What we can learn from John Wooden

John Wooden, the Hall of Fame basketball coach from UCLA was a great teacher and leader of men. When a new season began each fall, Coach Wooden started out with the basics, the extreme basics. During the first few practices, Wooden would instruct his players on the proper way to put their socks on! What? Yes, this is true. Wooden was teaching his team how to win championships, and part of that coaching was learning how to play 40 minutes a game minus blisters.   Each year Wooden created a great basics plan that led his UCLA Bruins to 10 NCAA championships, 7 in a row! Being very good at the basics is a great way to build business, build sales, create a real service legend. Today, this post is about some simple ideas that if done well, will help make your club better. Here are 5 thoughts for improvement:

1)    Build a mentorship program within your team. Have your best, most experienced staff members mentor and coach the new members as well as those staff members who are struggling with their work

2)    Both in the shop and in the restaurant have a variety of price points. Members and guests are all over the board when it comes to what they will spend for lunch or a shirt, top, golf shoes etc. Think about a good, better, best lineup with three price options in every key area in both the shop and the restaurant.  Just enough options win.

3)    Set up a large white board in the conference room or staff break room. The goal is to have your team contribute their ideas to building a better club. Write a question at the top. You might also want to set up smaller white boards in the men’s & women’s locker rooms.  Good ideas should never be a bad thing

4)    At the beginning of every day (and maybe each shift) create a 15 minute meeting and call it the daily huddle. I believe getting staff together at the beginning of their day creates focus and builds direction. Important to keep it to 15 minutes and not a minute longer

5)    Maybe once or twice per month create a lunch meeting called: ideas from the brown bag. Ask staff members to come share their lunch as well as their thoughts on the issues the club is facing. You might just find some extraordinary ideas inside those lunch bags

Working on building a better set of basics will help you improve the club. As you work through the process, inclusion is the key to having people feel as if they must contribute to the club you are building. Having a group of people who are always looking to contribute can help you have a club where excellence becomes a basic for the day, every day.

 Jack Dillon writes the highfives series.  Jack has been in the golf industry for 45 years. He is a speaker, mentor, coach. You can reach Jack at 407-973-6136. Jack lives in Orlando.