Tag: club governance model

Board Room Best Practices

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In partnership with the National Club Association (NCA), we are pleased to release the inaugural issue of Club Governance, a publication focused on the fundamentals for effective club leadership developed to provide key insights into pressing board room issues and outline board room best practices to effectively govern your club.

In our inaugural issue, Henry DeLozier and GGA’s governance expert Fred Laughlin, discuss the following topics:

Three Keys to Effective Governance: Who Serves on the Club Board?

A Model for Club Governance: Policies and Practices of High-Performing Boards

How to Build a Board of Directors: Selecting Your Dream Team

Building Accountable and Transparent Boards: The Board’s Path to Excellence

Gaining Governance Consistency: How to Reduce the Annual Speed Bump

A Case Study of Good Governance: Greensboro Country Club

NCA members will receive Club Governance semiannually as a special insert in Club Director magazine. Through our partnership with NCA, we are making each publication available to our valued clients.

Read or download Club Governance here

A print version of Club Governance is available to GGA Partner clients. If you would like us to send one, please provide your name, club name and mailing address via email to linda.dillenbeck@ggapartners.com.

Turning Insights Into Action

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GGA Insights exists to support you as a club leader, offering you solutions, tools, and tactics today that can help you improve your work life tomorrow.  But putting change into practice can be a challenging endeavor. GGA Director, George Pinches, offers a road map for translating genuine insights and data into meaningful boardroom action.

Most private clubs are like cruise ships; they do change direction, but very slowly. They are often steeped in tradition, and while this is a powerful asset, it can also hold clubs back.

In reality, clubs need agility if they are to respond and adapt to the fast-evolving demands of changing markets, new technology and generations of new members.

But don’t lose hope; with more data available to us than ever, there is reason for optimism.

Data can clarify the changes that need to be made, shape the direction of travel, and safeguard clubs from the obstacles and pitfalls they may otherwise run into.

But the truth is, before data can be put into such effective practice, many clubs and boards require a cultural shift to recognize the value of it.

Commitment first

When my GGA colleague, Fred Laughlin, first introduced the Club Governance Model, he stressed the importance of obtaining a board commitment before undertaking transition.

This is because research demonstrates it usually takes three administrations for significant changes to be fully adopted by a club board.

In order to move away from what we typically see – decisions based on anecdotal evidence rather than genuine insights and hard facts – this is the process to follow: commitment first, then change follows.

For you, obtaining commitment from your board and committees means convincing them that the use of data-driven decision making is mutually beneficial.

Once your board members start asking “What are the facts? Do you have comparable data or industry benchmarks to support this recommendation?”, then your club will be on track to a brighter future based on genuine insights.

Shifting the dial

It’s clear that clubs can no longer rely on decisions based on institutional memory and personal opinion. But how do you (in practical terms) achieve such long-lasting change?

When it comes to shifting the culture, timing is key.

One of the best opportunities to start a culture shift is at the beginning of a new tenure. This tends to be a ‘honeymoon period’ for the new GM or COO, when support and expectations are running high.

Take the opportunity to assess the culture and seek ways to introduce change: commitment first, change to follow. If your board has an annual board retreat, this can be an opportune time to take action.

Beyond that, I’d recommend focusing on these three key areas to encourage a sustainable culture shift towards a data-driven future:

  1. Board recruitment and development – The nominating committee can add “an aptitude or understanding of data-driven decision making” to the list of attributes when recruiting nominees for the board. The GM/COO can use the same criteria when filling senior management positions.
  2. Board policy – Alterations to the Board Policy Manual (BPM) can ensure that the decision-making policy stipulates the required data, back-up information, and consultation necessary to support a recommendation. Proponents, be they committee or management, soon learn what is expected by the board before considering an initiative or making a decision.
  3. Education – Club industry resources that extol the virtues of data-driven decision making can be shared during board and committee orientation to support the culture shift away from anecdotal to fact-based practices.

Finding ‘your’ way

Process and structure will help, but a true shift in culture can only be achieved through intelligent and thoughtful execution. In some cases, this means finding the unique tactics which work best for you and your Board.

‘Shifting culture’ will not appear in many job descriptions of club leaders. But, for a lot of clubs it should be at the very top. It holds the key to disrupting what can be a perennial cycle of decisions based on what those in power ‘think’ is right.

My advice: think long-term (beyond 5 years), actively gain the buy-in and commitment of board members, and put a structure and process in place to ensure data and intelligence are at the heart of how your Club operates.

Being Flexible for the Future

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“Forecasting is very difficult,
especially with regard to the future.”
Yogi Berra?

Preparing for the Future

Even if the late Yogi Berra didn’t utter this statement, it’s an easy attribution. Like so many of Yogi’s statements, it tucks a truth inside a pithy, if nonsensical saying. We can speculate on the future, guess at trends, or engage a soothsayer, but we can never be certain of our forecast.

Yet as club leaders we are called upon to plan, invest, and adapt. Despite our inability to predict the future, we know the risks of sticking to the status quo. So how do we prepare for the new law, the gathering trend, the abrupt change in the economy, or other externalities – especially those that are unforeseen?

There are two issues relating to a club’s preparations for the future: recognizing the need to change, and taking the appropriate action

A club is best prepared to recognize the need to change by developing a well-constructed strategic plan and maintaining it as a dynamic document (i.e. revising it as new information becomes available). The more considered and current the strategic plan, the better prepared the club will be to respond to evolving conditions.

Next, in order to take the appropriate action, the club needs a Board that is three things: thoughtful, decisive, and nimble.

Thoughtfulness and decisiveness are features of the Board’s character and competence, and are best achieved by sound election processes to recruit Board members based on their merits (i.e. their ability to serve professionally in a culture of cooperation and respect).

Nimbleness, on the other hand, has to do with the flexibility afforded the Board via the club’s governing documents – its bylaws and Board policies. The Board’s agility is based less on the quality of its members than on its documented processes.

When the Future Arrives

Good doctors do two things well: make accurate diagnoses, and prescribe effective treatments. Similarly, effective club Boards do two things well: assess the impact of new laws, growing trends or shifting styles, and then take the action appropriate to address the impact.

So, what can a Board do in the present that will equip it to respond to the future when it arrives?

For years we at Global Golf Advisors have strongly recommended that club Boards develop and maintain a Board Policies Manual (BPM), which contains all of the Board’s standing policies in a succinct, well-organized document. We also recommend that bylaws be amended to afford flexibility for the Board to carry out its fiduciary responsibilities in a professional, transparent manner. The two actions must go hand in hand.

A club’s bylaws are actually “member policies” – instructions from the members to the Board. Members will be reluctant to cede authority to the Board without knowing how that authority will be used, and that’s where the BPM comes in. If the bylaws instruct the Board to maintain a publicly available BPM that clearly lays out how it will govern, then the members can be well informed as to how their Board is serving them.

Our advice is simple: include in the bylaws only the basic requirements, and let the Board formulate and publish in a BPM those policies it believes will allow it to govern effectively. Why? Because when the future arrives – say, a new law is passed, a new trend is affecting the club, or new amenities are being demanded by the members – a Board needs the flexibility of responding without having to go back to the members for a vote.

Of course, there are limits to ceding authority from the bylaws to the BPM. We are not advocating a carte blanche transfer. But in our experience, most club bylaws can be streamlined so they contain only the basics, thereby leaving plenty of room within which the Board can operate. The BPM is the centerpiece to the Club Governance Model*, which is the standard for excellence among the club community. There are many reasons for a club Board to develop and maintain a BPM. Preparing for the arrival of the future is just one of them.

For further advice on creating and maintaining a Board Policy Manual (BPM) for your Club, connect with GGA Director, Fred Laughlin.

*GGA’s Guide to Implementing the Club Governance Model is available to club leaders and Board members on request.

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