Coaching
AI coaching or AI consulting: which does a leader need?
Consulting produces a recommendation that you then have to carry, defend and update after the consultants leave. Coaching builds the judgement in the leader, so the decisions are yours and you can keep making them as the ground moves, which with AI it does every few months.
When consulting is the right buy
If the need is technical delivery, a consultancy or an engineering partner is the right provider and we will say so in the first conversation. The same is true if what you actually want is a strategy document produced by somebody else: that is a legitimate purchase, and it is not coaching.
When coaching is the right buy
- The decision cannot be delegated: which parts of the business AI touches first, what to stop doing, what to spend before there is proof
- A recommendation would age faster than your ability to think about one. AI moves every few months; judgement keeps up, documents do not.
- The advice needs to be independent of what anyone is selling you. A vendor has an interest in what you buy from them.
The practical difference in the room
A consultant interviews your people and comes back with findings. A coach works on your own understanding until you can make the case yourself. Ours is built on two and a half years of running AI inside our own business, so the sessions deal in what breaks, what people quietly refuse to adopt, and what a realistic first ninety days looks like, rather than in capability slides.
The two can follow each other. Plenty of leaders use coaching to become a better buyer of consulting.