Training and coaching are two entirely different things.

A trainer is an expert with knowledge you want imparted to you or your employees. Examples would be sales training, learning a new software system, or conveying techniques to improve performance in any given area. It usually involves someone with expertise and experience to provide direct information to others with something specific to learn. Think of it as a teacher-student relationship.

Coaching, on the other hand, involves advisory work usually between two people who often have similar knowledge and experience. Good coaches recognize the intelligence and giftedness of those they coach. They use questions to help their clients think through their performance and how to handle various situations that arise, often in management. Coaches are valued more for the variety of questions they ask than for the information they impart.

Coaching questions are designed to get the person to think more carefully about the way they’ve handled interactions, the way they consider alternatives to major decisions, and the way they can improve overall performance. Questions raise awareness and cause introspection to improve outcomes.

Great leaders are often good coaches. Rather than move quickly into teaching and training, they ask questions to make those they lead think more clearly about their actions and reactions to business and life circumstances. Knowing how to ask the right open-ended questions is a terrific skill and often leads to the best learning.

Think carefully about what you need in your business because the fundamentals of teaching and coaching are very different and produce different results.

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