A unified golf industry starts with a unified vision

OPINION: As I have worked up through my career progression, I’ve put more and more importance on having a clear vision of each of the facilities I’ve managed, as well as on growing my own business.

I was taught by some great leaders over the years who all strongly believed that building company culture started with everyone knowing and living the vision of the facility they worked at. The vision became part of each of them and they fostered it through to members and other stakeholders by sharing the enthusiasm for striving to achieve the vision at all time.

A vision statement is a declaration of an organisation’s objectives and is intended to guide its internal decision-making.

It’s a company’s road map, indicating both what the company wants to become and guiding transformational initiatives by setting a defined direction for the company’s growth.

A recent observation of mine has to do with our own golf industry here in Australia. As the industry is made up of various governing and membership bodies, which work more or less independently of each other, it may be a wise move to accelerate closer to unification by all adopting a common Vision Statement.

It already started with Golf Australia and Golf Queensland having ‘MORE PEOPLE PLAYING MORE GOLF’ as their vision statements. Stephen Pitt, CEO of Golf Australia, was previously CEO of Golf Queensland so I can see the influence there. The statement is simple, easy to remember and full of aspirational goals. I like it!

Listed here are each of the state and national bodies’ vision (some call it ‘purpose’) statements and if I couldn’t find any (they were buried or non-existent on some of the sites) I’ve listed their mission statements instead.

Mission vs. Vision Statement

Mission statements and vision statements fulfil different purposes. A mission statement describes an organisation’s purpose and answers the questions “What business are we in?” and “What is our business for?”

A vision statement provides strategic direction and describes what the owner or founder wants the company to achieve in the future.

With a lack of prominence on sites or in the various marketing collateral, how do people, members and industry know our bigger vision, share our vision and live our vision?

Click here to read full article in GIC Autumn 2017 e-mag