It cannot be denied, I am a huge fan of Usain Bolt. Watching him in Olympics past when he first steamed past the opposition leaving a huge gap between himself and the next competitor and then later, taking on the best who were catching him up, and still finding the reserves to be just that little bit better are memories that inspire and guarantee a smile.
He has been, quite simply, the best sprinter for years now. When you go onto his website, very prominently, he talks about Team Bolt and the first person he mentions is his coach. We have long accepted in sport that in order to be the best, athletes have a coach. They work together to find the small 1% percent that will make a difference between being the best and being the rest. The coach may change as the athlete’s skill evolves or when they need a specific area of their skill developed, but they are rarely without a coach.
So why is that when people reach the top of business, they decide that they don’t need a coach? Are we to presume they feel that they are the ‘finished article’? That there is nothing they can improve or build upon? That they could not benefit from an impartial sounding board who has years of experience working with people at the top of their industry?
Perhaps if we started looking at the development of top business people in the same way as athletes, performance and inspirational leadership would become the norm rather than the exception.