Leadership Lounge

“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” – Albert Einstein “Disruptive innovation” has been a buzz phrase in several industries: hotels (AirBnB), transportation (Uber), food service (Blue Apron), retail (Amazon Prime), Technology (Waze), Entertainment (Netflix), office space (WeWork) and even airlines (Wheels Up)…to name a few. In the golf industry, there are also disruptors like TopGolf. Yet, when we think about our club members we

There is a classic joke that goes something like this: A man walks into a doctor’s office and says, “Doc, it hurts when I do this…” and proceeds to extend his arm and bend it at the elbow. The doctor replies, “Well, stop doing that!” This advice could be considered kind of silly. The man needs to be able to bend his arm at the elbow. After all, that’s the whole idea behind humans being equipped with elbows in the first place. What really needs to happen is for the health pro

There is growing consensus within the hospitality industry that online training can and should be an integral part of your staff and managem

Online training has revolutionized the way information, skills, procedures, policies, and institutional culture are transmitted to club empl

This article originally appeared in BoardRoom Magazine, July/August 2017. If you didn't receive your copy, you can subscribe here. When you want to bake a cake, do you follow a recipe? The answer is likely “yes” unless you are an experienced chef or baker. Recipes help us put together the right combination of ingredients in the right order, and give us an idea of cooking time. In other words, when will your masterpiece be done? However when we want to retain (or attract membe

Here’s a familiar sight at every golf club: Long-time members arrive, eager for a relaxing day on the course. Their tee time comes up, and after stopping in the golf shop for their cart reservation, they go out to the first tee to begin their round. They’re cheerfully greeted (by name!) by the staff, led to their cart, which is clean and charged and ready to go, and a great day of golfing begins. It’s precisely this seamless scenario that led them to join this club in the fir

“If you don’t get culture right, nothing else matters.” John Taft, CEO, RBC Wealth Management The word “culture” has many meanings. For most people, it refers to a community’s shared tastes and values, including things like social norms, music choices, food and fashion preferences, sports loyalties, religious beliefs, and many other mores and customs. Sometimes communities with a shared culture are specific to one particular location; sometimes they exist in many places at on

This article originally appeared on Golf Business Monitor in January 2017. A follow-up piece is planned for September to find out how tings are going. Most golf clubs operating in the 21st century know that there are changes afoot in the industry; complex changes that are requiring us to rethink how we attract and retain new members. One of the biggest changes is the tremendous growth of the millennial market, those born between 1983 and 2000 although there are no formal gene

This article originally appeared in BoardRoom Magazine in 2014. Customer service means different things to everyone. Wikipedia defines customer service as “The provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase.” Businessdictionary.com defines it as “All interactions between a customer and a product provider at the time of sale, and thereafter.” But what does this mean in the club business? My general rule of thumb is to first realize that very often our cu

Updated: 10/02/2018 People matter. At RCS, we believe they are your biggest asset. No one knows this more intimately than managers in the hospitality industry. Everything we do is about people: people providing an experience to other people. People serving people. Our industry wouldn’t exist without our members to sustain it, and that’s usually what most club management revolves around—how to attract, retain, and delight your members. What we're talking about today is the oth