The Magic Button

I am a business owner. I wouldn't trade that for the world. Yes, I make decent money but I would like to point out two things. First, I would do this for much less (if I had to). Second, I wouldn't trade this position for a similarly paying position as an employee of a business, golf course, or sports stadium. That's just me. I often make the mistake of thinking that most people would agree with me on this, but I really don't know and it wouldn't be fair to assume.

To become a business owner, it takes a lot of work. Of course, it takes a lot of work to get to any positions of authority and/or responsibility. Most of the successful people I know are not afraid of working hard. That got me to thinking, "why don't more of these men and women start up their own businesses?" In a word, RISK.

To get your own business going, you need to lay it all on the line. Put up cash, forego income for a period of time, work your butt off and hope that it all pays off and results in a company you can call your own. I read a statistic somewhere that 99% of all new business startups do not last 10 years. That's a lot of money and sweat equity down the tubes. It's no wonder many people don't want to take that plunge. I had the dumb luck of having very gracious parents who didn't mind me sleeping in a small studio apartment above their garage for a year after I graduated college. With no expenses, no wife or kids and a bit of cocky self assuredness, I decided to go for it and get a business going. In another piece of random luck, I came into contact with a guy (Peter Teed) who was similarly cocky, had very little to lose, and whose skills balanced my own perfectly. We both figured, "why not?"

Today, I'm married with a big mortgage two great kids and a wife who has me constantly wondering how on earth I got so lucky. If I was currently an employee somewhere and suddenly got the bright idea to get a new business going, just how far do you think I'd get with that idea? Not very. Responsibility calls for reliability. Getting a new business off the ground is ANYTHING but reliable.

I got to wondering something though. What if the risk was removed? Purely hypothetically of course; What if somebody could press a magic button, and suddenly switch career status from "Employee" to "Business Owner?" No stress associated with building the business, no periods of time where income was iffy and/or nonexistent. Just push that button and presto change-o, you now have a company with a handful of valued employees and a steady income that matches your current salary to the penny. In fact, imagine your current employees ARE the employees of your very own business. Would you do it? Would you press that button?

Whether or not YOU would press the button, what percentage of professionals do you think would press it? It's a survey I'd love to see done. Just listening to people talk gives me the impression that the number would be pretty high. Maybe more than 50%, but maybe not. I really don't know, and I'm not a pollster. Still, I think there are a lot of guys & gals out there who are fairly well accomplished, but would love to just open their own business, be their own boss, and have much better control of their own future. Then they think of their wife (or husband), kids and mortgage.

I actually have asked the reverse question from several friends who own their own businesses. Would you trade your business in for a management position paying a salary that equals your current income? The responses range from polite chuckles to negotiations of the terms. "If I was given a guaranteed lifetime contract and could come and go as I please? Sure!" Even with the reported headaches that go with business ownership, the control and freedom is intoxicating. Guys like me won't give that up for just about anything. The truth is though, this is America. We CAN switch career status from one to the other. We just can't do it painlessly with a magic button.

What if you don't already have a career established and are just getting out of school? Well then, you need to decide which path you'd like to go down. You are at the bottom of a "V" and the two options get further away from one another as you move up further toward the top. One line takes you toward business ownership and the other takes you to a career as an employee moving up the ladder in your industry of choice. Both are valid, rock solid choices. Both entail lots of hard work to get to the top. So you have a choice. After you have put in 5 - 10 years of hard work, which pinnacle do you want to be standing on? You don't get a magic button for either, just as you won't get it later if you decide you picked the wrong path.

There's an old saying. "The elevator to health, happiness, and success is out of order. You'll have to take the stairs, one step at a time." Are you going to start climbing, or are you going to wait around in hopes that the elevator gets fixed. If you decide to get climbing, think long and hard about which set of stair you want to take.

Taking on a Sacred Cow

In today's blog post, I'm not only going to take on a sacred cow. I'm going to bludgeon it, butcher it up and serve it for dinner. I hope you like red meat.

We like to think of career success as a product of hard work and determination. Today I'm going to argue that there's more to it than that. Not only do you need to work hard, but you need to make the right choices at the right times, and be in the right places with the right people. No problem right? To further explore this point, consider the following:

1) A large majority of professional Canadian Hockey players were born in January, February, or March. In many European countries, the same pattern holds true for soccer players.

2) A large majority of highly successful New York City lawyers are Jewish children of depression era garment district workers.

3) A hugely disproportionate number of marathon champions are descendants of a small tribe (The Massai) in Kenya, despite people from all over the world following similar training regimens.

4) A hugely disproportionate number of Nobel prizes in mathematical sciences are awarded to Ashkenazi Jews (Jews of Eastern European descent).

What's going on here? These aren't just simple statistical anomalies. These are off the charts results, but they actually all show a similar pattern. Major success is often not just about hard work and dedication. It also requires intangible factors that are usually out of our control. If you were a healthy, athletic young man who was an active long distance runner, and you went to train with the best Kenyan trainers, you'd still probably fall far short of the achievements of your Massai competitors. If you were born and raised in Canada, but your birthday was December 30th, you'd have a far lower chance of hockey success than your best friend would if he was born on January 5th, just a week after you, even if the two of you were essentially evenly skilled.

A simple blog post would not be enough to explain these anomalies, but you can read the explanations if you pick up Malcolm Gladwell's book "Outliers." Being in the right place at the right time has a LOT to do with how our life moves forward. Typically, you cannot control that. You can only seize the opportunities that arise, and make the most of them. This concept can seem distasteful to many people who relish hard work and take pride in clawing their way to where they are today. Don't misunderstand. Hard work is CRITICAL, but there's a difference between being a good superintendent at a local 9 hole golf course and being the Director of Grounds at Pebble Beach. To hit that ultimate level of success, you need to work brutally hard, but you also need to be in the right place at the right time.

In the golf course business, the top level guys were pushing mowers and fertilizing greens before most of us knew there was a career to be made in golf course management. They were there when the business was evolving. They were there when it boomed, and they were the go-to guys when top level courses needed a battle hardened grounds manager to take the reigns of the course. Did they work hard for it? Hell yes. Were they in the right place at the right time? You'd better believe it.

Nowadays, top level golf course jobs have hundreds of applicants before the previous job holder has left the parking lot. Is there really only 1 good applicant for this position? Must the Greens Committee plod through hundreds of applications in a furious chase to find that 1 magical person who can suitably run the course? OR, are there really many hard working, qualified people, all but 1 of whom will be passed over once again?

People might say that I'm giving excuses to people for failure. I would argue that I'm simply looking at things as they are. To truly succeed in life, you usually need to carve out your own niche, and fill a void that nobody else is filling. To do that, you need to take risks and you need to move in a direction that most people do not. When that area of business then evolves, who do you think will be the top guy standing? Don't be afraid to go your own way. Combine that with diligent, hard work and I'll see you in 20 years in Hawaii.

Business Nightmares

I was recently watching one of my few guilty pleasures that can be found on a television set. The show is "Kitchen Nightmares" and it tracks Gordon Ramsay as he shows up to help an underperforming restaurant get their act into shape. Not known for diplomatic tact, Chef Ramsay tears into managers and owners with a verbal sledgehammer as if they've spent the last 4 years teaching kindergarten kids how to smoke. Little is left when he's done ripping everybody apart. That's when he begins re-crafting the focus of the restaurant to better reflect what will actually be of value to the community.

What fascinates me is that in nearly every single case, the problem is exactly the same as the problems he faced in previous kitchens. Very simply, the owners aren't listening to the clients.

In one case, a woman complained that her food was too cold. The waiter took the food back to the kitchen where the entire plate was put into a microwave for a quick nuking. When it came out steaming about 35 seconds later, she shook her head and commented (quite correctly) that it was clear that they had just microwaved it. Having spent good money for what she hoped would be a good quality meal, she was annoyed. The owner then stepped out into the dining room and berated her for her comment, falsely claiming that it hadn't been microwaved. Think she's ever coming back?

In another case, a young man had grand visions of a unique type of pizzeria. He forged ahead with his vision, hardly noticing that he almost never got repeat customers. When people came in, it took about 5 minutes to explain how the restaurant worked. Thoroughly confused, they would either leave to find simpler fare elsewhere or give it a try, find that it wasn't worth the effort, and never return. The owner couldn't understand why it was failing, yet forged ahead with his initial plan valiantly (or would that be "stubbornly?")

Cases of lousy food, poor service, and weird combinations are everywhere. The owners cannot understand why things are failing, yet they maintain their current method of doing business out of fear. What are they afraid of?

Running a customer service business is difficult on many levels. One practice that should NOT be difficult is, ready for it?.... ready?.... LISTEN TO YOUR CUSTOMERS!!!! For some reason though, these restauranteurs were unable and unwilling to do just that. WHY?

We get client comments all the time on how we should improve our business. Often times the comments are contradictory, impractical, or just poorly thought out. They are ALL well intentioned though, and we'd be foolish to simply dismiss them. Instead, we listen closely for the good ideas, and try to implement them. When we haven't heard from clients in a while, we reach out to them and ask "how can we get better?" Guess what. They love to tell us, and we love to hear it. Almost EVERY single time, we come out of the endeavor with great new ideas for improving our business, and we don't have to invite a foul mouthed British celebrity to scream us into submission. I read a book many moons ago that had a lot of business tips. One that stuck with me was this: Good managers get all the good news first. GREAT managers get all the bad news first. If you aren't ready to hear the bad news, how are you going to know how to improve?

Columns of Steam

As many of you may know already, I am a graduate of Penn State's Turfgrass Science program. In 1994, I confidently marched out of the doors of Penn State with a Turfgrass Science Bachelors degree in hand. I was ready to take on the entire golf course industry to become a top notch Superintendent. Needless to say, plans changed along the way.

One of the primary motivations for quickly exiting the golf course industry was the lack of control that I felt I would have as a superintendent. Let's face it, careers and jobs revolve around people. You may be able to create an oasis of a golf course on a slim budget, but if you rub the wrong people the wrong way (figuratively speaking, of course), your days could well be numbered. Yes, high quality work goes a long way toward keeping one's job. Unfortunately though, there will always be an element of uncertainty no matter how well you do. I doubt there are many of us who don't know of a superintendent who has been dismissed for questionable reasons.

The sad part of it is that I really, really enjoyed the process of maintaining a golf course. There's just something magical about watching the sunrise as the steam rises off a pond right next to the green that you are about to mow for the day's play. Sometimes, the vapors form a column that seems to rise directly to heaven. The phenomenon is short lived, but absolutely gorgeous. I could go on, but suffice it to say, there are many aspects of running a golf course that are similarly unmatched anywhere else.

I just returned from attending the Golf Turf Conference sponsored by Penn State University. As always, it was an extreme pleasure to visit my Alma Mater, connect with old friends, build new friendships and learn about the state of the golf course industry as it is today. It turned out to be an interesting blend. Some of my old schoolmates are doing extremely well, and have built highly successful careers. Many others have moved into other aspects of the industry. Still others had been dismissed from their jobs as recently as that month with no warning, very little severance, and few options. Other conversations revolved around an apparent growing trend of general managers squeezing the maintenance budget ever tighter while demanding even better results.

The business of running a golf course is a grueling one to say the least. I've never actually gotten to hold the reigns, but I've seen it close up. Working over 80 hours a week is not uncommon. Labor Day, Memorial Day, Veterans Day, July 4th, and many other holidays are all standard work days. Many courses hold tournaments on those holidays, so the Superintendent and his crew actually get an increased workload instead of time with their families. I haven't seen actual studies, but word of mouth seems to point to high use of anti-anxiety medications, smoking, and other methods of combating stress.

Sure, there's no such thing as a perfect industry where jobs are 100% secure, pay is high, and stress is low. It just seems to me that the golf course superintendent is in a particularly unsteady spot. It's really not just about growing grass well. It's about knowing the right people, pleasing the right people, not annoying the wrong people, and knowing who are the right people and who are the wrong ones. That kind of political know-how does not come easy, and is one big factor in separating the big boys in the industry from the smaller players.

I do NOT know if my observations are correct, but I think they're pretty close at a minimum. I do know that I would not have made a very good superintendent. I'm just not the kind of guy to play the political games very well. I far prefer direct interactions with clients. If one client is upset with me, I try to make it right. If they cannot be pleased, I might lose a client. I won't lose my job. That's a pretty big distinction for me. As a business owner, I set my schedule and work to the extent that I feel it appropriate. Sure, I could bang out 80 - 90 hour weeks and build the business much faster, but I'd rather coach my one son's baseball team or the soccer team of the other. I'd rather spend weekends with the family strolling through Central Park in New York City or camping in the woods of Litchfield County, CT. I enjoy getting into the gym 5 days a week without worrying about whether or not the 6th green is going to survive the afternoon sun. Stress is low, income is quite good, family time is plentiful, and I have complete control over where I go and what I do with my life. I do love my career and my work. I just don't want to do it non-stop.

Still, I really, really miss those columns of steam...