Coaching’s Brilliant — But It’s Not Always The Right Thing To Do

One of our simplest building brix is Skill : Will.

Most people have come across the model before – but at 100 Brix, we use it for something very specific: to help line managers understand when to coach… and when to do something else – when to wear a different hat.

Because while coaching is brilliant, it isn’t right for every circumstance. And we help Mentors, Managers and Leaders to understand really simply:

🧭 When to coach – and when not to

If you look at the Skill Will map on one of the Brix we use to train Mentors (below 👇), you’ll see the two axis:

•          Skill – the know-how, experience and ability to do something

•          Will – not just motivation, but confidence and mindset too

Remember ‘Will’ isn’t just the ‘can someone be bothered’ axis – it is about whether someone is in the right headspace to perform well.

And here’s the key thing: coaching is only one of several tools a great leader needs – there’s 2 boxes here where we would suggest coaching can do more harm than good.

Let’s walk through each space — because knowing where you are helps you decide what to do next.

💬 Top left: High Skill, Low Will – Coach to Understand

If someone’s got high skill but low will, it’s time to get genuinely curious – coach to understand.

Ask: “What is going on that means they aren’t they using the skill they clearly have?”

Is it linked to confidence, mindset, wellbeing, burnout, even boredom? Coaching here helps uncover what is really going on. Taking the ‘helpful’ route of “Don’t worry I’ll do it,” means you could just be about to miss the opportunity to learn what is blocking a great performer from performing…

🎓 Bottom right: Low Skill, High Will – Teach, Mentor or Tell

Now flip it. Someone’s got lots of will — they want to do it — but they don’t yet have the skills.

We suggest you absolutely don’t coach here. They don’t know what to do yet!

There’s maybe nothing more irritating that someone who has just been on coaching course asking you well intentioned questions like “What do you think you could do?…” – when you just don’t know or you want an actual opinion from someone who has done it before!

This is a place for teaching, training, or mentoring – or the unfashionable but very suitable action: Telling people what to do

Show them, demonstrate, guide – because in this box, they’ve got the drive, just not the know-how – yet.

⚠️ Bottom left: Low Skill, Low Will – Manage closely (and maybe manage out)

This is a tough box. Not a lot of fun to be had here. Low will and low skill.

You might coach for a short time to understand why — is it confidence, culture fit, or something else?

But more often, this space is moving people up and out – either quickly increasing skill, finding a boost of will – or about agreeing how that person might use their skills and find the will elsewhere. Everyone has potential to do great work – but maybe not in this job.

So this is where line managers need to set clear objectives, follow up, manage closely, and sometimes, yes, manage out with dignity intact and respect maintained.

🌟 Top right: High Skill, High Will – Coach to take the roof off

When I was managing people in this box — high skill, high will — I used to think the best thing I could do was leave them alone. They were brilliant! Why interfere?

But actually, that’s a mistake.

Because a five-minute conversation with someone who’s already flying can have massive commercial value.

Whereas hours spent trying to rescue performance in the low-skill, low-will box… can be draining and demoralising.

We call this the Coach to take the roof off box.

Ask questions that stretch, inspire, and challenge. Help them – and you – explore what’s next. This is real #WhenWorkDoesNotFeelLikeWork territory. But sometimes great work doesn’t need to feel like hard work.

🧠 The neuroscience bit

From a brain perspective, this all makes perfect sense.

When we’re coaching those top-right performers – safe, stretched, motivated – their dopamine and oxytocin systems are firing. They’re in the optimal state for creativity and learning.

But if we spend all our time firefighting in the bottom-left  – where stress and frustration dominate – cortisol takes over. And nobody learns well in a cortisol bath.

So just five high energy minutes in Top Right can have far more impact than hours of slog in Bottom Left. Which do you think is better for organisational productivity and commercial performance?

One of our BrixSix training packages delivers just that – we enable you to have high skill and high will when it comes to having Courageous Conversations – It’s not always about knowing the law, it’s about being genuinely curious about motives, making it safe for people to tell you and themselves the truth and enabling people to either learn with you or leave with dignity to find something else that suits them if it comes to that.

We can train individuals, teams or entire organisations. In person or virtually.

🧠 Training that sticks, learning that clicks.

When you work with us, you don’t get an associate who has done “train the trainer”. You get someone who’s an accredited executive coach. That’s important — because it means they can help you embed learning, not just deliver it – and because our qualification is in Coaching AND Mentoring – they know what to coach and when to teach or tell instead!

🔍 Your Ebbinghaus nudge: where will you spend your energy today?

Take a look at your team.

Who’s sitting in that high skill, high will space?

Who could you give five minutes to today — to help them knock something out of the park?

And where might you be pouring energy into that bottom left box that just drains all your energy away?

Because great leadership isn’t about treating everyone the same — it’s about not assuming.

It’s about observing, listening, and adapting.

And sometimes, that means putting your coaching hat down… and picking up the teaching hat, or the manager’s one, instead.

📮 Postcard: “Skill Will Map” and “Skill:Will – Great mentors don’t assume,” ©100 Brix & It’s Not Bloody Rocket Science