Tag: rules

Staffing For Success: Part 3

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Game Plan – Henry DeLozier‘s monthly column in Golf Course Industry Magazine – continues its series on staffing for success with the third of three installments. After looking at how the pandemic has afforded club and course managers the opportunity to reevaluate their teams (Staffing for Success: Part 1) and strategies for finding and hiring the right team members (Staffing for Success: Part 2), we turn to creating a culture that inspires and retains top performers.

Culture: The Secret Sauce of Success

A Supreme Court justice once defined obscenity by not defining it. “I know it when I see it,” Justice Potter Stewart famously said in 1964. It seems that an organization’s culture might fit into the same category: difficult to define, but obvious once illuminated.

The difficulty in defining organizational culture is because it is so many things at once. An amalgamation of personality, values, reputation, purpose, style and traditions framed by a set of written and unwritten rules developed over time and considered inviolable. Put them all in a pot, let them simmer for a while — a few years or maybe a few decades — and what’s left is culture!

Culture then is nothing less than an organization’s heart and soul, and its importance rivals any other asset or advantage. It is the glue that holds the organization together. It inspires loyalty in employees and motivates them to act consistently and pridefully. It influences them to perform at a high level because they feel a responsibility to uphold their end of the cultural bargain.

Culture is also an important factor in retaining top performers. Randstad, the international employment and recruitment firm, lists toxic cultures with poor pay, limited career opportunities, lack of challenging work, lack of recognition and work-life imbalance as the leading reasons people leave their jobs. There is an urgent need to pay attention to the culture growing around your club or course or risk losing top talent.

If this amorphous entity known as culture is so critical, what steps can you take, what keywords can you prioritize for search engines and what KPIs do you elevate to bake it into your organization? If only creating or transforming culture were so easy. Every winning culture is part of a unique set of attributes and characteristics that cannot be invented or imposed. It must be discovered from within.

But that doesn’t mean you should sit back and wait for culture to reveal itself — or for it to form in ways that could be detrimental to your future success. The road to a sustainable and winning culture ensures that employees:

 

  • Understand the club’s/course’s vision and how they contribute to it. When everyone knows where their leaders are steering the ship, it’s much easier to get people onboard and for employees to feel good about rowing.
  • Know how their performance is measured and what their personal success looks like. What results are expected? Are there both quantifiable and qualitative measures?
  • Are consistently recognized for contributions that meet and exceed goals. Nothing is more motivating than recognition in front of colleagues.
  • Recognize a commitment to diversity and inclusion. Employees of color and minorities want to see evidence that their opinions and work is valued and that they’re on a level playing field.
  • Feel that their managers are taking steps to safeguard their health and well-being. In a post-pandemic world, employees want to feel confident that their job is not putting them and their families in danger.
  • Are rewarded through a set of personal, flexible, creative benefits. Baby boomers, millennials and Gen Xers think about benefits and perks differently. To make them meaningful, managers must understand what each employee values most.

In addition to helping retain top performers, an engaging and embracing culture also has competitive advantages, particularly when it comes to sustaining high performance. Bain & Company research found that nearly 70 percent of business leaders agree that culture provides the greatest source of competitive advantage. In fact, more than 80 percent believe an organization that lacks a high-performance culture is doomed to mediocrity.

Culture may not be the easiest thing to define, but you can take steps that encourage a culture in which your organization thrives. You can’t rush culture, but you’ll know it when you see it.

This article was authored by Henry DeLozier for Golf Course Industry magazine.

Community… and How To Build It

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A member’s relationship with your club will feel infinitely more connected, more substantial and more emotional if they are part of a community. But how do you create a community at your club? Can you create a community? GGA’s Henry DeLozier has the answers.

It is a genuine sense of community – and the opportunity to be a part of it – that attracts members to a private club.

Members need their club to be a safe place, populated by people with shared lifestyle expectations, and built on experiences that create a feeling of fellowship.

But how does a club create an authentic community?

The foundation of any community is shared values, and for a private club these may be values such as safe haven and healthy lifestyle.

In private clubs today, this culture of common attitudes, interests, and goals cannot be left to chance – it must be facilitated and fostered by the club leadership.

Successful club leaders and managers understand that this requires an intentional plan of action; one which establishes and sustains several key elements within the club’s culture:

Setting the Standard

Clearly stated standards of conduct are essential to establish a shared understanding of the community’s behavioral norms. Members rely upon a common understanding of acceptable – and unacceptable – behavior.

In clubs today, such standards of decorum include dress, usage of technological devices such as mobile phones, and personal conduct. In the main, club members are highly supportive of rules and rule enforcement… for others at least.

How can club leaders effectively implement respected community standards?

  • Engage input from many members when formulating and updating the club’s rules. The more members who participate in establishing the community’s standards, the more widely the standards are supported.
  • Communicate the commonly accepted standards for all to see, question, refine, and accept.
  • Make such standards the backbone of new-member orientation and communicate to existing members that new members are being so informed.

At The Ford Plantation near Savannah, Georgia, the sense of community is a point of pride among club members.

CEO Marc Ray observes, “Everything we do, including our Mission Statement, refers to Ford as a community of “friends and neighbors”. The members, and the staff, genuinely care about each other, and it is a culture that permeates the community.

“We travel together, dine together…and sometimes cry together. There is nothing fake or contrived. It is an ingrained culture that people want to, and get to, belong to. Something bigger than themselves.”

Firm but Fair

Establishing a sense of unity and togetherness is a powerful asset for any club, and this is something that needs to be protected.

From time to time, there will of course be people who do not honor the standards set, and knowing how to address those individuals and the situations that arise is critical to uphold the standards of the community.

How should clubs approach these situations? The best are consistent and firm in the enforcement of community standards with very few exceptions. So too, top clubs enforce their rules evenly regardless of status, tenure or importance.

“If you don’t stand for something, you will fall for anything” is a commonly referenced quote with mixed attribution and, yet, its aptness is clear. Members like to know that their community and its traditions stand for something worthy of their respect and support.

Behind the Curtain

Employees are a vital component of club communities. In many clubs, it is the staff that hold the club together and keep it the safe haven on which members rely.

This is particularly prevalent at Desert Mountain in Carefree, Arizona, as Damon DiOrio, the Club’s CEO, describes, “Establishing a safe, positive, healthy and energized work culture, built on trust and respect for your employees, is the first step in developing a strong and inclusive brand.

“Having a united and caring culture for your team is critical to forging an environment that emanates membership loyalty and a sense of community. As leaders, we can only fulfil the dream of having pride and harmony in our membership by being open, honest, engaging, transparent and authentic.”

The Power of Tradition

A sense of community also relies upon treasured traditions which celebrate friendship, family, and fun. These are key ingredients to a feeling of “belonging”.

Traditional special events and celebrations at many clubs help to crystalize the community’s values.

Take the ‘Big Little Show’ at Westchester Country Club, for instance, where family is the tradition placed front and center every summer with the club’s vibrant talent show.

Events which celebrate patriotism and love of country are other popular examples that serve to bring club members closer together through shared, cherished moments.

Your club could have all of the facilities and amenities in the world, but it is the sense of community – of being a part of something dear to them – that makes members proud and dedicated to their club for generations.

Facilitate and foster the emergence of this community, and it could fast become your club’s strongest asset.

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