Tools for the ask

Requesting more for yourself, your employees or your facility means participating in a negotiation. It’s a process many golf course maintenance professionals loathe.  

Early in his 2023 Syngenta Business Institute presentation on the topic, Wake Forest University associate professor of management Dr. John Sumanth asked a room of 26 superintendents and directors who among them enjoyed negotiations. Seven hands went up.

Don’t fret. Tools exist to make the seemingly painful process of asking for something a profitable one for you and your team in 2024 and beyond.

Sumanth, a third-generation professor, started his career as a manager engaged in complex negotiations between a cruise line operator and port authorities. His focus has shifted to teaching, training and coaching executives, professionals and master’s students.

For a half-day each year, Sumanth coaches Syngenta Business Institute attendees on handling future negotiations. We spoke with him about the power, influence and financial dilemmas facing superintendents in the surging golf market.

The golf market is still hot. Is this a good time for people working in it to ask for things they might not have asked for before?

In terms of macro environment, it makes it reasonable for somebody to go in and ask for more money when they see the market is exploding. The challenge is that if you are going to make that request, it needs to be rooted in some evidence of why. Why didn’t you go do it when the market was a little bit less hot? What you need to take advantage of is really showing how you are creating value for the organization as opposed to saying, ‘Because of the market, I should be paid more.’ Focus on framing the conversation around: Here’s how I think I’m adding value, particularly relative to other benchmarks maybe outside the industry as well as your peers and your competitors. Show how you are driving innovation and value for the organization.

A golf course superintendent is a very hands-on person who frequently performs manual labor. How intimidating can it be for a person in that type of position to ask for something from a general manager or COO?

It’s definitely a challenge, especially if you haven’t had practice with that. Recognize you add a lot of value that’s unseen sometimes because you are out there on the golf course day to day and people aren’t seeing what you’re doing. Quantify it, measure it, and document what you’re doing and contributing. That could be a way to make that conversation go a little bit easier. I would say start with a better ask. If you anchor high, you’re more likely to get what you need, especially if you’re committed to the organization’s betterment. Part of the framing also comes from, ‘I’m asking for myself, but here’s how I think doing so will enable me to add more value to the organization as a superintendent.’

How can the relationship be repaired if you ask for more and don’t get it?

That’s a good question. You have to be mindful that you only get so many cracks at doing that. Typically, you get one, maybe two at the very most. After that, people start to lose trust, because they start to perceive you as being self-interested foremost. If that’s you, be really thoughtful of why you deserve it right now and make the case through evidence of how you actually warrant this thing. If you have broken the relationship to the point where you feel like you have lost trust, then it’s probably time to move on. People are people and there are going to be points where people are going to feel threatened by you making that ask. You can ask it in a less threatening way and frame it as I’m trying to ask not only for myself, but I’m truly trying to add more value to the organization.

What does it take to make the case for your staff to get better pay?

A lot of times, unfortunately, what we measure in organizations is effort. What we should be measuring and rewarding is performance. It’s about being really clear and demonstrating we’re not just rewarding and giving raises to people for trying hard or doing the minimum of what’s expected. But how is somebody performing at a high level that is contributing to organizational objectives?

How important are analytics and data to these conversations?

You have to know who your audience is and the language they speak. If you’re talking to somebody who pretty much deals with numbers for a living, it probably makes sense for you to frame your arguments in the language of: Here’s some metrics, here’s some evidence, here’s some return we’re getting as a way to make the case more powerfully.

What are some signs that somebody in a management position such as a superintendent might have leverage?

If they have good alternatives. Whenever you think about power in negotiation, think about your alternatives. If you didn’t work here, would you be picked up and scooped up quickly by somebody else? We all have alternatives, but not all of them are good alternatives. You can increase your power and leverage through generating more of those so you can enhance your reputation. Maybe you have a good social media following, maybe you have other ways that you are known outside of your day-to-day responsibilities. All of those things can add leverage.

Guy Cipriano is Golf Course Industry’s editor-in-chief.