Club Management - March/April 2008 - (Page 29)

Back then, just like today, I saw sport as a metaphor for almost everything in life. Those profound lessons of giving it all you’ve got, playing fair, showing respect, speaking the truth, following the rules, practice, practice, leading by example and winning and losing with grace are the magic of sport. Those lessons and values changed my life. They taught me that you can be anything you want in life if you have the heart and soul to try. Then one day the phone rang: “The Arbutus Club calling.” That wasn’t exactly what I wanted to do in life. However, it turned out to be a thank-God-I-was-home call and the beginning of an extraordinary challenge. I saw that adventure as an athlete joining a franchise with everything to prove, and I knew it would require my best to help them deliver on their dream of being Canada’s best family club. I packed my bags and headed for Vancouver. extraordinary team at the Arbutus Club that really perfected the art of teamwork. I just nudged them along. Q: Discuss some of your challenges as a club manager. A: I quickly realized that with 7,000 bosses (members) and an almost indescribable diversity of interest and opinion, I had to become a master collaborator and look for unique ways to unite and build real excitement. The club needed to be a second home for its members. I realized that if children were not happy, parents would not show up either. If the food wasn’t good, folks would not eat it. Poor maintenance would mean boiling frustration. So I started to look at service without subservience by building a culture of staff and members as one team with one vision: to be the best club in Canada. On my ﬁrst day, I discovered that results of the annual member survey were simply ﬁled as if they had no value. Stunning but true. The litany of small problems was endless, but the solutions were fairly simple. The biggest problem facing the club was a lack of belief in the future. I recruited great people and set them free to be stars. I started to plan and build a common vision that included everyone – staff and members alike. Pretty soon, we had a real plan, a waitlist a mile long, a star-studded staff driven to succeed, happy members and a vision that was powerful enough to take us anywhere – and it did. We became an elite club with very proud and happy members. As the club CEO, metaphorically speaking, I found myself managing a small city – with all of the challenges that went along with it – and a political climate as complex as anywhere. Q: You managed the Arbutus Club in Vancouver for 14 years. Did you manage any other clubs? A: I did not and would not have wanted that. The Arbutus Club was a magical place – I just did not see its equal out there. I would not have had the heart to walk to another. That’s how well they treated me. The club allowed me to lead and dream out loud. Don’t get me wrong, it was immensely challenging and often soul-searching and political, but this amazing place made a real difference in people’s lives. I loved it. Q: What business experience led you to club management? lonely and unforgiving, and it can be ﬁercely uplifting. I am in much the same kind of goldﬁsh bowl with every move I make watched and analyzed by many. The work never goes away. Ninety-nine percent is not good enough – perfection is demanded. The challenges come fast, and they are diverse. My day begins at 4.30 a.m. and formally ends late into the evening. A day might include endless meetings, media work, personnel matters, dozens of calls, e-mails by the score, presentations, practice for one event or another, travel, a crisis or two, one-on-one time with the board chair or some very high-ranking politician and the same two minutes for lunch I had at the club. Sure, the volume is higher, and there is more of everything, but the same human and professional conditions and demands exist. I am certainly just as vulnerable. I laugh when people ask how club management could have prepared me for this job. I cannot think of an experience that could have been any better. There is so much involved in being a leader of a great club. Club managers are among the most talented and underestimated people I know. Does the industry have its share of poor performers? Yes. But the best are pretty darn good because they have mastered the ability to be in two places at once, doing half a dozen complex tasks at the same time and being second-guessed by folks who probably know less than they do. The club was a perfect training ground for me, as it is for many complex, demanding careers. Yours is serious, professional work. A: It was not business experience as much as it was fate. It was my sport experience and the realization that with strong values, ﬁerce determination, hard work and the application of basic logic and common sense, you can be a leader anywhere. The club allowed me to expand my experience and caused me to become more politically savvy and tough. It taught me that there is no substitute for a vision. We had an Q: As you prepare for the 2010 Olympics, what is your work day like compared to a typical day in the life of a club manager? A: It’s not much different, really. Sure, the stakes are higher, but the environment is highly charged and political. It can be Q: Talk a bit about clubs being enlisted to provide catering services at some of the Olympic Village sites. A: We need the best people we can ﬁnd to cook, feed and serve the world’s top athletes in 2010, and we need certainty and creativity. So we went to the club industry here in Canada and asked them to provide us with leadership and a strong, committed, volunteer culinary work force. They responded, as I expected they would, MARCH/APRIL 2008 • 29

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Club Management - March/April 2008

Club Management - March/April 2008 Contents President’s Message Board Governance Technology Human & Professional Resources 2008 CMAA President Peter Homberg: A Profile in Courage, Perserverance Welcome, CMAA 2008 Board of Directors Club Events: Bring Magic to Your Members Club Adopts 'Dependent Parent' Membership Policy Paving a Path to Success Groundbreaking Project Measures Environmental Data for Golf Courses Paradise Preserved HFTP Insight New Directions Global Outreach Products and Services Marketplace Advertiser Index/Advertisers.com Club Wrap

Club Management - March/April 2008

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