Tag: strategy

GGA Education Events Isolate Themes & Challenges Facing Club Leaders

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Golf club executives have come together on both sides of the Atlantic as GGA continues its program of insight-led educational Symposiums, that deliver insights, research and current trends influencing golf club business success.

Against the backdrop of Loch Lomond Golf Club in Scotland and Scarboro Golf & Country Club in Canada, senior figures in the club industry discussed the challenges, issues and successes of the past year and forecasted opportunities and possible difficulties for the next 12 months.

Managing Partner of GGA’s EMEA Practice, Rob Hill, who directed the European Symposium in Scotland, said: “Our Symposiums foster a culture of knowledge sharing and collaboration among club leaders, many of whom are tackling the same challenges and are eager to learn from each other’s successes. This, backed by GGA’s key findings and research, provides a foundation of confidence and focus for the year ahead.”

The Scotland and Canada Symposiums touched on a vast array of topics ranging from far-reaching global trends to granular, market-specific issues managers are typically experiencing, including strategic thinking, business intelligence, member satisfaction, capital expenditures, membership growth, governance and manager-led panel discussion.

Key Takeaways:

The Symposiums isolated a number of key themes and challenges club managers are set to face in the year ahead:

  • Strategic thinking is a challenge everywhere, particularly among club Boards. Challenges in defining strategy, remaining strategic at the Board level, and qualifying the elements of a strategic plan are widespread.
  • Business intelligence resources are in high demand. Many clubs indicated that they do not have all the data they need to make strategic assessments and key business decisions, particularly as they relate to local-market understanding, member satisfaction, club utilization habits, and evaluating club finances.
  • Member Satisfaction is paramount. Club managers believe that understanding members’ satisfaction, current habits, and future preferences is essential to a happy club environment. Empirically and anecdotally, there was strong correlation between overall member satisfaction and evaluations of a club’s social atmosphere, food and beverage operation, and clubhouse quality/condition.
  • Millennials and Generation X are top of mind. While tactics for recruitment and sentiments for the viability of these audiences varied significantly among regions and participating managers, it is evident that understanding the future generation of club members is a hot topic for club managers and a concern for some.
  • Governance is both a source of strength and adversity. Clubs are constantly facing challenges to govern effectively and implement governing infrastructure which supports the organization’s strategic vision. At clubs where governance is characterized by strategic thinking, written policy, and efficient, purposeful deliberation, success often follows.
  • Clubs are considering the following key initiatives for 2018:
    • Strategic Plan implementation: implementing/executing golf course masterplans, facilities masterplans, determining club brands, or evaluating club relevance to current/future members.
    • Governance reviews: reviewing governance practices, ensuring governance models are more ‘business’ appropriate, implementing Board Policy Manuals, and operating with greater transparency and more communication.
    • Membership changes: evaluating membership categories, measuring member utilization, focusing on maintaining existing members, and assessing approaches to attract Millennials/Generation X.
    • Financial monitoring: increasing the measurement of goals and financial performance through business intelligence/satisfaction surveys/employee surveys, assessing costs and benefits of process improvements through technology/robotics, and monitoring labor costs.
    • Environmental assessments: gauging the cost and potential impacts of processes focused on sustainability, ecology, and environmental stewardship.
    • Capital replenishment: conducting capital reserve studies, building capital reserves, exploring new methods of capital funding, gaining member support for CapEx through digital communications (i.e. video information rather than Town Hall meetings; estimating vote projections through online surveys; electronic voting for easier capture and analysis), and improving the monitoring capital maintenance requirements.

Rob added: “While these learnings represent only macro-level, shared sentiments among participating European and North American club managers, they point toward an auspicious outlook for the 2018 golf season, one defined by a focus on data-driven decision-making and informed strategy.”

Symposiums provide an opportunity to connect with club managers and to share the latest and fullest extent of GGA’s wealth of industry knowledge observed through client assignments and extensive market analysis. Partner Henry DeLozier, said: “At GGA we believe that one must share knowledge so that all may benefit. None of us owns knowledge.”

How to Be a Great Board Member

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“The most effective private club board members park their personal agendas at the door and work collectively for the betterment of all members.”

GGA Partner Henry DeLozier discusses “Servant Leadership” at the Board level in an article written by Mike Stetz for Golf Inc. Magazine’s March/April 2018 Issue.

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Creating Strong Club Culture

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“CULTURE EATS STRATEGY for breakfast,” said management guru Peter Drucker. For clubs, culture is governance, and private club strategy—no matter how good and well-conceived—will be a victim to poor governance.

According to Fred Laughlin, nonprofit governance expert and a Director at Global Golf Advisors (GGA), “the board speaks with one voice—in writing,” in clubs that are well governed. When you omit either one of two key concepts in the phrase, you invite dysfunctions.

Take out “one voice” and you have a board of factions. While diversity of thought around the board table is healthy, speaking with multiple voices outside the boardroom confuses the members, frustrates the general manager and discourages the board members whose voice is not heard.

Take out “in writing” means the board must choose another way to communicate policies, which usually comes from the person with the most power or influence, the largest faction of followers or the loudest voice. Such verbal policies are ephemeral, lasting only if the person or group stays in power.

Following is a useful three-question test concerning the governance at your club:

1. Are we who we claim to be? The brand promise in most private clubs is that the club will provide an enjoyable lifestyle for its members. Lifestyle varies from club to club; the promise does not vary where the culture of the club is genuine.

2. Are we doing what is right for the members? Often boards deliberate what is allowed under the bylaws. Sometimes the proceedings ask: What options will the members tolerate? Great boards concern themselves with the moral compass that points to doing what is right. Truthfulness, dependability and openness are terms most often cited in private club member surveys concerning expectations of the board.

3. Are we truly servant leaders? Servant leadership places the point of focus on those served ahead of focusing on those serving. Great and successful clubs share the characteristic of strong servant leadership.

Strategy flourishes in clubs with cultures that foster great governance. Great strategy is simple in its description and thorough in its formulation. Effective strategy depends upon a culture borne of trustworthy governance.

An indicator of a club with weak governance is timid and has ambiguous goals that hold no one accountable for their achievement.

How Does a Club Implement Strategic Thinking?

“Putting strategy to work is the key,” according to Derek Johnston, a partner at Global Golf Advisors. GGA recommends a shortlist of primary actions to ensure strategy is alive and functioning at the highest level.

  • Strategy must be an agenda item at every board meeting. Strategic plan review enables the board to adhere to strategy. Progress toward goals should be reported into every board meeting by either the long-range planning chair or the club manager.
  • Keep score on strategy. The strategic scorecard is a valuable tool that enables the board to focus on the key strategic goals and objectives. As simple as a financial performance dashboard, the strategic scorecard shows each goal or objective across the horizontal axis with the monthly or quarterly (depending upon the frequency of your board meetings) forming the vertical axes. Progress updates should be summarized at every board meeting.
  • Socialize strategy. See that the management staff is fully informed of the key strategic goals. More importantly, see that everyone on staff understands and is committed to the strategy that the board has set.
  • Publish the club’s strategic plan. Members want to know that their club operates in a responsible manner. Make the club’s strategy available to all members in ways that ensure that the strategic plan is not passed throughout the local community and into the hands of competitor clubs. It is important for club members to know what is and is not included within the clubs’ strategy.

Discipline and attention is necessary for private club boards responsible for preserving and enhancing the best attributes of the club.

Written by GGA Partner Henry DeLozier, this article was originally written for and published by Club Director Magazine in January 2018.

The Keys to Successful Strategic Planning

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Research by Global Golf Advisors indicates more than 80% of top performing clubs believe they are working to a strategic plan. But are they?

“It is absolutely true 80% of clubs wish to have a strategic plan and truly intend to have a strategic plan, but if the road to hell is paved with good intentions, not all of them do,” says GGA Partner Henry DeLozier.

“The reality is that many managers are not clear what a bona fide strategic plan is. They believe that if they have a capital asset roster or have developed a master facilities plan they are well on their way to developing a full strategic plan, which is not accurate.”

So what is a strategic plan and what happens when clubs successfully implement strategy?

In this video, Henry DeLozier explains Global Golf Advisors’ five key elements of an effective strategic plan and why a focus on implementation and performance monitoring frequently leads to success and an increase in club membership.

https://youtu.be/vQSzlpXGcm4

For more insights on successful strategic planning, download the GGA whitepaper ‘Strategic Planning: A Road Map to Club Survival and Success.’

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