Performance on Purpose is Buzz Coaching’s core method, and it is set out in full on the Performance on Purpose page. This page is the short version. Two questions, asked together: are you performing well — and is that performance pointed at a purpose you actually chose?
Purpose without execution stays a dream. Execution without purpose becomes a treadmill. Plot the two on a quadrant, with performance up the side and purpose across the bottom, and every owner is standing in one of four positions this morning.
The four positions
Drifting — low performance, low purpose
The business runs, roughly. Nobody is certain where it is heading, including the owner, so priorities get set by whoever asked most recently. Years pass, and the shape of the business ends up being more or less the shape of its accidents.
The Treadmill — high performance, low purpose
The dangerous corner, because from the outside it looks like winning. Turnover up, team growing, a decent reputation, and an owner who cannot remember choosing any of it and does not much like Sunday evenings.
Unfulfilled Potential — low performance, high purpose
The owner can describe exactly what they want to build. The week never cooperates. Plans get written and rewritten, the strategy day produces twelve actions, and the numbers do not move.
Performance on Purpose — high on both
The output is real and it is aimed. The owner is using the business, rather than the other way round. This is the goal, and coaching is the process of moving towards it deliberately rather than hoping.
Why the two questions have to be asked together
An employee in the wrong job can resign. An owner cannot. Build a business that performs beautifully at something you do not care about and you have not created an asset — you have created a sentence, and you served it on yourself.
There is a commercial edge to this as well as a personal one. Purpose is what makes hard decisions fast. An owner who knows what the business is for can turn down the wrong contract before lunch. An owner who does not will turn it over for three weeks, take it because the number is large, and then spend a year servicing a client that damages both the margin and the team. Low purpose does not appear as an emotion in the accounts. It appears as a slower, worse decision every time something significant lands.
It also decides what you build. Two owners in the same trade at the same turnover will build completely different companies depending on whether the purpose is income now, a sale in six years, or a business that fits around a family. Those are three different businesses, and an owner who never chooses between them tends to end up with a version that serves none of the three well.
How to test yourself this week
Score the two axes separately, out of ten
Performance first, then purpose. Do not average them. The gap between the two numbers is the finding, not the numbers themselves.
Write what the business is for, in one sentence containing a number and a date
If it could appear on any other company’s wall, it is decoration rather than a purpose. Rewrite it until it is specific enough to reject work with.
Mark last month’s diary
Block by block, mark each one P if it moved you towards that sentence and N if it did not. The proportion is usually a surprise.
Take the decision you have been sitting on
There is one. Hold it against the sentence you have just written and decide it this week. A purpose that never changes a decision is not a purpose.
Coaching questions to sit with
- Out of 10, how honestly is this business pointed at something you chose rather than something that accumulated?
- If the next three years looked exactly like the last three, would you sign for that today?
- What are you performing well at that nobody would miss, and that would cost you nothing, if you stopped entirely?
- Who set the shape of your week — you, your largest customer, or your inbox?
This is the short version. The full method — the two scores, the four levels it works at, the three freedoms and the ninety-day coaching rhythm — is on the Performance on Purpose page. Start there if you want the whole picture.
Performance on Purpose is the first thing we test in Personal Coaching, and it runs through all four coaching areas. The Three Freedoms is what the top-right corner buys you in practice, and The Performance Zone explains why an owner stuck on the treadmill so often mistakes exhaustion for progress.
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Common questions
What are the four quadrants of Performance on Purpose?
Performance runs up the vertical axis and purpose runs across the horizontal one, which gives four positions. Drifting is low on both: the business runs, but nobody including the owner is sure where it is heading. The Treadmill is high performance and low purpose, and it is the dangerous corner because from the outside it looks exactly like winning. Unfulfilled Potential is low performance and high purpose: the owner knows precisely what they want to build and the week never cooperates. Performance on Purpose is high on both, and it is the goal. Coaching is the process of moving from wherever you are towards that corner deliberately.
How is this different from the full Performance on Purpose page?
This page is the summary of the model: the two questions, the quadrant and the four positions. The main Performance on Purpose page carries the whole method, including how the two scores are taken, the four levels it works at across you, your leadership, your business and your finances, the three freedoms it is designed to deliver, and the ninety-day rhythm of scoring, working and re-scoring that makes progress measurable rather than felt. If you want to understand the idea in five minutes, read this. If you want to understand how coaching actually runs on it, read that one.
Does a purpose have to be something inspiring?
No, and grandeur is the most common way owners ruin this. Purpose here is not a mission statement and it does not need to be noble. It is the answer to a plain question: what is this business for, in your life, and by when. Fund three days a week and be sellable within eight years is a far better purpose than anything containing the word empower, because you can hold a real decision up against it on a Tuesday and get an answer. The test is not whether it sounds impressive to somebody else. The test is whether it can make you turn down the wrong contract.