Matt Somers asked:

A wise man once said that apart from the spelling there is no difference between counselling and coaching. There’s a shade of truth in this but for the sake of the clarity I’m trying to achieve in this piece I am going to illustrate the differences such as they are. In fairness, it’s relatively easy for me to do this as I am concentrating on coaching that takes place at work; usually delivered by a line manager. We’ll see later on when we come to look at the different types and branches of coaching activity that the lines of distinction do become far more blurred.

As with mentoring, the skills of the coach and the counsellor are the same. They each listen attentively, ask probing questions and offer non-judgemental observations in the spirit of helping their ‘clients’ find their own answers. I don’t think either a coach or a counsellor would go down the “You should…”, “You must…” route. The difference does not lie in the skill set; it has much more to do with the content of the conversation and the desired result.

Counsellors are concerned with identifying root causes. They will guide us on a journey through our history to identify critical incidents and problems that have left a mark and cause us problems still. With such issues identified, the work of the counsellor develops into one of exploring ways of dealing with those problems and making changes. We can easily see that relationship counsellors, substance abuse counsellors, bereavement counsellors, etc. focus on dealing with what’s happened.

Coaches are concerned with moving forward. Coaches help the people whom they coach to identify a desired set of circumstances, to examine how that contrasts with current circumstances and then to plan out a series of steps to get from one point to the other. The coach starts from the here and now and, although aware that situations in the past can cause problems today, is more focused on creating mobility and momentum and on getting people started. Coaches focus on dealing with what must happen next.

Picture the scene: you’re three-nil down at half time. The team counsellor would examine the mistakes of the first half, but the team coach would set out the tactics for the second. Both are useful, and as ever are often combined. As always, the needs of the people we’re helping must override any semantic debate around the differences.

However, getting the positioning right is crucial. I’ve seen many a coaching programme get off to a shaky start because staff perceived that they were going to be counselled and were obviously uneasy about how well their managers were qualified to offer this kind of help and whether it was appropriate to talk about potentially emotive personal issues in a work context. Of course there may be a time for counselling at work, and what starts out as a straightforward coaching session may move in that direction. With this in mind it is worth checking out your organization’s welfare and access to counselling policy if you have the slightest suspicion that a coaching approach may uncover a deep seated issue and thus need a professional intervention.

The statements below are an attempt to put these comparisons in simple terms

Managing “Do this.”

Instructing “Here’s how to do this.”

Training “Have a go at doing this.”

Mentoring “My advice would be to….”

Counselling “What feelings does this invoke?”

Coaching “How do you think you could…?”

I wonder if in the end these differences are purely academic and of more interest to people like me who muse on these things, than to people like you who have the harder task of getting people to be the best they can at work.

Having said that, an appreciation of the similarities and differences is useful when it comes to positioning coaching in your team and in your organization. You may well find that if your team is unclear about what coaching involves and have confused it with other things, then they may not engage as fully as you’d wish.

Ray Shane asked:


There are countless internet dating sites and speed dating sites, friendship dating sites and online dating service/services where you can sign up and get hold of a good date. When you have marriage or commitment or relationships or companionship on your mind, you usually head to these romantic dating sites or courtship websites to select and attract a perfect mate for you.

The problem is that, in spite of having the desire, most men don’t know how to communicate with women or even strike up a decent conversation with women, let alone keeping the conversation going. Let me help you out with a few potent tricks that socially competent men wouldn’t love to share with you.

You must have noticed that while you can hardly ever chat up a woman, some men go along like a house on fire with women with whom they have met only recently. Well the secret formula is very simple indeed – you should identify and relate to your date’s desires and needs and try to understand her the way she wants to be understood, if you want to carry on an effective conversation or communication with her.

Women are emotional and to some extent sentimental by nature and you should always try to appeal to her caring and sensitive side when you converse with her.

You have to make a special effort to improve your social skills and you have to take the initiative to appear attractive and interesting to your date. You can start off by initiating an interesting conversation, laced with a good dose of humour and for God’s sake, allow her to speak and participate in the conversation and don’t go on and on about yourself, your interests and hobbies.

Avoid debatable and boring topics like politics, religion, business and sports. A light hearted fun conversation that doesn’t stoop to cheap and bawdy levels will open her up in no time.

All women are same just as all men are same in spite of being unique. Try to understand your date’s mentality and try to penetrate into her feelings and thoughts. All women have a particular way of thinking and feeling and reacting and if you can identify her weak spots, you are bang on. Try to identify her secret desires and relate to them. She will be yours in no time at all.

Be smart, well turned out, take care to dress nicely but soberly, you should take care to smell good, try to infuse a spark of intelligence in your conversation, be attentive to your date, try to be a good listener and control your roving eye if you have one.

Stay relaxed and cool and you will find that soon your date is participating in the romantic dating that you are indulging in and success will only be a few steps away. With the unique dating site FriendsorMates.com at your disposal, such “meet ladies online” and befriend women tips won’t be hard to come by.