Definition of HONE
hone/həʊn verb: hone; 3rd person present: hones; past tense: honed; past participle: honed; gerund or present participle: honing
sharpen (a blade).”he was carefully honing the blade
refine or perfect (something) over a period of time.
I enjoy cooking, including cutting food with a sharp cook’s knife. However, no matter how sharp the blade, over time, often so slowly that we don’t notice, our blade loses some of its sharpness. When that happens, particularly if we hone it with a whetstone as in the picture, the difference can be remarkable, a moment of “I thought the blade was still sharp, but WOW, now it is REALLY sharp”.
However, beware, as I learned that the first time I truly honed a high-quality blade with a top-class whetstone, it became sharper than ever before so that the slightest brush against my skin sliced open my hand deeply. I didn’t simply bring back the sharpness of the blade, I made it even sharper by focussing on honing it.
Now to a leadership example where I was working with a successful leader who was recognised by all as having long ago gone from “Good to Great”, delivering top of class results for their business year after year. However, at the point at which I was contacted, the company had grown to such a size that, allied with their brave ambitions for the future, this individual knew that for their company and for themself, it was time to take the leap from “Great to Elite”, so they asked to start working with me.
A few weeks into our relationship, one day I was asking questions about the established processes they had to achieve their already market-leading results. Holding the context of supporting them around going from “Great to Elite”, each question I asked led to more depth in the conversation. At the end of that particular meeting, their key learning for the meeting was “it is time to reflect on our approach and look to how we can hone it“.
This particular client is one I loved to work with as they demonstrate the four qualities of Open Leadership. They are Brave and Hungry, and at the same time Open and Humble, ready to see that to get to the next level, from “Great to Elite”, it was time for them to hone their already sharp blade to be sharper than ever before.
This reminded me of a quote:
What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work and study; a constant process of honing. Talent is a dull knife.
Discipline and constant work are the whetstones upon which the dull knife of talent is honed until it becomes sharp enough.
Stephen King
Know when it is time to keep using the blade you have, know when you need to sharpen it as it has become a little dulled, then also know when it is time to truly hone it to another level of sharpness, to go from Good, to Great, to Elite.