Do you have the nice stuff?

When you go through the drive-thru line at Chick-fil-A, you likely grab the bag and drive away, trusting that they got your order correct. But what about when you go to McDonald’s? You probably grab the bag and at least peek in to make sure it looks like the right amount of food you ordered. So why do we treat these two fast food chains so differently and how does this even relate to golf course management?

For Gautam Patankar, vice president of culture and coaching at Bobby Jones Links, a Georgia-based golf course management company, the relation is simple.

“The reason why you wrap yourself around the building three times in the morning for breakfast or for lunch isn’t because you really like the sandwich,” he says. “But you think, ‘They’re nicer people in here, they’re going to treat me better.’” The same goes for golf course management.

The concept of kindness may seem like a lesson you learn in kindergarten, not something you’re taught well into your career. Regardless, the concept of being kind is still the same and it can have many lasting benefits for a course.

Know your importance

The first step in fostering a kinder environment is knowing your importance. Think about it. If someone wants to play a round of golf, their journey begins when they call to book a tee time. They then get to the course, check in, play and maybe hit up the 19th hole afterward. All those people they encountered impacted their overall experience.

“It’s the pro shop guy that picks up the phone, it’s the cart attendant that greets you at the car, it’s the bartender that serves you a drink, it’s all front-line people,” Patankar says. “So, during orientation, we should be super clear how important (the staff) are in the journey of the customer.

“Your job is the product. The name of what you do is in the name of the company. Something Golf Club or Something Something Golf and Country Club. You’re the ‘Country,” you’re the ‘Golf’ part of that, so take pride in what you do.”

Scott Hare, director of golf course operations at Sapelo Hammock (Georgia) Golf Club adds, “For us, it starts with our staff. Everyone is just very friendly, outgoing people. Always showing a good attitude, positive attitude and willing to give good service to our members and owners and guests. So, it really starts with the staff. … It’s important to have good staff.”

The golden rule

We’ve all heard it before. Treat others the way you want to be treated.

“What I told my assistants is just treat everyone with equal respect,” says Morris Johnson, who retired last December after two decades as superintendent at venerable River Oaks Country Club in Houston. “Regardless of if they’re a $10 (an hour) employee or a billionaire member, we’re all putting on pants the same and everyone deserves respect all the time.”

This mentality has proved to be beneficial even after retirement for Johnson, who started a role with Bunker Solutions earlier this year. “(Kindness) is now helping me as the national sales director,” he says. “So, all those people I met and have mutual respect for over the years, now it’s all just helping me later in life because they answer my calls!”

Johnson isn’t alone in this mentality. “The main thing is, always keep in mind you put yourself in the members’ shoes or the customers’ shoes,” Hare adds. “You treat them the way you want to be treated and I think everyone wants to be treated kindly and with respect so that’s the main thing.”

“I guess it’s really simple,” says Double Eagle Club COO Todd Voss, whose tenure at the Ohio club started as superintendent. “I mean it is so simple. Treat people like you would like to be treated and you do have to be a little bulletproof. You can’t take a bad day, bad weather, out on anybody.”

It’s the little things

Seemingly small actions such as asking questions about families, offering an extra hand to another department that’s in a bind or even just a wave while on the mower can help foster a kinder workplace.

“It’s simple things,” Highlands (North Carolina) Country Club golf course superintendent Brian Stiehler says. When someone in their housekeeping department got a nail in their tire, instead of calling a tow truck, the Highlands crew took it upon themselves to patch the hole where the nail was, add air to the tire and even fill up the gas tank. “I mean, it was just like an example of something that just made that person’s day a whole lot better than they thought it would go,” Stiehler adds.

Sometimes you might have to get a little creative or go outside of your comfort zone to show kindness but taking the initiative can pay off in the long run.

“It’s OK to give out a sleeve of golf balls,” Patankar says. “It’s OK to walk up to a little kid and give them some balls you found in the woods while you were out there rolling. It’s OK to do that.

“Can you imagine playing golf and you lose your ball in the woods and some guy cuts off his mower and says ‘Hey, you just lost one ball, but here’s three.’ That’s involving yourself with the customer side of business.”

Voss, who lives along the Double Eagle course, shows kindness by opening his backyard beach bar to golfers on certain days. “It’s amazing to me what I see,” he says. “We’re a non-tipping club and what some of the members will give for the end-of-the-year fund is just shocking.”

Put people first

Of course, every golf course is a business at its most basic form. But transitioning to a more people-focused leadership rather than a results-based focus has been something that Stiehler has seen benefits from.

“It’s more natural for me to put people first,” he says. “When I was young, like a superintendent for the first year or two, I was very energetic. I was always respectful, but I was more focused on results than I was maybe on people, and now it’s totally people. If you take care of the people and you’re kind to your people, the results will take care of themselves.”

Some ways to begin the people-first mindset can be through active listening and validation.

“Facilitation, what you do is you help the person tell you and that just by itself is an act of kindness because then they don’t feel inhibited or judged,” says Waguih IsHak, clinical professor of psychiatry at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. “The next step is validation. An important part of validation is not only to take what the person tells you seriously but to actually validate how this concern is real.”

Rather than responding with clichés like “Oh, I understand, I hear you,” taking actionable steps to address that friend or co-worker’s concern can help foster that trusting and kind environment.

Think long term

“We’re in the customer service business,” Hare says. “When you treat your customers with kindness and respect, take care of them when they come to the golf course, that means they’re going to come back, refer it to their friends — all of that helps and you have to show kindness to the customers.”

Not only can kindness be good from a business perspective, but it can also benefit your personal health.

“Immediate effects have positive aspects, like improved mood,” IsHak says. “Repeated actions of kindness do actually establish a pattern of improving emotional wellness, which is one of eight aspects of wellness. So, it does boost emotional wellness aspects and overall quality of life, long term.”

Other dimensions of wellness include spiritual, intellectual, physical, environmental, financial, occupational and social.

In addition, conflict management can play a role long term with employee morale and therefore lead to acts of kindness.

“Stress plays a role that kind of creates a sense of entitlement,” IsHak says, “and we’re all taught and trained to be assertive, but under stress we kind of leave that assertiveness and start to act in an aggressive way or in a passive-aggressive way, and with that, kindness can dissipate.”

Lack of control, hard work with no reward and discrimination are also examples of tension in the workplace that can cause kindness to dissipate. Using a mediator is highly recommended for instances regarding conflict management. “The work I do is really encouraging people to address issues quickly and directly,” says Melissa Brodrick, ombuds and director at Harvard Ombuds Office.

Knowing what you hope to gain from an open conversation as well as being intentional about your approach to the conversations regarding the conflict are the first steps in managing it.

Although Chick-fil-A might not be perfect every time, their reputation remains the same. The same can go for your golf course.

“Kindness begets kindness, right?” Brodrick says. “If we’re kind, it’s easier for someone to be kind back to us.”

Cassidy Gladieux is a senior at Kent State University participating in Golf Course Industry’s summer internship program.