Coaching Versus Counseling
While a coach is always striving to obtain consistent performance improvement from each employee, there are situations where coaching the right behaviors is not the correct approach. Not all employees are equally motivated or equally skilled. For those employees that have a motivation issue a different approach is needed. Because these employees are making a choice not to perform within expectations, the approach also needs to be adjusted to target the behavior. In this situation, a manager needs to change from one of coaching to one of counseling.
What do we mean by counselor? Counseling an employee reflects that the employee is making a choice not to perform or to meet the set expectations. It is a more directive conversation in regards to the immediate need for a course of correction. Counseling is used to address attitudinal problems rather than an individual’s skills or ability (or lack thereof). Note that individuals with personal and emotional problems should seek professional assistance. Counselor's may utilize directive methods which include probing, questioning, discussing specific problems and possible solutions. A manager may have the person discuss his behavior, beliefs and perceptions in order to help the manager put the individual's emotions and attitudes into perspective. Sometimes, the good listener or sounding board approach is best.
Although coaching and counseling have different purposes, they're interrelated. While managers can easily recognize the need for coaching when their employees have new jobs, duties or tools, managers often fail to diagnose the need for coaching when their employees are performing poorly. When employees' motivation problems are the cause of poor performance, counseling is the appropriate strategy. But, poor performance can also be the result of misunderstandings or a lack of skill. While a coach strives to provide tools and resources to help motivated employees improve upon their skills and achieve better performance, counseling is needed when there is a will issue rather than a skill issue.
Sometimes coaching reveals attitude problems, fears, or other factors that interfere with the willingness to do one's job. When such barriers to motivation are identified, managers must shift into a counseling mode to resolve them before engaging in coaching. There's no point in working on employees' "can't do" problems before resolving their "won't do" problems. By the same token, needs for coaching can also emerge during counseling. For instance, when an employee is intimidated by the complexity of a task, that fear can be manifested in a number of counterproductive work behaviors such as procrastination. Consequently, coaching is a remedy for some of the motivation problems that managers identify when counseling their employees.