A.W. Tillinghast will most likely receive some recognition next month when the Rust-Oleum Championship, the subject of this month’s Uniquely Cleveland, opens at Lakewood Country Club in Westlake.
Tillinghast designed the course, which opened in 1921, as well as a number of other famous championship golf courses, including San Francisco Golf Club, Baltusrol Golf Club (Upper and Lower), Bethpage State Park (Black), Aronimink Golf Club and Winged Foot Golf Club (East and West). He also helped found the PGA of America, firmly rooting his name in golf history.
What many don’t know is that he helped popularize the term birdie — a score of one-under par. As the story goes, Tillinghast, an accomplished golfer, and some friends were playing the Country Club of Atlantic City in 1899 when one of them took a 2 on the 12th hole, a par 3. The man exclaimed, “That’s a bird!” (A slang word for “cool” at the time.) The accomplishment soon became known as a birdie and was popularized by Tillinghast, a writer, and later editor, at Golf Illustrated.
Another term popularized by the sport of golf is par — the standard that an expert golfer should be able to meet for a particular hole or course. “Up to par” means as good as the standard or average showing. The winner is ultimately the golfer with the best score under par.
A focus on where your business stands — if your performance is up to par — is a matter in need of constant monitoring. Continuous improvement should always be your goal.
A CEO I interviewed told me that in good times, as well as bad, it’s a mandatory practice to constantly identify and assess problems in your business.
There are many metrics to use to track performance — year over year sales figures, profit and cash flow, for example — and they differ according to the industry. Once a problem has been identified, however, there are certain matters that must be done.
“As a team, in order to get the input from everyone and get people galvanized around making improvements, we first try to create a sense of urgency,” the CEO says.
“To do that, you have to communicate to everyone very effectively what the problem is — why it is a problem, why change is needed and how it would best serve the business, the company itself and also the customer by making those changes.
“Part of your past success can be a hurdle in terms in trying to identify problems. Organizations often will say, ‘Well, this worked before for us, but the reality is it may not work for us in the future.’”
You need to take a fresh look at the problem. As in golf, maybe the wind is blowing from a different direction than expected, or perhaps you’re shooting directly into the sun when previously it was cloudy.
But most of all, keep shooting to beat par, on the golf course and in business.
Dennis Seeds is editor-in-chief of Smart Business Magazine.
