WNTKC

The most important yet elusive attribute a good club can have these days is a clearly defined culture.

I’m not referring to your “niche” that defines your facility’s marketing or your “reputation” that defines how others perceive your place. I’m talking about the internal touchstones that define how you operate, make decisions and create strategies to ensure the viability of the club for years to come.

These cultural anchors can be clearly defined in a formal mission/vision statement that leadership develops and adopts through some kind of planning session. Lots of facilities go through this process. It’s sometimes very useful but it is equally likely to be an utter waste of time if participants have their own agendas, there’s no clear direction or the whole thing gets bogged down in the minutia of what color the drapes should be in the clubhouse. The result can be a notebook full of strategy, objectives and tactics that sit on a shelf and gather dust.

At the best clubs, the culture is just innately understood by key managers and volunteer leadership. Over the years, I’ve observed that this synchronicity of purpose occurs most often when a club is led by one individual...a benevolent dictator who has a single-minded vision for how things should be and the authority to make it so. Typically this is an enlightened owner, a passionate and wise “president for life” leader, or a general manager with a rare ability to steer a board like a great captain steers a racing yacht.

Sometimes it’s even a golf course superintendent.

A superintendent buddy of mine who’s been at the same club for more than a decade recently sent me a mysterious text late one night. It was a pic of a piece of notebook paper with some letters scrawled on it: “WNTKC.” I figured the cryptic message was intended for someone else or he was just drunk texting random crap to random people. Baffled, I replied, “WTF?”

A few minutes later he texted back and reminded me that we’d talked about this acronym before in the context of how he interacts with his board and green committee. Whenever the group was heading the wrong way or a dumbass idea started to gain traction, he’d listen patiently and when the speaker was done, he’d say these simple words: “We’re Not That Kind of Club.” He’s used it so often it’s become an acronym that everyone understands: WNTKC.

In short, he’s one of the keepers of his facility’s culture. When something starts to lead the culture in the wrong direction, he quietly reminds them that the idea might be fine elsewhere but doesn’t fit into the core values of their club. It’s like throwing a penalty flag for misdirected ideas. Sort of like when you miss a turn while driving using your iPhone and Siri chimes in and says, “Recalculating route.” It keeps everyone on track.

I think it’s a very useful phrase if, and only if, you’re in a position to use it. Before you try, answer the following questions:

• Have you been there for at least five years?
• Has your boss or the other key leader in your club given you a clear sense of what really matters within the facility?
• Are you 100 percent confident the person will take your gentle reminder constructively?
• If not, is your resume up to date?
   

That said, one of the most important things any trusted super, pro or GM can do is help the leadership stay focused. Seems like it’s really critical at facilities where members may belong to multiple clubs and think some cool thing their club in Florida does will be just as cool at their club in Jersey. Everyone has well-intentioned but idiotic ideas and often they’re just trying to be helpful. Sometimes they have an agenda. Tread lightly when the latter is the case but be prepared to whip out WNTKC and to defend it.

Some may think it’s a bit “uppity” for staff to remind a member about the values of the club but I suggest it’s incredibly important in an era when there are far too many facilities without a good sense of their business niche or a vision for what their club should be. There are times that WNTKC simply has to be used to protect the members from themselves.

My pal has used the phrase often enough that all he has to do is write the acronym on a piece of paper and slide it across the table during a meeting and his chairman will immediately get it. The fact that they’re not “that kind of club” has become part of the culture of the club. I suggested he even hand out sleeves of ProVs with WNTKC printed on them as a gentle reminder to all of his leaders of what kind of club they really belong to. After all, what you’re not is part of what defines what you are.