues. Coaching can be a great way for individuals to get input and develop around their personal behaviors and competencies regarding their interactions with others - partners, peers, colleagues, superiors, subordinates ...
For instance I’ve seen coaching provide extremely useful results in situations requiring a manager or executive to build or re-build a team. Working with a coach the manager/executive gets specific situational input about their interactional behavior with the team members and how to facilitate creating a context in which the team can and does come together as desired.
The coaching skill set resides as a prerequisite that the Private Consultant brings to their client work. Deep competency with the coaching skill set, along with the expertise required of them as an expert advisor, allows them to address a range of situations that may be beyond the scope of pure coaching when working as a Private Consultant.
Let’s take a look at the kind of situations that a Private Consultant may address with a client:
Personal/Professional Performance
Interpersonal Performance
Business Performance
Organizational Performance
These are just some of the examples of specific ways in which Private Consulting can be applied to performance issues for the individual client or in an organizational setting.
I often find myself working in what I’d call facilitated settings, meaning that I’m facilitating a specific outcome with the client through the entire process of determining the outcome to producing it. This often applies to working simultaneously with both an executive client and their team of direct reports.
The way I will do this might look like the following:
From this point forward my role will frequently include facilitating team meetings with my executive client on some regular basis - e.g.: a one or two day meeting each quarter. In these meetings the focus will be on moving the project forward and facilitating team members roles in regard to it, and providing individual/team development input when possible as well. At all times my most prominent role will be to assist my client in developing their skills in relation to this process - what we are learning as a result and applying this learning in an iterative fashion to the process.
As a Private Consultant I see my role as a support function to my client, but in a very directive role as an expert-advisor. One of the presumptions I make has to do with providing peer-level interaction in the form of dialogue, conversation, confidence and advice. Specifically this will be expressed in the nature of the relationship that develops as a result of the role and function of providing these services.
With tongue in cheek I’ve applied the title Consigliere to the nature of this relationship as I’ve described it above:
Consigliere is the italian word for counselor, usually reserved for the relationship between a prominent decision-maker and a trusted counselor they can turn to for advice when confronting challenging issues and/or situations.
So while I can and do use the entire gamut of skills and methods that a coach might bring to a client engagement, the work I do goes much further than what I’ve typically seen referred to by that term, i.e.: coaching. My clients and I work together to develop specific solutions to often challenging issues and situations they are confronting on an on-going basis. In the process my clients develop the attitude and skills of success that allow them to do more and more of the work we have begun together on their own. Yet, we also develop a relationship of profound trust that my clients know they can count on when they find themselves wanting or needing their own private consigliere in their corner.
For more information about Private Consulting just click here to send me an email message ... ☞ “Private Consulting Inquiry ... Please Respond ASAP” or call me at my offices: +1/609.275.1845 to discuss your unique situation and find out how we might be able to work together.
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