Besides discipline, what would you say is the one thing that all athletes have in common? All Olympic athletes have a coach.

I find this interesting.

Here we have the most elite athletes in the world. Most of them have trained for most of their lives, others are repeat Olympians, and others are repeat medal winners. Yet they still have coaches.

Why would they need coaches? Surely they know what needs to be done to train right, eat right, rest right and all the other things that go along with being an Olympic athlete.

Take Michael Phelps, for example. With so many medals around his neck even before going into the London Olympic games, doesn’t he know how to be a winner?

If you haven’t caught on, I’m being a bit facetious.  Of course coaches are important. They help athletes in the development of their technical skills.

But what I find fascinating that even at the highest level, individuals need coaches.

In the business world, including the medical business world, we don’t share this same notion. More often than not, we rely on ourselves to win. Many scoff at the need to hire a consultant because it is a too expensive (in the short term), knowing very well that in the long run, the likelihood for a return on investment is huge for example

But if we look at athletes, we see something different. Despite their skill set, talent and knowledge, they always rely on a coach to help them improve no matter the cost or the sacrifice.

Think about it, even Michael Jordan had Phil Jackson.

Seems to me that there is a good argument to be made that all of us need to have coaches. Whether that is hiring a consultant to go over billing with your docs, to hiring a competent practice administrator to humbling yourself to a colleague and asking her to give you feedback on how you handled that complicated patient.

If athletes benefit from it, why wouldn’t business leaders?

Brandon Betancourt manages a pediatric practice and blogs at Pediatric Inc.