When I was in college, I was working on a group project for one of my business classes. I despise most group projects in school — especially in undergraduate studies. You are guaranteed to have one person that doesn’t care as much about the grade as the others, and holds the group down.
Luckily, during my group project, I experienced a very funny situation that has stuck with me. During a semi-confrontational moment between two group members, one person lost their head and flipped out.
The argument dealt with having time to get certain tasks accomplished and not. The slacker was saying we had a couple of days and a ton of time to still get things finished. The other side was arguing that there wasn’t enough time with the slacker not working diligently and other classes also in the way.
The person, not the slacker, quickly stood up and screamed, “There’s no time! There’s never any time!”
*Sigh
She then stormed out of the library. We had to recess and let everyone cool off after that moment. However, it made me think: How many times in our lives do we feel stressed about time?
Stressing over time and getting everything done can severely damage relationships with your members. I know, and they probably do too, that you have a ton of billing and paper work to accomplish. But, in their minds, the treadmill on the fritz is a higher priority than you working on your tax return during peak hours.
Remember, this is why you have a team. The team (aka the college group) has to work together to accomplish the major goal. I’m assuming your goal is to help people get in shape, develop relationships and turn a profit — hopefully in that order.
With everything on your plate, you’re quickly going to be the irritable person in the group that says they never have any time. But, the truth is, there is never enough time. You’re never going to be able to get everything done on time, and by trying, you’re going to stress and end up snapping.
As the leader of a club, you honestly don’t have time to snap at people. You’ll spend too much time working on relationships with people you’ve hired as opposed to your members. Work on spreading tasks out evenly and managing those people to help relieve some of your own stress. Then, use that newfound time and energy to work on the relationships with your members — because, after all, your members are the most important aspect of your club.
Tyler Montgomery is the Editor of Club Solutions Magazine. Contact him at tyler@clubsolutionsmagazine.com
