The skill will matrix in practice: what managers learn when they have to use it

The skill will matrix is a simple coaching model. For any task, you ask two questions about the person doing it: do they have the skill to do it well, and do they have the will? The answers place them in one of four quadrants, and each quadrant suggests a different way of managing them: direct, guide, excite, or delegate.

At Business Simulations, I help build simulations like Crew, our team leadership simulation. Crew puts participants in the shoes of a working team leader: a member of the team who also has to manage it. The questions the skill will matrix asks come up again and again: who can do this task, who wants to, and what does each person need from me?

Knowing the four quadrants is one thing. Using them well, with a deadline looming, a team member off sick, and too much work for the people who are left, is quite another. This article sets out three lessons people learn when they have to answer those questions for real, along with a few practical takeaways you can use with your own team.

One task at a time

The model comes from Max Landsberg's book The Tao of Coaching. The important part is that it describes a person doing a particular task, not the person as a whole. Someone can be ready to take over one job and need close direction on another.

Our free skill will matrix tool explains each quadrant and lets you map your own team, task by task.

Learning it by doing

Crew is built on John Adair's action-centred leadership model, which asks a leader to balance three needs at once: the task, the team, and the individual. The skill will matrix sits mostly in that third circle, helping you decide how to lead one person on one task.

In Crew, participants have their own work to do as well as a team to lead. They have to manage their team's morale, skill, and motivation, all while trying to get the work done. They are balancing managing the team as a whole with managing each individual in it. So the matrix is never used in isolation. Every decision about one person has knock-on effects for the task and for everyone else, which is exactly what happens at work.

We don't warn participants about the common mistakes up front. Instead, we give them difficult scenarios to work around, and let the lessons surface on their own.

Lesson one: your strongest person is not a plan

The most common pattern we see is over-reliance on the strongest member of the team. They sit firmly in the delegate quadrant, so every difficult task goes their way. It feels efficient, and for a while it is.

This isn't unique to simulations. Research published in the Harvard Business Review found that 20% to 35% of value-added collaborations come from only 3% to 5% of employees, and that the people carrying that load can become bottlenecks and risk burning out.

The problem is that will isn't fixed. Someone who is handed everything can go from keen to exhausted surprisingly quickly, and if they burn out you lose your most capable person and your plan at the same time.

Delegating isn't the same as forgetting.

Practical takeaway:

• Keep track of how much is landing on your strongest people, not just whether it gets done
• Check in with the people you delegate to; high will today is no guarantee for next month
• Ask your top performers what they would like to hand on, and use that to develop someone else

Lesson two: invest before you need to

The flip side of over-reliance is neglecting the people in the guide quadrant: willing, but less experienced. Investing in them feels slow when there's a deadline, so it's tempting to route work around them instead.

In Crew, this is where we spring a surprise. Partway through the simulation, a key member of the team goes off sick, and the participant has to cover the gap. That's the moment earlier decisions become visible. If they have been investing in the rest of the team, someone is ready to step up. If they have been relying on one person, the work stalls.

That lesson lands far harder than any slide could make it. And because it happens in a simulation, it's a mistake people can afford to make, which is why psychological safety matters so much in this kind of learning.

A little investment goes a long way. Someone who is developed on a task can start to cover for others, and that's what turns a team that depends on one person into a resilient one.

Practical takeaway:

• Identify the tasks only one person on your team can do; each one is a single point of failure
• Pair less experienced people with experienced colleagues on those tasks before a crisis, not during one
• Treat development time as an investment in resilience, not a cost against the deadline

Lesson three: manage people, not a rota

Another lesson is that you can't manage a team by rota alone. Contracted hours tell you very little about what someone will actually deliver. What a person gets done depends on their competence at the task, their skill level, and their motivation.

Even a skilled, motivated person doesn't work every minute at full efficiency. Effective hours aren't contracted hours. People are not machines, and a plan that assumes they are sets the whole team up to fall short.

This is really what the skill will matrix is arguing for: not managing everyone the same way. The managers who do best in Crew get to know their team, work out how each person works best and what resonates with them, and tailor their approach to match. That takes in more than skill and will. It includes personality, how new someone is to the team, the things they feel confident about, and practical details such as whether they work part-time or full-time.

Practical takeaway:

• Plan around effective hours, not contracted ones, and leave room for the unexpected
• Learn what each person on your team feels confident about, and where they would like to grow
• Expect two people in the same quadrant to need different handling

Three skill will matrix examples

To make this concrete, here are three examples of the situations the matrix helps with:

• The overloaded star (delegate, at risk of sliding towards excite): your most capable analyst has taken on every urgent report for a month, and signs of fatigue are starting to show. Keep delegating, but spread the load and ask what they would like to hand on
• The keen newcomer (guide): a new team member volunteers for a client presentation they have never given before. Pair them with an experienced colleague, give them a smaller part first, and talk it through afterwards
• The capable but switched-off expert (excite): a long-serving specialist does the work and no more. Before reaching for instructions, find out what has changed. It may be boredom, a grievance, or a role that no longer fits

Things to watch out for

The skill will matrix is simple to describe, but easy to misuse. A few pitfalls are worth naming.

It isn't a label. Telling someone they're in the low will quadrant rarely raises their will. Use the matrix to plan a conversation, not to replace one.

Low will is rarely laziness. It's more often a sign of low confidence, burnout, or a role that no longer fits, and each of those needs a different response.

It goes out of date quickly. Skill changes over months, but will can change in a week. A map you made last quarter is probably wrong now.

Wrapping up

The skill will matrix is easy to learn and surprisingly hard to apply. Most of what makes it hard only shows up under pressure, when the tempting choice is to lean on the people who never let you down and leave everyone else for later.

To recap the three ideas we have explored:

• Your strongest person is not a plan; keep an eye on what you are asking of the people you delegate to
• Invest before you need to; developing less experienced people is what makes a team resilient
• Manage people, not a rota; tailor your approach to each person, and plan around how people really work

If you want to try it on your own team, our free skill will matrix tool lets you map people task by task, with no registration. To practise a coaching conversation with a team member who has gone quiet, try The silent team member, one of our free micro simulations. And if you want your managers to experience these trade-offs under realistic pressure, take a look at Crew.

Further reading

To explore the leadership model behind Crew, read our article on action-centred leadership. Our free learning tools include the skill will matrix alongside ten other browser-based apps for leaders and teams, and our micro simulations let you practise in just two to five minutes.

References

Cross, R., Rebele, R., & Grant, A. (2016). Collaborative Overload. Harvard Business Review, January–February 2016. https://hbr.org/2016/01/collaborative-overload