In my world as a Business Coach I work with some amazing colleagues in my team at Beckon Business.  Tom Wickham is a 2021 Olympic medalist and is seriously GOOD at his game on and off the hockey field. He helps organisations tighten their game-plan and hone their team performance skills. And the founder of Beckon Business, Ak Sabbagh, would hold an Olympic medal in Business Coaching if it was an Olympic sport. Ak has been coaching for over 20 years and what he doesn’t know about ‘sharpening-the-axe’ in businesses hasn’t been discovered yet.

However, where I see the real medal-winning performers is in our clients.

Like the medical specialist practice owner who began her business coaching journey looking to improve overall performance in an already high-functioning  team of professional practitioners.

Instead of starting with the broader team, we focused on coaching the practice leaders to refine the vision and purpose of the practice and build depth in leadership competence in the executive team.

Building up the leadership team’s bench-strength gave the business owner the freedom to step-aside from her hands-on role of leading the team and sharpen her own vision, do some blue-sky thinking about growing the business and reflect on her personal aspirations. The winning result of this two-year coaching journey culminated in the successful sale of the elite business. Not only did this free the owner to share her specialist knowledge with other professionals outside her practice, but it also expanded the capability of the specialist practice to deliver excellence to a wider community. A big win for the profession and a big win for the specialist practice. More than this, all of this took place while the world oscillated around COVID lockdowns!

Getting clear on the vision, taking regular coaching to sharpen-the-axe and having the courage and strength to look for a new owner in the midst of a pandemic, resulted in bringing cut-thru and delivering a medal winning performance. It was the shift to sharpen-the-axe in the executive team that released this business leader/owner to focus on the opportunity to succeed out of the business – a genuine win-win for everyone.

Improved overall team performance, deeper leadership capability, and time for business owners to get clear on their bigger picture – all in a day’s work at Beckon Business where we love helping our clients to sharpen-the-axe and  uncover the aspiration that brings about winning shifts for our business clients.