And now I thought we’d dabble in one of my favorite areas of private club management.  Social clubs, city clubs, golf clubs, country clubs and the like are typically either public or private and either owned by a municipality, developer (single owner), corporate owner or by the members themselves (equity membership).

I’ll spend some time on the topic of private and member owned as well as developer owned clubs and what makes a top performing club tick.  Why are some clubs better performers than others (money is not the right answer)? Why some clubs can’t stop the bleeding of cash, why some clubs are like black-holes and why are others against all odds, doing well, with strong balance sheets, strong cash positions with happy staff and members alike!  Impossible you say? I wish!

What sets those that succeed apart? What is different about them?  In most, if not all cases, it comes down to this:

A culture and operating philosophy with a focus and relentless dedication to:

• Service
• Attitude
•  Consistency
•  Communication
• Teamwork

The above are indeed the Five -Steps of any Five-Star operation…

When it comes to developer owned clubs and/or single owners (individual or corporate) the answer is slightly easier: one vision, one agenda (yes I said it!), and one mission! I had the privilege of working at a top performing club, with a top performing team that was developer owned and operated.  I remember the members joking that this club had only 1 member and 300 guests…but when they bought the club from the developer and tried running it on their own, oops…guess what…within two years they sold it back to the same developer they just bought it from…going back to the “1 member and 300 guests mentality”…you can’t make this up!

Member owned clubs are a different animal!  Depending on the legal structure of the club, corporation, for profit or not for profit, equity or non-equity, for the most part members own a stake in the club and have a “voice” in how the club is run and the direction its going, and frankly, rightfully so!  The BIG mistake these clubs make is that regardless of the talent of the management and staff teams, members and boards alike (for the most part – some exceptions do exist) think they can do a better job and that they know more.  It reminds me of the current commercial on TV about some over the counter medication whose tag line is: “You wouldn’t want your doctor doing your job – why do theirs?”

Or better yet, I remember this sad experience from an early job I had as a junior manager in a 5-star hotel, where there was dinner of 50 doctors being hosted by some hospital.  During the course of the dinner, one of the doctors suffered a heart attack and then all hell broke loose! It was so tragic, 50 doctors (more precisely 49 doctors) were screaming at each other that each one was more qualified to take care of the patient than the next person at the table!  They huddled around the unconscious person, thereby delaying the hotel’s security team from performing CPR using the defibrillator and such…911 was called on time, and I don’t know if the person survived or not, but what I do know is the EMTs when they arrived yelled at the top of their lungs for the doctors to get out of the way and to shut-up and to let them do their job…what I also know, is that when they finally carried the person in the ambulance to leave for the closest hospital – the lights were flashing but the siren was quiet…

Moral of the story?  Too many cooks spoil the broth!  If you don’t know what you’re doing – hire someone that does and let them do the job! Just because you’re a captain of industry and when you were a teenager you once worked at McDonalds doesn’t mean that you know the intricacies of Food Cost %, Menu Engineering and Pricing Analysis….

So many member owned clubs spend top dollars to hire top managers only to cuff their hands and feet, blind fold them and then irritably wonder why the manager and team can’t take the club in the right direction!? Furthermore, the more board members a Board of Directors has, the greater the chance that the club is an under-performing club!  Any boards larger than 9 members are doomed to failure (for the most part)…the higher the number the higher the chances…I once worked at a club with 17 Board Members! Yes!  17 chairs!!!! 17 committees…that is the definition of insanity!

Hopefully you can catch the message here…and if you’re not here’s a summary:

Top performing member/equity owned clubs, are ones with small Boards of Directors (7-9 should suffice), with Boards that understand that the role of the GM is to manage the operation and the role of the Board is to establish policy and provide guidance to the GM and management team – NOT micro-manage and question every single decision and in most cases even countermand manager decisions while still blaming management for failures…and last but not least, top performing clubs are ones where the Board of Directors view the GM and management team as partners in a common mission/venture and…here’s the best for last: where Board Members speak with the same voice and unity as opposed to an impossible number of personal agendas, infighting and mistrust!

The economy over the last few years has impacted many clubs in a very bad way…a number of private clubs have filed for bankruptcy protection and/or have gone fully belly-up! I challenge you to do your own research…what percentage of those failing clubs were led by large and inefficient boards? I know the answer – I am sure you do too!

As I like to say, and sadly it’s so true: There are two things you can do!  Either you do it or you don’t!

At your service,
Aurelian