When Understanding Isn’t Enough: Why a Coaching Approach Changes How We Work with People

From the responses I’ve had, it seems many people recognise this.

There’s a sense that:

• work feels more complex than it used to
• familiar ways of thinking don’t always help
• and “figuring it out” isn’t always the answer

This recognition matters. But it also raises a different question:

What happens next?

When understanding meets its limit

There’s a point where knowledge about something – doesn’t quite change how we act inside it.

You recognise competing demands and the limits of problem‑solving and still find yourself:

• stepping in too quickly
• offering solutions which don’t seem to solve the problem
• feeling a relentless pressure to move things forward

This is a signal that something else is being asked of us.

A shift in how we work with people

In many professional roles, leadership, education, facilitation, advisory work, we are used to:

• clarifying
• directing
• solving
• moving things on

These skills are valuable, and bring a feeling of momentum, but as work becomes more complex, there’s a need to shift our approach. This is easy to say, but it is devilishly hard for us to do on our own.

The paradoxes we’ve been exploring in previous articles don’t just sit “out there” as ideas. They show up in conversations:

• in how we respond
• in how quickly we move to action
• in whether we create space, or close it down

This is where a coaching approach becomes directly relevant. It offers a way of working with people inside that complexity.

At Wise Goose we see coaching as creating a space where:

• someone can think more fully
• where competing perspectives can be held, not resolved too quickly
• where insight can emerge rather than be supplied

This changes the nature of the work.

Instead of directing thinking, offering solutions or shaping the outcome, we begin to listen more deeply, notice more carefully, and stay present a little longer than feels comfortable.

It is a subtle shift.

But over time it creates something quite different: conversations that are spacious; decisions that can include more of what matters; and a way of working that can hold complexity without collapsing it.

It requires a different kind of attention, and often, a willingness to notice our habits:

• the urge to advise
• to rush to the rescue
• to resolve tension rather than stay with it

And to work with those tendencies, rather than act from them automatically.

Noticing in practice

Last week we completed a five‑day Foundations in Coaching course.

On the one hand, something is complete.

On the other hand, something is just beginning.

They have learned core principles and basic skills; practised; been introduced to frameworks and built confidence. They have explored creative change-making, cultivated self-awareness of their personal qualities, values, strengths as a coach. They have begun to explore how coaching can be a tool for systemic change and regenerative leadership

What has stayed with me is the range of experience people brought, from across sectors, roles and contexts, and the depth that can be reached in a relatively short period of time when we encourage attention to shift in this way.

The point isn’t to get to a place of “coaching perfectly” in five days.

It takes a while for our coaching skills to become fluent, but we can give students an experience of being in a different way:

• what it is to stay with a conversation rather than move it on
• what happens when listening deepens
• how strong the urge to help or advise really is
• and how much can emerge when that impulse is held rather than acted on

The London Foundations has finished, and I already have my sights set on the next one in Scotland in November. This feels like a natural point to move from writing about paradox to exploring what coaching looks like in practice – right from the start of training.

Working at the edge of complexity

We live in a world where what worked yesterday does not necessarily work today.

More than ever, I hear leaders I coach, and the students who come to train with us, describe their work as overwhelming, contradictory and, at times, lonely

As either/or thinking begins to break down, we need to re‑ground our work, and ourselves.

We need to hold less tightly to certainty or control and turn more firmly towards presence and discernment.

This changes the questions we bring into our work.

Questions such as:

• How can we help each other play to our strengths?
• How can we let go and remain responsible?
• How do we support and how and when do we challenge?

This changes the quality of leadership and the practice of coaching itself.

This kind of authority:

• listens longer
• acts more carefully
• resists false simplicity
• and remains accountable to complexity

It asks for emotional maturity, and the ability to be with ambiguity.

We still need analysis, but we also need more noticing.

This is not navel gazing. It does not make leaders or coaches passive.

It asks them to become more precise , more discerning and more nuanced at the same time.

Coaching at the edge of complexity

This is where a coaching approach becomes essential.

The task is no longer simply to help teams or clients “decide faster”.

It is to help them:

• stay with the tensions they would rather avoid
• see what each side is protecting or serving
• notice where anxiety is driving the need for resolution

And this begins with the coach.

Paradox cannot be held for another if we are unable to hold it within ourselves.

This is something we begin to work with from the very start of our Foundations programme, not as advanced theory, but as introductory practices.

In those early conversations, participants on the course begin to notice:

• how quickly they move to help
• how hard it can be to stay with uncertainty
• and how different the conversation becomes when they do

When staying becomes the work

There are moments when the most skilful response is not to choose but to stay.

To stay with:

• competing demands
• an incomplete picture
• the unease that often accompanies depth

This is a disciplined, active form of attention that allows something more integrated to emerge.

The challenge of not stepping in

One of the first things new coaches notice when they begin to explore this way of working is how strong the urge is to help.

One of the participants in the recent Foundations course shared that even though he understood it’s not what’s needed, he felt compelled to offer ‘fixes’. Recognising this is a powerful, and uncomfortable moment, because without the dawning of self-awareness there will be no change.

Creating a space where someone can think for themselves is simple in principle.

But not always easy in practice.

It asks you as coach to:

• notice your own ‘helping’ habits
• resist the urge to fix
• stay with uncertainty a little longer

And begin to trust that something can emerge without being imposed.

The quality of attention

At the heart of this shift is attention.

How we listen. Where we place our focus.

Listening to understand more. To notice:

• what is said
• what is not said
• what is just on the edge of consciousness

From this place, questions change.

Less about directing. More about opening.

Less about getting somewhere quickly. More about allowing insight to develop.

A different kind of development

In earlier stages of development, growth often looks like building capability:

• more knowledge
• more skill
• more confidence

That still matters.

But alongside this, something else begins to develop: the capacity to stay with complexity without resolving it too quickly. And to work with others from that place.

An invitation

For many people, this is the point where curiosity begins to spark.

Not just:

“I understand this”

But:

“I want to learn how to work with people in this way.”

To create space rather than fill it. To listen deeply. To stay with complexity without closing it down.

This is what a coaching approach begins to offer in practice.

It grows through experience, through practising, and paying attention to what happens in real conversations.

People are drawn to our programme because they’re curious about working with people more reflectively, and want to develop themselves and others to meet the demands of uncertain times.

Some go on to work as professional coaches. Others take a coaching approach into their existing roles. Many do both.

If you recognise yourself in this, our next Foundations in Coaching programme in Scotland this November offers a practical place to begin.

Learning by doing matters. Knowledge matters.

But beyond understanding and skill, a way of seeing, discerning and responding grows through experience. This is where knowledge becomes wisdom, and where the work begins to change us.

This is why I do this work. I created our training to be a place for the kind of learning that stays with us, and shapes how we live, as well as how we work.

A final question

As your work becomes more complex, what might change if the next step is not to become clearer or faster…

but to work differently with the conversations you’re already part of?

This article also appears on Linkedin on Helen Sieroda page