Axiom: Discovering the Benefits of Fractional Talent
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I hope anyone dissatisfied with their work—and company leaders everywhere who aren't satisfied with how they and their teams are doing—are exploring the different options available today for bringing talent into an organization.
I didn't know it then, but my path to working as a fractional COO began over 10 years ago when I joined the Benchmark-backed startup Axiom.
Axiom was a pioneering innovator in the legal services industry when I opened the Boston office as General Manager. We offered attorneys—alums of top law schools and leading law firms—a compelling alternative to the daily grind of traditional law firms and the conventional employee-employer relationship (working for a single company full-time).
We offered attorneys a new career option. They could work in-house part-time or full-time:
For one or more companies simultaneously (or “fractionally”).
For one company for a length of time, then another, and so on.
This approach gave them way more control over their lives. Our attorneys learned faster than other in-house lawyers by drawing insights from one client that sparked creative solutions for another. Freed from the sometimes problematic boss-subordinate power dynamic, they could also be more objective and honest than employees often feel they can be.
Attorneys loved it.
Because our attorneys were so busy (working, not idling on the bench), and our operational model was so lean, it was economical for our clients to hire them. Our rates approximated what a company might spend to hire and employ a full-time attorney.
Clients received top-quality support for an economical price. Sometimes our clients had struggled to hire attorneys for full-time positions of the same caliber we provided. Clients could bring on just the right talent for just the right amount of time to close capability and capacity gaps. They didn't have to only hire people in arbitrary long-term, 40-hour-per-week blocks.
Clients were thrilled.
Fast-forward to 2019, and I found myself living and working the Axiom way as a fractional COO.
I never doubted the approach's benefits when I recruited Axiom attorneys or sold our services to Fortune 500 General Counsels (GCs). Our attorneys and corporate clients talked about the advantages all of the time. Now that I've been working this way for several years, I've experienced the benefits firsthand and know how helpful it is to companies, especially in challenging economic times when bringing on new employees can be an expensive risk.
A ton could be better about work today, and I'm not advocating for throwing away the traditional employment relationship. But it's exhilarating to have been, and to be, a part of the movement innovating work models. I encourage more CEOs and founding teams to explore what Axiom's clients have known for over a decade.