FEATURE: Gregg Patterson – Searching for WHY??

POSTED ON December 16, 2024 @ 10:42 am

Gregg Patterson – Founder and President – “Tribal Magic!!!”

Searching for WHY:

Young, upwardly mobile undergraduates, pondering a hospitality career, often ask old, long-in-the-tooth Club Managers “Why Clubs”, “Why THIS type of Club’, “Why This Size Club”, ”Why THIS club” and “Why clubs Now rather than later”???

These, the Young and Talented, have lots of options and asking WHY is the clever thing to do.

Even long-time club professionals who’ve committed their working life to clubdom may, at the end of a harrowing day of member complaints and equipment failures, sit, caffeine in hand, unwinding in the silence of their office, pondering WHY, in the name of what’s holy, did they commit their adult life to a wild and crazy business like THIS???

These “Long-Timers” loved and still love the business. All had opportunities to exit clubdom and pursue other careers in other industries—but didn’t. Students and newbies in the business look at these “Long Timers” and simply ask—WHY???

If you’re one of those people—whether new in hospitality or old and grizzled and in the business for decades—and you’re asking yourself “WHY clubs”, ponder these questions and decide if the road to clubdom is—and WAS—the RIGHT one for you.

WHY Questions

Every club professional—or would be club professional— should be auditing their WHY early and often. Here’s a checklist of questions worth pondering……………

Connecting with PEOPLE—Do you enjoy people—meeting them, talking to them, serving them, making them smile???

Big Interesting—Are you an interesting person that others hunger to meet and talk to lots and often?

Hospitality Soul—Do you enjoy doing things for others, making them feel good and, when you make them feel good, you experience BIG HAPPY???

Relationships—Do you like creating and sustaining relationships—between you and others and, as the intermediary, between others?

Community—Do you have the ability to create and strengthen the three communities—member to member, staff to staff and staff to members—and to energize these communities with THE BUZZ???

People Continuity—Do you find it emotionally satisfying to have long-term relations with a stable, slowly changing community of members and staff???

TOUCH Opportunities—Do you enjoy delivering the five touches—the eye touch, the ear touch, the verbal touch, the “touch” touch, the written touch, the intermediary touch and the BRAIN touch—to members and staff, lots and often???

Talk Time—Do you enjoy face-to-face and eye-to-eye talk opportunities with interesting people—in your office, throughout the clubhouse and at staff, board and committee meetings???

Right Sized—-Are you captured by a stand-alone, small business, where every member, every employee and every supplier is known to you personally, where any issue of any consequence lands on your desk, where “everything” is “your thing”, endlessly???

Floor Time—Do you hunger for “floor time” that delivers “face time”, connecting opportunities, out on the floor, in the pro shop, in the half-way house, shaking hands, kissing babies and talking the talk, getting physically and emotionally engaged with the staff and members.

Varied Responsibilities—-Do you enjoy being a deep generalist, knowing a little bit about lots of things, having a “global” understanding the entire operation, roaming in the trenches, touching people, inspecting pipes, sitting with lawyers, pleading with the bank with everything different every day, with your focus shifting from one “fire” to the next???

Everything THE BIGGIES Have—-Do you appreciate that all of the operational, social and financial issues of a big business—taught to you in graduate school—can be found in the club, smaller in scale though thematically the same???

Doing The Umbrella—Do you hunger for a small business, a typical club, that allows you to “Do The Umbrella”—to be the hospitality driven Club Manager, to be the operationally focused General Manager, to be the business savvy COO, to be the strategic thinking CEO and to be the internal Business Consultant???

Meaningful Work—Are you in search of business where the work is MEANINGFUL to old people and young people, to the wealthy and the “un-monied”, to the leisured and the employed because you’re delivering relationships, community and BIG HAPPY to each and every one of them?

Keeper of the Culture—Are you interested in understanding a club’s culture, strengthening that culture, evolving the culture, managing the culture and aligning the club’s culture with the present while preparing it for the future???

Impact Sized—Do you relish “impact opportunities” in a small enough place where the decisions you make MATTER, where your thoughts are not ignored and lost in the hierarchy of a large and complex corporation, a place where one’s creativity can flourish because your ideas will be heard, listened to and acted on.

Decision Maker—-Do you enjoy making decisions, explaining those decisions and then defending the decisions you’ve made?

Teacher—Does teaching—being personally engaged in the transfer of ideas, values, insights, tools and behaviors to staff, members, committees and boards—give you The BUZZ?

Networking—Are you a Networker, a person who loves to connect with people, places and ideas both within and outside the club??? Are filled with curiosity, who loves to create and strengthen their networks, inventory those networks and use the insights gained from those networks to strengthen the club you manage???

Creativity—Are you a creative person who enjoys finding ideas to solve problems? Do you enjoy working in a place where you can take an idea from problem to vision to prototype to full-blown-doing, where you can try lots of ideas cheaply, fail often, learn lots, reconfigure what’s done then try the modified idea once again?

Marketing—Are you a marketing enthusiast who loves to uncover the needs, wants and expectations of a “target market”, who is passionate—once those wants are known— about creating, communicating and then delivering the stuff and experiences needed to satisfy those wants?

Aesthetically Appreciative—Do you enjoy working in a beautiful place where the beautiful clubhouse, the beautiful grounds and the beautiful people make you feel GOOD?

Access to The Interesting—Do you hunger for the opportunity to meet and talk to talented, successful, educated, well-travelled and interesting people in a setting that allows and encourages you to connect, often?

Eye Opener—Do you enjoy telling stories and giving people the “eyes to see” the WHY of a place, the stories behind “what is”, the background of the people they meet and the stuff they experience?

Never Dull—-Are you comfortable in a place where things are constantly changing, where there’s never a dull moment and you’re “on stage” and observed from the moment you arrive until the moment you exit???

Life’s Great Issues—Do you appreciate that in clubs all of life’s great PEOPLE issues are right there in front of you, every day, inescapable, demanding your response, testing you humanity, psyche and emotions?

If you said “YES” to most of these questions, then stay in clubdom and enjoy a long and happy journey, together.

But if NO was the answer, it may be………..

Time to GO

Questions will arise when you ask these questions and do the audit.

“Is this the right business, the right club and the right position for me?”

If you see the signals and experience the angst—there’s a pain in the Pit of your Stomach, you’re anxious to exit each day, grind your teeth at committee meetings, begin wearing a “Bad Boy Face”, start expressing Cynicism toward members and staff and begin saying “NO” before “Yes”, —accept that the end has arrived and it’s “time to go”.

Start looking for “elsewhere”, where the biz, the people and the operation are right, because life is too short to be chained to the WRONG career forever.