Storytelling, Data, and The Successful Superintendent

"You cannot manage what you cannot measure,"                    
is one of the truest statements I know.  A good friend and former golf course superintendent got me hooked on google forms and sheets back in the mid-late 2000’s.  I began using the forms to track and collect data.  I became so much more knowledgeable about my operation and had fancy pictures to show it.  Data for me was a source of truth.  I used my fancy pictures to tell the truth in a story that I couldn’t tell.

Another truth that I believe is that the position of the golf course superintendent is a complex and demanding job.  Taming nature to extremes, always asking for large amounts of money, comments from the chronically dissatisfied, broken equipment, irrigation systems, ball marks, foot draggers, cigar wrappers and cigarette butts, I mean I could make quite a list.  The worst situations include the poor unfortunate souls who work at facilities lacking a clear and realistic definition of the standard to which a golf course can afford to be maintained.  These superintendents work themselves into the ground chasing a standard they will never meet……..because it doesn’t exist!! Are we failing to define something in hopes that one day, hard work can overcome budget constraints and the $400,000 maintenance budget will produce $1,000,000 conditions?  I sometimes ponder if the refusal of stake-holders to accept the reality of a golf courses’ conditioning as limited by the budget is a manipulation technique of overworking an individual, but I am not a conspiracy guy, so I chalk it up to we don’t know what we don’t know.  I am not suggesting that one gives up trying to make something better, but day after day of living the life of Sisyphus requires support of those around you.  In the hands of a competent individual, all golf courses’ conditioning will be limited by the budget and resources.

Being able to prove that a department is limited by resources takes more than quick conversations in the clubhouse or outbursts when the pressure of summer is at its peak.  Standards help organizations realize what is required to maintain and  what is needed to improve. Data can help formulate definitions and standards of any operation.  I believe visions and missions possessing standards and definitions to be necessary for any entity, committee, group, or board to be as productive and successful as it can be.  I also believe that these endeavors, whatever they may be, need to be imagined into a better future if we are to truly give something our absolute best collective effort.  People will contribute greatly and passionately for a cause that is greater than themselves if they are asked and they are given tasks that they can be successful accomplishing.  Lacking a clear and well communicated vision and mission that defines something into the future beyond their lifetime, a group of people will unfortunately default to egos, agendas, and whims.  It is extremely difficult to be happy and impossible to be successful in an ever changing tide of priorities.  Imagine  the superintendent like a cat and the stakeholders have a laser pointer; why isn’t this done, or that, and that, and certainly that!  It may not always be the case, but I imagine a response like, “Well boss, we were busy trying to accomplish the basics.”

My green committee was going out to establish our tree policy one meeting and I stopped at the halfway house.  I got out of my cart and I began to point out all the things that were wrong with the landscaping, the building, cart path, and everything I could see from my vantage point.  The committee probably thought I had finally lost it.  I explained that when it comes to the golf course and grounds, I see it all.  “I can fire myself every single day for the things that are wrong on the golf course,” I stated.  I explained that there was no way to address everything on my list, my challenge, is to prioritize properly and address the most pressing issues and to be ok with a list that will never end.  If you have ever been on a golf course and noticed something that was less than perfect, congratulations, you now know what it’s like to be a superintendent, it is not really a special skill to point out the obvious.    

It is my opinion that in order to be a successful superintendent you have to 1) Know and share the expectation and subsequent reliable priorities of the stakeholders 2) Understand the measurable, relevant, factors of their operation. 3) Effectively communicate the needs of the operation to leadership in order to fulfill the expectations set above in number one.  4) Engage labor teams with a mission, fostering a growth mindset, and bringing out the best in people.  5) Create a Culture. 6) Be a Steward. 7) Realize that superintendent is a role, as is spouse, parent, family member, and friend. 8) Separate your identity from that of the golf course. 9) Practice Self-Care.  Unfortunately for the golf industry, at many facilities, the superintendent's job satisfaction suffers from rule one not being properly addressed and discussed, (disconnects and expectations is another blog).  

The best superintendents I know could function successfully at a high level in almost any industry.  They are managers and motivators, they address the details, they work hard and diligently, they are loyal to a fault.  The best superintendents walk the walk, they believe in self-care, mental health, emotional maturity, and negotiation as a way of life.  But back to the Data!!  Data is great, but it needs to be communicated properly to be of any use.

For the young aspiring superintendent, I offer this advice....become a good storyteller.  The best superintendents I know, can communicate the challenges of this job so well, that they get their department's needs met.  In order to be successful, you need to be given the tools to do a job, and superintendent’s tools are expensive.  The skill of asking for large amounts of money is not one you are probably born with, you are going to have to seek those skills.  The best superintendents also "know their audience"  If your decision makers are professionals at any level, they are accustomed to "seeing" data presented to them as a visual aid.....a chart or graph.  I don't know how many times I've heard someone say of their club officials "they dont get it."  I say, if you are suffering at all because someone "doesn't get it" then change the message.  I believe there is an accountability on behalf of the communicator to take responsibility for their message.  If they don't get it, maybe it's the message, (or the messenger, talk later), and maybe a picture is worth a thousand words.

Labor, equipment, and chemicals are the largest typical line items.  These items can be tracked easily and with minimum investment, and some brilliant charts and graphs can be derived from the data and tell a short, effective, dynamic story.  The data can be arranged to make sure the proper interpretation of the data has been made.  Having the ability to make different charts is the ability to see from a different perspective.  Sometimes the message that was hidden in the numbers and words pops right off the page when presented through a graph.

Data that is presented in a graph is attractive, easily understood, and easily referrable to.  We are naturally attracted to these strange drawings,  they are always used in marketing literature.......because they work!  Need to make your message more dramatic?  Just play with the units on the axis, kidding, but seriously, watch the marketing literature and notice what catches your eye or what concepts are conveyed easily and beautifully.  We can take a spreadsheet of numbers and tell a story with a drawing, its called an infographic, making a long winded rant unnecessary.  We only get a few minutes to make an impression and capture the attention of individuals.  If you can reduce the amount you speak, the chances of being heard increases.  Keep the message simple.........your boss doesn't want to know how the watch works, they just want to know what time it is.  If you need to practice your pitch a few times to find the three or four sentences you need, do that!  Practicing is a way better option than missing an opportunity that may be difficult to revisit.

I loved labor data, knowing how many labor hours we managed, and where those hours were distributed.  Presenting the labor distribution to each playing surface, trees, bunkers, cultural practice, landscaping and on and on is not hard.  We played around with google forms because it was so easy and free.  
I could drill down labor hours spent in bunkers down to edging/weeding, repair, mechanical raking, Now there are companies you can pay to make the forms for you.  I enjoyed the flexibility I had in my forms but to each their own.  How things like equipment downtime and weather can impact efficiency are so much easier to explain when you have hard facts.  Communicating the facts is so much easier than making emotional pleas after a long day of tired equipment topped off with an irrigation leak.  

Using graphics to explain the state of equipment is very beneficial.  Golf course equipment is expensive and dealing with old equipment is frustrating.  Being able to demonstrate the status of a fleet without getting emotional is paramount to getting people to open and listen.  Graphs can help give a large fleet a broader picture of ages, values, useful life, repair costs, depreciable value, replacement value, and fair market value.  Fleet management makes so much better sense visually.  Equipment usage and repair was also a favorite of mine, we would track whether a repair was a maintenance item or operator damage.  We then knew if we had reoccurring issues that needed to go into our onboarding or training checklist.  We could also see if accidents and misuse were trending up or down.  Tracking downtime and repair costs are useful when planning capital purchase plans.  Equipment age vs. useful life can be made real clear in a bar chart.  

The golf course is full of stories, and the maintenance facility has some good ones.  Everyone who enjoys golf likes to play on a well conditioned golf course just as the superintendent wishes to provide one.  The golf course superintendent is human and deserves to lock the gate at the end of the day knowing they gave an honest days work for an honest days pay, feel good and come back to work the next day knowing there is more to do and not let the course consume them when they are not on the property.  Humans and golf can be the greatest of combinations or the worst.  If you happen to play at a facility that you feel is not up to par, look around, are there any detractions of labor and effort that contribute to the lack of conditioning?  When it comes to a course’s conditioning, before we assign blame, a realistic assessment of resources allotted, current conditions, obstacles, and sustainability all need to be considered.  Presenting information regarding the complex nature of the labor and costs associated with golf course conditioning takes preparation and effort, but is well worth it at the end of the day.

Lock the gate and feel good,

Turf