Leigh ShermanThe most powerful innovations often emerge at the intersection of seemingly unrelated domains. When patterns from one field suddenly illuminate solutions in another, breakthroughs become possible that were previously unimaginable. This structural insight—that cross-domain experience creates unique perspective—lies at the heart of the Hillspeed methodology.
Performance is fundamentally about structure, not just effort. Yet the business world has persistently separated these domains: athletic performance driven by science and structure; business performance driven by inspiration and hustle. This artificial separation has created a critical gap in how we develop business leaders compared to how we develop elite athletes.
The Structural Limitation in Conventional Approaches
Traditional business coaching suffers from a fundamental structural flaw: it operates almost exclusively at the level of awareness rather than mastery. While conventional coaches excel at helping leaders see what they don't know (conscious incompetence), they provide no systematic pathway to unconscious competence—the state where excellence becomes automatic.
This limitation isn't coincidental—it's architectural. The International Coaching Federation explicitly prohibits directive teaching and structured skill development, focusing instead on reflective questioning. This creates a methodology perfectly designed for creating awareness but structurally incapable of engineering mastery.
In athletic development, this approach would be considered fundamentally incomplete. No elite coach would consider their job done after merely helping an athlete recognize their weaknesses. Yet in business, this level of intervention is standard practice, explaining why most coaching creates insight without transformation.
The Evolution of a Structural Solution
The recognition of this gap emerged from a unique convergence of experiences across elite sports, startup leadership, and performance coaching. The patterns became clear: while sports had evolved sophisticated, evidence-based methodologies for developing unconscious competence, business leadership remained trapped in awareness-focused, opinion-based approaches.
This insight catalyzed a critical question: What if we applied the structural principles of athletic development to business leadership? Not as metaphors or inspirational stories, but as actual performance systems with measurable outcomes and progressive development?
The answer became the Hillspeed methodology—a comprehensive framework built on the physiological structure of performance. By mapping business elements to health, fitness, and skill development, abstract business concepts transform into a concrete, measurable "sport" with clear rules and boundaries.
The Company Model Framework Approach
The Company Model Framework emerged as the foundational architecture of this new methodology. Built on three core pillars that parallel athletic performance, it creates a comprehensive model of organizational capability:
Leadership (Health)
Just as health forms the foundation for all athletic activity, leadership provides the foundational systems necessary for business performance. This includes strategic clarity, decision frameworks, alignment mechanisms, and execution discipline—the equivalent of an organization's nervous system, skeletal structure, circulatory function, and muscular capability.
Market (Fitness)
Just as fitness determines an athlete's capacity to compete effectively, market fitness determines a company's ability to engage with its external environment. This includes engagement mechanisms, monetization systems, activation frameworks, and feedback loops—the equivalent of aerobic capacity, anaerobic power, biomechanical efficiency, and proprioceptive awareness.
Business (Skill)
Just as skill determines an athlete's technical execution, business skill determines a company's ability to execute with precision and effectiveness. This includes product systems, operational frameworks, capital allocation, and resource optimization—the equivalent of technique, coordination, energy management, and efficiency.
Within each pillar, three specific Performance Levers provide precise control over particular aspects of performance, creating nine total levers across the model. These levers transform abstract business concepts into tangible, adjustable elements that can be directly manipulated to create specific performance outcomes.
Integration Within the Hillspeed Matrix
The Company Model Framework doesn't operate in isolation. It serves as the foundational layer within the comprehensive Hillspeed Matrix—a multi-dimensional environment that integrates all performance components.
At the first principles layer, the Company Model establishes the growth structure, paralleling how the Athlete Code establishes personal development structure. This creates a dual framework addressing both organizational and individual performance simultaneously.
At the systems thinking layer, the Leadership Schema provides the operational bridge that connects strategy to execution through precision language and information architecture. This enables effective alignment between strategic intent and day-to-day activities.
At the coaching layer, the Hillspeed Protocol creates the implementation methodology through four fundamental principles: Frame the Thinking, Build Alignment, Focus the Work, and Discuss Performance as an Integrated System. These principles ensure that coaching interactions drive structured development rather than just awareness.
Across the horizontal dimension, the Level 10 Performance System creates a progressive pathway from basic understanding to unconscious competence, ensuring that development follows a systematic sequence rather than occurring haphazardly.
Transforming Performance Through Structure
When implemented, this integrated approach fundamentally transforms how business performance develops. Rather than relying on random insights or tactical adjustments, it creates a comprehensive environment where performance improvement becomes systematic and predictable.
The transformation occurs across multiple dimensions simultaneously:
From subjective to objective: Abstract business concepts become measurable performance domains with clear assessment criteria.
From fragmented to integrated: Isolated business functions transform into an interconnected performance system where improvements in one area complement others.
From tactical to strategic: Focus shifts from immediate activities to structural capabilities that create sustainable advantage.
From reactive to proactive: Performance management moves from crisis response to systematic development through structured cycles.
Perhaps most significantly, this approach bridges the gap between business leadership and athletic performance, bringing the scientific rigor of sports development to the traditionally subjective domain of business coaching.
Exploring Further Applications
The implications of this structural approach extend well beyond conventional business coaching. As artificial intelligence increasingly handles tactical execution, human leadership must evolve to focus on systemic understanding and performance engineering—precisely what the Hillspeed methodology develops.
For business leaders interested in experiencing this approach, the Company Model Framework provides an ideal entry point. By mapping their current business through this structural lens, leaders gain immediate insight into constraints, opportunities, and leverage points that remain invisible in conventional analysis.
Ultimately, the Hillspeed methodology represents a fundamental evolution in how we think about business performance—not as a collection of tactics or inspirational principles, but as a comprehensive system that can be objectively structured, measured, and improved. Just as sports science transformed athletic development over the past decades, this approach promises to transform business leadership for those ready to move beyond conventional limitations.