As the owner or manager of a club, you are called upon to lead a team of people to a goal, or more likely a series of goals, over time. In order to do this you need to inspire a shared vision with your team. And as a leader you need both credibility and character if they are to follow. Making good choices every day, over time, enhances all three of these. But whereas credibility and character involve personal goal-setting, inspiring a shared vision, by definition, includes your entire team.
To be successful, this effort can be broken down into four components:
1. Make the Challenge Meaningful.
Everyone, and I mean everyone, likes to be challenged. Some staff will naturally thrive on the big challenges – the year-end goals – and others like to be just barely inched out of their comfort zone. Your role as a leader is to know how to bring the dynamics of your team together.
One last thing on this point: Make sure everyone in your organization understands their job tasks and that their contribution is required, and appreciated, know matter how mundane their tasks may seem.
2. Embrace the Challenge as well as the Goal.
Too often during the natural time and process that occurs between setting a goal and achieving it, the challenge itself is not embraced. It’s easy to have an off-site planning day with all the key staff, secluded away from the world, creating the vision for your club’s future.
But leadership requires the embracing of the challenge as well…the process…the trial and error that naturally goes along with any new endeavor. Embracing the challenge means accepting the missteps that are going to occur along the way, particularly if your organization is carving its own path and differentiating itself from the competition.
3. Be Flexible to Changing Direction Midstream.
Sometimes, what originally appears to be a misstep is actually the first step towards a slightly different target, or the same target along a slightly different path getting there. And by allowing your team to achieve each goal, by utilizing the best of their skill sets and their own initiative, a greater sense of accomplishment is experienced by all as each new goal is reached. Thus begins a tremendous upward spiral of growth, personally for every member of the team, and corporately as well for your club.
4. Insist on Continuous Improvement and Reward Excellence.
In these incredibly fast-paced times it is especially important that you don’t stand still. You will have competition. When they set their sites on your club, they are going to be setting them a little higher and a little better than where you are right now. Your team needs to continuously raise the bar on club services and club systems.
Going hand-in-hand with continuous improvement is the rewarding of excellence. I would also add to this the recognition of these contributions for the entire team to see. It’s human nature to want to be appreciated and there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s as easy as a simple thank you. As your company prospers, reward more. Too many companies tighten the purse strings as they become more successful, forgetting how they achieved that success. Don’t be one of those companies. Without a successful team you don’t have a successful business.
Understand too that insisting on continuous improvement does not mean “no mistakes allowed.” Continuous improvement means that over time, the bar is being raised. There will be blips in the curve. This is why it is so important to produce good systems and follow-up reporting from each department, along with good tracking over time. It will show you the overall direction of the club. Good reports will also show you where a system is weak or breaking down so you can improve it.
Finally, inspiring a shared vision requires that you distribute the workload necessary to achieve the goal. Somehow, the shared vision lightens the burden. Whether it’s the individual sense of accomplishment that each member of the team experiences or whether it’s the sense of contribution towards a common goal I’m not sure. With a combined team effort, everybody wins.
Shawn Vint is the President of FitDV. He can be contacted at 888.355.1055, or by email at marketing@fitdv.com, or visit www.fitdv.com.
