All business

On the last night of the most recent Syngenta Business Institute, more than two dozen golf course superintendents and directors of agronomy huddled up for a trio of roundtable discussions almost as valuable as the three days of education provided by Wake Forest University professors. Some opted to start with a session about recruiting and retaining employees, others with a session about all sorts of communications. The rest headed to the front porch for a conversation about how to manage and motivate their staff.

 

Ryan Segrue of Shorehaven (Connecticut) Golf Club and Jason Zimmerman of Pelican’s Nest (Florida) Golf Club both detailed how they provide lunch most days, from deli meats to even nicer fare. Ben McNair of Oak Park (Illinois) Country Club shared a story about how, during the most recent World Cup, he set up a screen for his crew to watch a Mexico match when they weren’t working a busy tournament — and how he even donned an El Tri jersey for the occasion. Justin Mandon of Pasatiempo (California) Golf Club detailed how the board at his club dives in to serve the staff at an annual cookout. All help with morale, they said.

 

It was Scott Rettmann of Walnut Creek (Michigan) Country Club, though, who shared one of the far simpler and time-honored ways to keep your crew tight right now — and for years to come.

 

At the end of each summer, Rettmann sits down and pens a hand-written thank-you note to each of his seasonal crew members, most of whom are college students home for a few months. He tucks in a crew photo and a gift card — normally about $25 to Amazon — and mails them off. “Goes a long way,” he says.

 

According to Rettmann, the number of college students who work on his summer crew has swelled from one to as many as eight in recent years, and he thinks the thank-yous are at least part of the reason.

 

“Labor is a $10 problem,” Jason Tharp of Glen Arven (Georgia) Country Club told Rettmann, leaning into the circle, “and you’re putting $10 of effort into it.”

 

The financial reference was a callback to a session the previous day about life-work balance and the time-management tip of not spending a proverbial $5 worth of time on a 25-cent problem. Lessons were already being applied nearly a full 24 hours before any of the flights home lifted off.

 

Now in its 11th year, Syngenta Business Institute aims to pack as much of an MBA education as possible into three days — about financial management and effective negotiations, about leading teams and individuals as well as across cultures and generations, and, new this year, about life-work balance. More than enough of the 260 or so previous attendees had expressed an interest in learning more about the topic that Syngenta worked with Wake Forest to add a couple hours this year.

 

The program is competitive, with an acceptance rate this year of about 33 percent — two attendees this year finally gained admission on their fifth and fourth applications — and the days are focused and intense.

 

“It’s important for us to listen to our customers and what their challenges are,” Syngenta turf market manager Stephanie Schwenke says. “They have a desire for personal growth, professional development and skill sets beyond agronomy — because when most of them went to school, this was the kind of education they never received, though many of them spend most of their days managing 10 to 50 people.”

 

“The more successful we can make them at their jobs and at setting expectations — with their customers, with their board, being able to be better communicators with their local board about things they do on their course and why they do them — the more successful the industry is going to be,” Syngenta communications manager Mark LaFleur says. “Investing in people is going to help everybody out.”

 

There is still work to do, even now, more than a decade after Ken Middaugh, the retired associate professor, associate dean and director of the Institute for Executive Education at Wake Forest, conceived and designed the program. LaFleur and Schwenke said they would like more women and minorities to apply — each of the 26 attendees this year was a white man, which is the case most years — and they want to help turfheads better tell their own stories. “How will this affect them personally? How will it help them give back? What unique experiences have they had that they can contribute in class? That is helpful to us,” LaFleur says. “You don’t have to be the best writer — we still want to hear what you have to say.”

 

So apply early for the 2020 program — and until then, maybe write some thank-you notes.