As leaders, it’s often tempting to search for the next big tool or framework to drive or accelerate performance. But what if the real ‘unlock’ isn’t a new system or process – it’s a shift in how we see people?
The Performance Gap You’re Not Seeing
A saying we’ve heard from the world of Social Workers is one that applies far beyond their field: “All behaviour makes sense with enough information.” Often, understanding a child’s home life, cultural background and personality characteristics helps explain their behaviour in the classroom.
The same is true in the workplace. With enough context, we can start to understand why a colleague, or even a client, supplier or stakeholder becomes difficult to manage. We can better understand why someone on the team is underperforming or why a peer resists collaboration.
As organisations grow, confidence in leadership often declines. There’s a perception that individual needs can’t be met at scale, and that with an increase in the number of people and the number of processes, there is an associated decrease in the ‘relational closeness’ between people, and especially between individual and their line manager or leader.
We have some views on how you strengthen your relationships and your ability to coach for performance, not just with your direct reports or within your team – but with your clients and across your relationships.
What is Inside-Out Coaching?
At Mindbeat, we believe that real transformation starts from within and begins with making sense of behaviour and understanding the Psychology of the person you’re working with. It’s something we see time and again in the companies we support: leaders who embrace Inside-Out Coaching don’t just grow faster, they lead better.
Inside-out coaching means going beneath the surface of behaviour to understand the internal narratives that shape it. It’s about:
1) Unlocking potential
2) Surfacing strengths and self-limiting beliefs
3) Shifting how leaders think before they act
It’s a mindset-first approach to performance, and it works.
Why It Works
One of the best things about building Mindbeat as a digital-first approach to coaching is that we can measure results and ROI in a way that was out of reach in the pre-digital days of coaching.
Research across Mindbeat coaching programmes shows that high-quality coaching can drive up to 30% year-on-year revenue growth and improve critical leadership and soft-skill behaviours correlated with performance by 42%. One global Financial Services client using Mindbeat’s framework saw individuals on Mindbeat’s coaching programme outperform peers in a control group by 10% in year-on-year revenue.
More importantly, one of the biggest psychological shifts our participants speak about is a shift in better understanding themselves, their Psychology, and how to better unlock their own performance and that of their teams. This helps create greater confidence, clarity and resilience to lead through complexity and to manage one’s day-to-day challenges.
Building a Culture of Inside-Out Coaching
To truly embed this approach, leaders need to know why they’re on a development journey. It’s not only about improving team performance, it’s also about becoming the best version of themselves.
At Mindbeat, our coaches ask questions designed to probe deeper, uncover and discover patterns of thinking, psychological drivers of behaviour, and then help individuals navigate that insight to improve their performance and lead more effectively.
This can be especially useful in high-pressure transformation contexts. For example, in Private Equity-backed portfolio companies or scale-ups, where the stakes and expectations are high, pressure can create leadership paralysis. By helping leaders explore their internal mindset, coaching builds the confidence to act and the courage to take others with them.
The goal is simple: build capability, not dependency. Grow leaders who can self-coach and unlock potential in others.
Inside-Out Coaching With Clients To Unlock Greater Performance
Inside-out coaching also holds incredible potential to improve and maximise relationships with clients and customers. This has been found to work best when:
– You find a way to connect authentically as a trusted advisor with your client
– You are able to be curious, and ask strategic questions that get to the root of what’s in their mind, helping you to better understand their drivers, needs and fears
– When your client feels guided, understood and informed – not judged or pressurised to buy your product or service
Questions to Reflect On
1) Do your coaching conversations explore mindsets, not just behaviours?
2) Are you building a culture where questioning, reflecting and being challenged is welcome and growth is expected?
3) What inside-out coaching questions can you ask to unlock greater insight and to influence better performance, with colleagues and clients?
If not, it might be time to reflect on where and how you can shift your focus. When we coach from the inside-out, we don’t just drive performance. We build the kind of leadership that transforms teams, strengthens retention and creates lasting impact with colleagues and clients.
Curious how Mindbeat helps companies embed Inside-Out Coaching at scale?
We’d love to chat — drop us a line at [email protected]