Business performance coaching for better results

In this blog, we’ll explore how business performance coaching helps businesses unlock their full potential. By focusing on three critical areas, we’ll demonstrate how professional coaching contributes to growth and high performance across teams and organisations.

We’ll cover three key insights into how business performance coaching works, focusing on:

1. The difference between job delivery knowledge and business ownership knowledge.
2. How business performance coaching maximises potential.
3. The role of accountability in overcoming procrastination and enhancing leadership.

1. Job delivery knowledge vs. business ownership knowledge

One of the main challenges business owners face is the distinction between job delivery knowledge and business ownership knowledge. Understanding this difference is essential for improving performance and achieving sustainable growth.

The knowledge gap in SMEs

Most business owners start their companies with expertise in a specific field but lack the broader performance management and business ownership skills necessary to lead a successful enterprise. In fact, only 5% of owners have received formal training in business leadership. While they may excel in their previous technical roles, these skills don’t always translate into effective business leadership, leaving gaps in their ability to manage, develop, and coach their team members.

This is where business performance coaching and high-performance coaching come in. 

Coaches offer support that helps owners develop the leadership skills required to build and maintain a thriving business.

How performance coaching bridges the gap

Business performance coaching helps bridge the gap between the technical skills business owners possess and the leadership development needed to lead an organisation. Through coaching, business owners are guided to develop new competencies, from financial management and marketing to building cohesive teams. By identifying strengths and weaknesses, coaches enable business owners to address gaps in their leadership approach, which helps both the owner and their individual employees improve performance. This type of coaching empowers business leaders to run their organisations more efficiently.

2. Potential vs. current performance: maximising employee potential

The second key component of business performance coaching focuses on tapping into the potential of both business owners and individual employees. Maximising potential means addressing both internal and external barriers that may limit performance.

Unlocking performance through high-performance coaching

Drawing from the concepts in Timothy Gallwey’s book The Inner Game of Tennis, performance is defined as potential minus interferences. 

To reach their full potential, business owners and employees alike need to identify and remove the obstacles – whether internal (such as confidence issues) or external (such as operational challenges or environmental) – that hinder them from reaching their best.

High-performance coaching works by helping business leaders identify and mitigate these obstacles. For instance, coaches help business owners refine their communication skills, encouraging employees to engage more deeply with their work. Additionally, by incorporating leadership development into coaching, business owners learn how to better motivate their teams and inspire commitment to shared goals. This not only boosts business performance but also fosters employee engagement.

Identifying barriers and unlocking potential

The first step in this process is for business coaches to work with owners and teams to identify areas where performance is lacking. This could be a lack of strategic planning, poor communication, or difficulty in managing time and resources. A business performance coach helps owners pinpoint these issues and create a development plan to address them. By providing ongoing support, performance coaching helps employees and business leaders unlock their full potential and improve overall productivity.

3. Managing procrastination and enhancing accountability

The third pillar of business performance coaching focuses on accountability. Everyone can and do, sometimes, fall into patterns of procrastination, preventing them from achieving.

Accountability: A key benefit of performance coaching

One of the greatest benefits of performance coaching is the external accountability it provides. 

Tim Urban’s TED talk on procrastination humorously illustrates the challenges we face in overcoming distractions. In business, this problem is amplified by competing priorities and the day-to-day pressures of running a company.

Tim refers to three different characters in your head:

1. The rational decision maker – who is calm, considered, and logical. We may think we are like this most of the time but frequently, humans just aren’t!
2. The instant gratification monkey – is only interested in things that are easy and fun. If a distraction comes along, you’ll take advantage of that. We all give in to the monkey sometimes!
3. The panic monster – this chases the rational decision maker to take back control of the brain from the monkey and get things done. The task may now be done under a huge amount of pressure, too quickly or indeed be a bit slapdash but it does get done just not to a very high standard or performance.

Through business performance coaching, owners and employees learn to establish clear goals, define priorities, and stick to timelines, all to keep the instant gratification monkey under control and keep the panic monster away! 

This accountability not only helps keep procrastination in check but also ensures that work is completed effectively, efficiently and to the best of your ability. Coaches work with business owners to break down tasks into manageable steps, which in turn reduces the need for last-minute panic and improves overall work quality.

Leadership skills and employee development

In addition to managing procrastination, business performance coaching plays a critical role in enhancing leadership. By helping business owners build strong leadership skills, coaches enable them to lead their teams with clarity and purpose. Whether it’s refining communication skills or creating structured development plans for individual employees, coaching helps business leaders foster a high-performance environment that benefits everyone.

This focus on leadership development not only improves the performance of the owner but also encourages employees to grow within the company. Through regular feedback and targeted coaching, business owners can help their teams develop both professionally and personally, creating a culture of continuous improvement. Additionally, many business coaches blend elements of life coaching into their services, addressing both personal and professional growth.

The benefits of business performance coaching with UK Growth Coach

To summarise, business performance coaching provides a range of benefits for business owners and employees alike. By bridging knowledge gaps, maximising potential, and maintaining accountability, coaching leads to measurable improvements in performance across the board.

Our business performance coaching provides an invaluable external perspective that helps businesses grow in a sustainable and focused way. Whether you’re working on building your leadership team, refining your strategy, or improving employee engagement, business performance coaching offers the support needed to achieve your business goals.