EDITOR’S NOTE: The following chapter is an excerpt from Herb Lipsman’s book, “Caring (The Sequel): Valuable Insights Into Effective Club and Hospitality Management,” which offers wisdom and experiences on club management topics like conflict management, membership retention, board messaging, handling stress and more. Lipsman is a longtime club and hospitality leader, managing clubs since 1993. He currently serves as vice president/general manager at Riverbend Club and The Reserve at Lake Travis in Spicewood, Texas.
Chapter 9: Decisions, Decisions
As managers and leaders in our organizations, we are placed in positions where we make hundreds of decisions each and every day. Decision-making and judgment, therefore, are two of the most critical measures of the value we bring to our clubs or organizations. Self-awareness and mindfulness are essential ingredients for effective decision-making and leadership.
Self-awareness is defined as having a deep understanding of our own strengths, weaknesses, biases and paradigms (how we see the world based upon everything that has happened in our lives up to this moment in time). Mindfulness is defined as a mental state achieved by focusing one’s awareness on the present moment, while calmly acknowledging and accepting one’s feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations, used as a therapeutic technique. Mindfulness means the ability to step out of our own mind and body and observe objectively the thoughts and emotions that are flowing through our minds and the validity of these thoughts and emotions.
We face decisions, large and small, throughout each day, week, month and year. Each of these decisions takes us in one direction or another and all have implications for the performance of our businesses. Some of the smallest decisions, which may not seem like decisions at all, are decisions pertaining to whether we respond to an email, pick up a ringing phone, stopping to chat with a member or employee, stooping to pick up litter on our way into the club or heading out for the day, whether to get a workout today or not, what to do for lunch. While these seemingly routine and unimportant decisions all have far more impact on where our day may lead us than many of us ever stop to realize.
It has taken me decades to fully comprehend how easily I get sucked into answering meaningless emails, allowing myself to be easily distracted by unimportant tasks or failing to make time for the people who truly need my ear to listen to them on topics important to them at a particular moment in time. Every time that I “choose” to answer one email message, I am “choosing” to not engage in some other task or thought that may be far more consequential at that particular moment.
Here are a few examples that the typical club manager faces each day:
You show up for work with your to-do list of important tasks, meetings, reports, etc., that you hope to get done. Upon reaching your desk, you fire up your Outlook inbox, check your in basket on your desk, and contemplate what you will do first. Should you walk the club to eyeball any defects or issues that may result in member complaints? Do you dive into the report due today for your boss(es)? Do you allow yourself to get sucked into answering the hundreds of never-ending and mostly meaningless emails that flow into your inbox each and every day? Do you choose to spend time visiting with staff to see how they are doing and to ask whether they need your assistance?
Each of these choices is like a fork in the road. Each choice or decision will change the direction your day will go. Most of us simply react to all of these seemingly insignificant decisions all day long every day. Imagine if we were more mindful when making each of these choices. How would it change the direction of our day, week, month, year, career, life? For instance, what if the one employee that we failed to make time for decides to quit? What if this was the last chance to save them and you didn’t even know it?
“Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least.”
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
What if instead of going through emails one by one, you develop a way of prioritizing email messages such that they are automatically flagged as critical or not so that you respond to the essential messages first, thereby preventing fires from flaming out of control? What if instead of rushing through your facility walk-through each day, you take the time to investigate a funny sound or smell near a piece of expensive equipment? You might find that immediate attention from a technician is needed to save the equipment from a major breakdown or failure. What if you took the time to do a little symbolic cleaning in high traffic areas of the club to show the members and your staff that you care deeply about the cleanliness of the club and want to set a good example?
Here’s another example of a minor decision that could actually be a major decision:
You are scheduled to attend a chamber of commerce luncheon, but you also have a deadline on a financial report for your boss. You choose to skip the luncheon because they are typically just schmoozing events with no significant value. However, on this particular day, a major new company in your area had several of their key executives attend – you missed out on meeting them and possibly sitting with one or more of them through lunch. Your choice might mean you passed up a tremendous business opportunity for the club, and you may never even realize that you missed it.
Here’s a third example of the choices we make:
Your workload has increased substantially due to external factors beyond your control. Weather events, new competition, COVID, all have served to make your life more difficult, requiring you to work more while possibly earning less. You convince yourself that you no longer have time for your daily workouts. Your job comes first. But, what if by making this choice, you find yourself more stressed, gaining weight, feeling fatigued frequently and your attitude deteriorating? Was working longer hours to the detriment of everything else the best choice for you? For your family? For your company? Months or years later, that heart attack, Type 2 diabetes or cancer, may be traced back to one or more of these unconscious decisions with serious, life-threatening repercussions.
Suppose you are the owner or chief executive of a club or company, and you have one of your crazy fitness professionals wanting an appointment with you to share something of importance to them. Do you blow it off because they are far down on the corporate ladder, viewed as too artsy to pay attention to, simply a pain in the neck?
You ignore these requests to your detriment. In over 40 years of managing clubs, I can confidently tell you that virtually none of the innovations driving our businesses today came from the managers in our industry. Consider these major innovations over the past few decades:
- Spinning
- Step
- Pilates
- Cross-Fit
- Pickleball
- Zumba
- Body Pump
- Over-sized Tennis Racquets
- Barre
- Hot Yoga
Each of these ideas came from the front-line fitness enthusiasts who had a cool idea. Fitness professionals and enthusiasts exist in each of our clubs. They are creative by nature. They are also passionate about what they do. This can, at times, make them hard to manage. However, managers and owners do themselves and their businesses a huge disservice by ignoring this steady flow of ideas. You never know when the next big thing is going to be presented to you by someone on your existing staff. All you have to do is listen and pay attention on a daily basis.
I personally learned this lesson while managing The Houstonian Club. One day, one of our group ex instructors by the name of Sasha came to see me with a request. Sasha was a professional ballet dancer who was recommending we offer Pilates Reformer instruction at the club. I had not previously been exposed to Pilates, but Sasha was so persuasive, I agreed to purchase one reformer and provide Sasha a small storage room to offer these private lessons.
Soon after Sasha began teaching Pilates, her clientele grew from one to a few to several clients and Sasha (and her students) came to see me begging for more space. So like any brilliant manager, I gave her a larger storage room with two Pilates Reformers. I doubled her space and productivity. I was a hero!
You guessed it. The program took off and the demands for more equipment and space kept coming. This original Pilates program that began at The Houstonian in the mid-90s today has a state-of-the-art studio with every conceivable piece of Pilates equipment (actually, multiples of each) and has become a multimillion-dollar revenue source for the club, just as it has for clubs across the globe.
Imagine if I had ignored Sasha’s request or decided against testing it out. Not only would The Houstonian have missed out, but Sasha would likely have moved on and potentially become a competitor. How many of these episodes have played out in your world over the years? How many opportunities have you missed by being too consumed with your own views, unwilling to listen to and learn from those you employ?
Let’s shift to risk management decisions. How often have you become aware of a safety issue in your club(s) and didn’t take the time to address it promptly, only to have an unnecessary accident occur, resulting in serious consequences both in terms of injury, litigation and costs? That split-second choice to either drop what you were doing to have a look or to procrastinate by choosing to get around to it when you have more time often comes back to bite you in ways big and small.
When is the best time to fix that exposed wiring, slip-and-fall hazard, slippery tile, frayed pulley, broken gate, malfunctioning treadmill, etc.? The best time is obviously the moment that you become aware of any of these and many more common safety hazards in your club. Once you are notified of the hazard, you have no choice but to have it repaired, taken out of service, or clearly marked by highly visible signage to prevent an accident that would likely end up being determined to have been caused by the club’s negligence. Yes, this is decision, whether consciously or unconsciously made.
The purpose of this chapter was to get you thinking about your own judgment and the hundreds of unconscious decisions and choices you make every day. By being mindful of all of these choices, you might find yourself making better choices and improving your overall batting average.
In closing this chapter, I want to emphasize that one of the most important decisions you will make every day will be how you prioritize and re-prioritize all of the challenges, tasks, and responses to external stimuli that you face. If you are truly practicing mindfulness, you will develop the habit of stopping multiple times each day for a matter of seconds or a few minutes to reflect on the thoughts racing through your mind. Which deserve your immediate attention, and which can be put off to a later time or ignored completely? Instead of continuously reacting to everything coming at you in a repetitive game of “Whack-a-Mole,” you choose which priorities to focus on right now and schedule those that can wait. Herb Lipsman is vice president/general manager at Riverbend Club and The Reserve at Lake Travis in Spicewood, Texas. He can be reached at [email protected]. “Caring (The Sequel)” can be purchased on Amazon.com and Barnesandnoble.com.