Donalda Club Gets it Right

Quick thanks to Martyn B. for hosting us at Donalda yesterday.

The latest improvements to the Club are impressive and well done.

Donalda has been true to its mission of "providing a high quality, well managed, family oriented golf and multi-activity country club in the city of Toronto that provides year round recreational and social activities to meet the needs of its members".

Keeping a club like Donalda on track isn't easy. With volunteer Boards of Directors and Presidents being elected directly from the membership (independent directors? it's more like having your employees be your Board) - frequently from a population that is aging, and not necessarily with any experience in strategic or long range planning - leadership and decision making can be daunting. Who wants to be the President who raises fees to build the new club house, then golfs with his/her buddies on Tuesday mornings?

Like any organization, having a clear mission is clearly helpful. Donalda's mission to be both family oriented and to provide other activities besides golf has helped ensure a young, vibrant and capable membership with strong vested interests in looking to the future. It's paid off in terms of membership and revenue. Downturn? There hasn't been one.

Donalda's experience probably makes an interesting case study in private club governance, direction setting and execution. I know a Director or two who would benefit from a quick drive down the Don Valley to check it out.

Applying the Blue Ocean Strategy

'Blue Ocean Strategy' is a book written by Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne.

It's good. Like a lot of strategy books, it has useful tools for strategizing and visualizing strategies.

The key thrust of Blue Ocean Strategy is that there are two strategy streams - red ocean strategies for companies competing head-on in existing market spaces (strategy for losers) - and blue ocean strategies for recreating the market space and avoiding competition all together (where real winners come from).

Cirque du Soleil, Canada's circus theater company, is used as a center-piece example. Flush the expensive elephants and tigers, develop a theme, move to multiple venues in Vegas, jack the ticket prices and....voila - the non-circus, circus that's very, very successful.

When I come across intriguing new concepts like this, I like to try them on simple stuff (perhaps the only stuff) I know.

Like me.

This really isn't what the authors of the book had in mind when they wrote the book. They were thinking businesses, not people. But why not? I have a business.

Applying the Blue Ocean strategy to me the consultant and executive coach was a little confusing. Where I seemed to net out is that I probably need to up the process a bit, move to Africa and dye my hair blue. You'll see any changes in my updated profile.

Given the success of defining my own strategy better, I decided to move on to stuff I know way more about - other people's strategies. Like CEO's....keeping in mind that some of my best friends are CEO's.

The Blue Ocean Strategy goes like this.

First, define the key characteristics that make up the existing strategies for this 'industry'.

I defined the key characteristics of the CEO industry this way:

• brains
• determination
• empathy
• creativity
• vision
• management skills
• focus
• common sense
• salary
• perks
• friend who's a recruiter

I forgot attention to detail, but it doesn't matter. There never is any.

Then, these elements are mapped on a strategy canvas. Like this.


Next, if you're an individual CEO (or business), you'd map your own 'strategy canvas'.

Let's take Jane, a hypothetical CEO.



Jane has:

• lots brains (see Jane on Jeopardy)
• lots of determination (see Jane work 20 hour days)
• big salary (see Jane drive a BMW)
• strong empathy (see Jane differentiate herself)
• modest creativity (see Jane surround herself with 24 year olds)
• OK management skills (ding, ding, ding)
• zero focus (see Jane multi-task)
• no common sense (see Jane blow-up)
• a very good recruiter friend (see Jane run e-Bay)

You see, it's possible that Jane has already done this exercise and figured out where the real leverage is! Recruiter friend.

But, if Jane were to keep going, what else could she do to come up with a Blue Ocean Strategy for herself and escape the reaches of those other CEO types?

According to Kim and Mauborgne, Jane would figure out the following:

• what factor the CEO industry takes for granted that should be eliminated (like Cirque's tigers and elephants)
• what factors to reduce way below the industry standard (like the circus' fun, humor, thrills, danger)
• what factors to raise way above the industry standards (Cirque's unique venues)
• what factors to create, that the industry has never offered (Cirque's themes)

In Jane's case:

• the industry takes for granted that Jane will get a big salary; Jane could eliminate that and be compensated purely for performance
• Jane could reduce the following factors way below industry standards: her vision and other perks
• Jane could raise the following above industry standards: her focus, management skills and common sense
• Jane could create the following that the industry has never offered: accountability.

Jane could be FANTASTIC.

She could be a CONSULTANT.

With apologies to my CEO friends (and the authors) tools like this take time to use right. I'm not there yet. I've tried in real business situations also.

I'm working on it. When I get there, I'm going to develop a Blue Ocean Strategy, for strategy.

Role of the Board - Part II

Part I describes the importance of the Board's governing role. See Part I here.

Part II is about the Board's Chair.....

....managing Board effectiveness is the responsibility of the Board chair. There isn't a more important role in the organization. Staffing the Chair role requires careful planning and insight.

There are 6 key qualities of a good Board chair:

1. time to do the job - there are more time demands on the Chair than on anyone but the CEO
2. solid team builder - getting the Board on the same wavelength and creating a good working relationship with management
3. good delegator - there's a lot to do; the only way to get it all done is through other people
4. comfortable with process - the mechanics from running meetings to information disbursement are almost as important as what the Board talks about
5. strategic - able to lead and keep the Board focused on the high leverage issues, not minutiae
6. firm - knowing how to take and keep control when members, stakeholders disrupt effective workings of the Board

Overall responsibility for the Board falls to the Chair. However, strong committees are also vital to a Board's success. These committees enable the Board to stay focused and up to speed on issues like audit, compliance and human resources. A recent study shows that the average large corporate board in the US and Canada has between 4 and 5 committees.

Strategic Planning

Many clients I work with don’t do strategic plans. Most know they should. Some try. But very few engage in a formal process that would either be considered strategic or even helpful when measured in terms of outputs down the road.

Some thoughts:

1. Any exercise that forces the management team to think about its goals and how to achieve them is good.
2. Strategic planning is a creative, not a budgeting exercise. Budgeting is separate and comes later.
3. Strategic planning is always top down – timing, process and desired outcomes must come from the top.
4. Strategic planning is a team, not a functional activity.
5. Honest, forthright discussion by those involved in executing strategy is fundamental to good outcomes.
6. Creativity can be driven top down and bottom up. Top down: “here’s our challenge, how do we fix it?”. Bottom up: “here’s our ideas and where we think they fit”. Both are required.
7. Strategic planning must be regular but need not be annual. Any plan that changes annually isn’t strategic.
8. The highest level of strategic planning is defining the goal. Then come strategies, then tactics.
9. Managers will always confuse goals, strategies and tactics. Working bottom up: tactics answer the how; strategies answer the what; goals answer the why.
10. Planning is irrelevant without execution.