In my last blog message I made the point that the golf course superintendents’ profession has never had the benefit of outreach programming. Consequently, tens of thousands of salvageable careers/lifestyles have been unnecessarily put in jeopardy and/or lost to the winds through the years.

This is tantamount to the Titanic sailing through a sea laden with icebergs with too few lifeboats.

Guidelines For Developing “Personal” Outreach Programming

Fortunately, superintendents don’t have to wait and can begin to build their own personal outreach “lifeboats” now to ride the waves of a bad economy. Following are the time tested guidelines for establishing personal outreach programming:

1. While a bad economy clearly puts stress on jobs, it at the same time creates widespread needs throughout society as everyone endeavors to maintain financial stability when so much is going wrong.

Because addressing society’s needs is the life-blood of every existing and start-up business – a bad economy invites entrepreneurialism.

2. Accordingly, history shows: (i) that about ten times as many career-saving jobs can be found through self-employment in a bad economy as through the pursuit of standard employment jobs; and (ii) that relative to golf course superintendents, potentially twice as many entrepreneurial career opportunities can be found outside golf versus within the golf industry.

Therefore, job-threatened and jobless superintendents should pursue new careers/employment on two fronts simultaneously: (i) as in the past, continue to do so through standard employment search practices inside and outside golf; and (ii) through the consideration of starting their own businesses/companies – where the track record for success has been and will continue to be encouraging.

3. The key to starting a new business successfully lies in matching the skill sets of the entrepreneurial minded (where superintendents have untold riches) to the specific “needs” of target audiences. Because this process can routinely take up to a year-plus to complete – commit to this task sooner rather than later.

This, of course, is where the “ultimate challenge” lies; i.e., matching skill sets to societal needs/niche opportunities. Not ever an easy job, but one where success can be found through “perseverance” and by scheduling informal (always rewarding) niche identifying meetings several times a year with friends, family, peers and the like that will often produce desired results.

Finally, experience further shows that the odds for successfully starting a new business increase somewhat when two people with complementary skills sets join forces.

Opportunity Knocks: By next Spring, four consecutive senior college classes will have graduated into dead job markets; i.e., where tens of thousands of talented career stalled men and women are looking to be educated by, counseled by, or to join forces with experienced professionals with “proven” skill sets. Can there be more fertile entrepreneurial ground to explore in this age of “high tech” communications?

Don’t wait until your job is threatened or lost before beginning to seek out new business opportunities – because if you wait – you’ll find it far more difficult to develop legitimate business options under pressure than not; and your family may suffer accordingly.

Don’t procrastinate when your family’s security can be threatened at any time.

Can you imagine an automotive industry without “preventive maintenance” support and without a “repair service” component? An unimaginable scenario where cars would simply disappear from the road through wear, tear and accidents never to be seen again! The industry would approach collapse.

Yet, the golf course superintendents’ profession has been functioning from its inception without career “preventive maintenance” support and also without a career “repair service” component.

Accordingly, it too is looking at a disturbing long-range future. Not appropriate for the one “indispensable” profession throughout golf!

The “preventive maintenance” equivalent within the working world of the golf course superintendent is, of course, the counseling needed to help superintendents hold jobs in a challenging economy; while the “repair service” equivalent is the counseling needed to help dismissed superintendents find new jobs inside or outside golf.

The one “discipline” that provides these two counseling elements is effective “outreach” programming; i.e., a common career-saving tool that is extensively available throughout corporate America and the military but one that has never graced the world of the golf course superintendent.

The challenge here is how to effectively introduce the concept of outreach programming to the golf course superintendents’ community? Three situations apply here:

1. This should not be a difficult task in light of the fact that there are literally thousands of experienced retired corporate and military outreach program counselors available across the country to help the profession address the issue.
2. At a time when more chapters are looking to hire Executive Directors, they should hire outreach program experienced people to fill these ranks.
3. Those chapters that have hired Executive Directors without outreach experience should look to make proven local outreach program counseling available to their members – but only after having negotiated an affordable discounted fee for their members’ patronage.

One of the truest axioms that permeate the world’s culture today; i.e., one that often has been used to explain how some of the world’s worst calamities gained headway is…

“Evil prevails when good men do nothing!”

Unfortunately, throughout the profession’s long history – tens of thousands of “good men” have done “nothing” to bring proven job-securing counseling to their brethren; i.e., spreading unnecessary and untold anguish across the fruited plains from Day One.

In a bad economy that promises to last a while, a profession without effective outreach programming is committing to a slow developing “death spiral.” Once again I repeat, it is time for leaders to lead!

We’ve all know the difference between a high wire trapeze act with a safety net and one without a safety net; i.e., simply the difference between living and dying. Likewise, the difference between a career with a safety net and one without a safety net is similar; i.e., the difference between career viability versus career vulnerability.

The biggest problem facing the world of the golf course superintendent today is that its constituents are working without the concept/support of a career “safety net.”

How difficult is the safety net situation? There is no greater void throughout golf. For example:

1.   Surveys show that virtually every superintendent feels insecure job-wise in today’s economy because he/she lacks access to: the security of written contracts; binding arbitration to effectively settle disputes; and outreach programming to sustain income and family stability when jobs are threatened and/or lost.

2.   Like nowhere else in golf, superintendents are too frequently subject to summary dismissals, unsecured severance support; a too frequent disregard for written contracts when they do exist; and the all too immediate loss of employer-provided housing, or the equivalent in housing allotments where applicable.

The collective price superintendents have been paying from Day One for this collective career vulnerability is one of the darkest kept secrets in golf:

*    Year-to-year verbal employment agreements make it difficult to borrow money for such basics as buying a house, a car, or whatever – even more so within a bad economy.

*    There is no more lonely life than when the family of a dismissed superintendent discovers they have been left “alone” in their turmoil because no one (including friends, peers and the chapter leadership) is available to “listen” to their plight and provide caring support.

*    And what might be the unkindest cut of all because there is no outreach programming available (a service readily available throughout corporate and military America) any time anywhere – dismissed superintendents are consistently left to their own devises as they search (often aimlessly) an ever- tightening job market for replacement work inside or outside golf.

Accordingly, the ultimate “never addressed” question has to be asked:

Why does the only “essential” professional group in golf find itself virtually defenseless when their job security and career stability are consistently threatened?”

It Is Cross-Roads Decision Time

Unless the golf course superintendent community commits to the near future development of an effective career safety net mechanism there might not be another opportunity in the foreseeable future. I say this because it is likely that the economy will continue to place additional stress on employers who will consistently pass the added stress down to the superintendents; i.e., further tightening the job squeeze.

The “Hopeful News”

The reality is that the situation is far from hopeless because (as recent blog messages summarized) there is a viable path available to climb out of the “safety net void” by recognizing: (i) that the “battle” can only be fought and won at the chapter level (see February 17 2011 blog); (ii) that chapters must universally adopt safety net supporting mission statements (see January 26 2010 blog); and (iii) that hiring Executive Directors with proven job security and out reach programming experience is essential to completing the mission. (see March 16 2010 blog).

It’s soon now, or soon never!