Last week, I had the opportunity to attend the CMAA World Conference on Club Management in Las Vegas. First things first – I dropped $140 at the Roulette tables – in about 10 minutes. Like all the other golf industry conferences, CMAA was jam-packed with informative and enjoyable sessions and a trade show. Each provided the ability to renew old friendships and make some new ones. This year, attendance reportedly set a new record at over 3,800 attendees.
Among the most prominent takeaways for me this year were that CMAA is encouraging programs for club staff and employees on substance abuse and that CMAA has produced a whitepaper on club capital improvements. I look forward to reading that.
A couple months back, I wrote about Will Guidara’s terrific book Unreasonable Hospitality. Mr. Guidara was a featured speaker in Las Vegas and advised the many club managers in attendance on a variety of ways to enhance the member experience.
Among the ways he encourages “unreasonable hospitality” are:
- Gamifying the experience to make things more fun
- Having Daily Team Meetings to prepare for that day’s “service”
- Offering a small dose of generosity (he mentioned providing a sip of Cognac with the check at his restaurant)
- Being a “Dream Weaver” by showing the guest/member that you’re paying attention to them and “making their “dreams come true”.
- Encouraging the concept that in hospitality, “one size fits one” (not all)
In comparing restaurants to clubs, Guidara suggested that a restaurant was “like a first date” while a club was like “being a good husband”. Given the frequency with which we visit our clubs, not a bad comparison.
One GM in attendance asked Guidara how clubs, sometimes inundated with (often trivial) rules, one can provide “unreasonable hospitality”. After a moment of consideration he answered simply by saying that a “Rules Audit” should be undertaken each year with the goal of significantly reducing the number of rules that exist.
Another intriguing session on “Best Practices from the Club Governance Handbook” was presented by longtime GM’s Tim Muessle (Olympic Club, CA) and Robert Sereci (Colleton River Club, SC). They discussed the toxicity that can occur from a variety of elements, including extended tenure board members. They compared a dysfunctional board to the practice of emergency medicine, always putting out fires resulting from often delayed reaction to situations. They addressed the challenge for managers to “speak truth to power” and suggested that clubs should not always do what the consultants recommend. Sereci strongly discouraged the implementation of projects approved with only 51% of the vote, suggesting that such a situation creates considerable animosity within the club. This session spotlighted numerous characteristics about the culture of some clubs that can obstruct financial success, as well as impacting the club’s culture negatively.
Another session, presented by Club Council principals Kirk Reese, David Voorhees and Denise Kuprionis differentiated the characteristics of good boards from not so good. Among other items, they emphasized that the best club directors are those with a high level of integrity, a willingness to listen to others (members, consultants, staff, etc.) and the right skills for the moment.
Mr. Dedman said some years ago that “Clubs are run like nobody’s business because they are nobody’s business.” That said, professionalism in the club management world, along with the expansion of investor-owned for-profit clubs is changing that. Now, many are somebody’s business and at the member-owned, not for profit clubs, where capable and highly professional club managers are employed and trusted, member boards are learning how to balance the the unique economics of private clubs with the desires of membership and the often politically-charged environment that exists in club board rooms and grille rooms.
In our practice of advising, valuing and consulting with private clubs, hearing from those professionals “at the point of attack” is most valuable to enhancing our understanding of the dynamics of private club culture and operations. As I’ve said before, the best clubs are those with happy members. These guys “get it”.