KCCC found ways to emerge from the economic challenges in strong fashion without making any cuts in funding for its staff’s continuing education.
A handwritten chart is taped to the wall of the room that the management team of Kansas City Country Club (KCCC) uses for its staff meetings. It’s nothing fancy—down the left-hand side, the chart lists about a dozen possible areas of cost-control focus that could help keep the club’s operations as lean and efficient as possible. Next to each line are three sets of numbers, representing priorities assigned for those expense areas over each of the past three years.
If a priority of “1” has been given to a specific area, that means the staff has decided it’s the last area that should be subjected to any budget cuts. Next to the line that reads “continuing education,” the priorities assigned over the last three years have been the same: 1, 1, 1. No other expense line, including salaries and benefits, has been given such a consistent emphasis of untouchability.
The chart was created—and kept on the wall for constant reference—after the recession bore down in full force on KCCC, as it did on every club and resort property. Even though the club was in much better position to weather the storm than most properties, General Manager Mark Bado wasn’t going to gloss over the situation at hand.
While he has now earned his CCM and CCE certifications and has a Master Club Manager (MCM) designation in his sights, Bado originally earned a BA in Accounting and began his professional career as an auditor with the Pittsburgh office of Touche Ross. Oakmont (Pa.) Country Club was one of Bado’s clients and he eventually was hired as Oakmont’s Controller, beginning his career in the club business.
Certainly, Bado has developed as good a feel as anyone for how to button down club operations and assess the tradeoffs that must be made to maintain a sound balance sheet. As he gauged the impact of the coming recession, he was straightforward with his team, making it clear that even clubs with solid operations were not going to be able to completely avoid making some sacrifices.
The difference in this case is that Bado is a fervent believer in running clubs through “integrated team management” (it’s the topic of his Master Club Manager thesis). A key tenet of that concept is that the management team as a whole must be the main decision-making mechanism for the operation, with the General Manager acting as the catalyst for helping the team arrive at all decisions, no matter how tough or immediate they may need to be.
On his own, Bado might not have assigned the same priorities. But after his team members made it clear they didn’t want to reduce opportunities for professional development, KCCC found other ways to emerge in strong fashion from the downturn without making any cuts in funds allocated for its staff’s continuing education, which is often the first area to get slashed. The club is now poised to reap the benefits of taking that approach, in terms of the added knowledge, progressive ideas and leadership skills its staff members have continued to attain.
With our Chef to Chef Conference and Design & Renovation Insights Workshops, we’re glad to see this endorsement of professional development. But that’s not the main point here. No matter what a staff might decide should be off-limits to budget adjustments, even the most experienced and in-touch GMs might want to note the value of developing, and following, plans that are truly creations of their people and for their people.
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