Make it a habit

I was fortunate to attend a very cool event earlier this month that got me thinking about the power of habit.

The meeting was the Turfhead Summit and it’s the brainchild of Kevin Smith, the VP/director of agronomy at Bryan Park GC in Greensboro.

Kevin’s Turfhead Summit started small a few years back with a simple concept: Let’s get together and share ideas about the biggest turf management challenges in the region. No big fancy platform, no tabletop trade show displays, no jacket and tie required – just turf talk and solutions. It started small. This year there were close to 70 participants.

Not surprisingly, the biggest focus of the day was on ultradwarf Bermudagrass management. Keith Wood from Sedgefield CC in Greensboro summed up the discussion well: “We traded the stress and craziness of chemical management of bentgrass for the stress and craziness of cultural management of Bermuda… but the putting surfaces are consistently better, week after week, so it’s worth it.”

I could fill this entire issue with the technical discussion that went on about the various ways they rip the crap out of their Champion or Miniverde then bring it roaring back to life. In some ways, these guys are all learning on the fly, but thanks to the kind of information-sharing that Kevin fosters at his Summit they have plenty of expertise to draw on.

Outside of the ultradwarf focus, we also got to hear from the great Dan Dinelli of Northshore CC in Chicago about his experiences with composting and biocontrols, Clemson’s Dr. Bert McCarty on trends he’s seeing, Dr. Lane Tredway of Syngenta with an update on diseases and soil microbiology, John Jeffreys of Pinehurst No. 2 on what they learned from the U.S. Open, and last, but not least, Carolinas legend, Bill Anderson.

Bill has transitioned from an amazing career as a super to become the agronomist for the Carolina Golf Association. His presentation focused on 18 non-agronomic things supers can do to succeed. It reminded me of Steven Covey’s “Seven Habits of Highly Successful People.” So, on the flight home, I considered which habits seem to matter most to the long-term success and happiness of the superintendents I’ve known over the years. Here’s the short list of great habits I came up with:
 

Team building and talent development: Being a micromanager will make you and everyone around you crazy. Delegate, and let it go. Tell them the goal and let them learn how to do it. Sometimes leadership means pointing people in the right direction and then getting out of their way.
 

Cultivating critical relationships: I believe the days of silos within facilities are largely over, or at least they should be. You have to have good working relationships with your golf pro, club manager, general manager or anyone else in the food chain that matters to the success of your facility.

Collecting and using metrics: If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it. Set up systems to institutionalize record-keeping and data management.
 

Planning: Follow the old saying, “Begin with the end in mind.” What’s the outcome you want for the project? What steps do you need to take to get there? What are the likely barriers and how can you overcome them? Once you’ve answered those questions, build a backwards-facing timeline and execute it.
 

Curiosity: One of the things that always impresses me is going to an event like the Turfhead Summit and seeing guys in the golden years of their careers who show up, listen to every word and ask the most questions, because they are endlessly curious. Being curious means being unafraid to admit you don’t know everything. Nobody knows everything!
 

Shameless self-promotion: Superintendents historically have been uncomfortable with the notion of tooting their own horns. Get over that. If you don’t tell your story, who will? Document your successes and make sure the people who matter in your structure are aware of them.
 

Handling change: If I could pick one habit of highly successful superintendents, it would be the ability to embrace change. I’m guessing that very few of those guys who converted from bent to Bermuda were thrilled about blowing up perfectly good greens and starting over. Yet they did. Once a decision is made and change is happening, resistance is futile. Being “set in your ways” (or even being perceived that way) is a sure way to get run over by the steamroller of change.

Making a habit out of non-agronomic excellence is critical to success in today’s environment. Sometimes that means ignoring your instincts – your tendency to react with emotion – and following habits that you’ve adopted and developed over time. Good habits make good careers and happier lives.