338: The Staircase of Escalation w/ Josh Paris, CCM, CCE

Transcript

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Hey everyone, Welcome back to Private Club Radio, your industry source for conversations, news, trends and updates.

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I'm your host, Denny Corby.

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Thank you for being here.

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This episode features a new friend of mine and arch enemy, Josh Paris.

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I got to get this off my chest before I go on.

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I am still bitter because I met Josh in Vegas at the CMA conference and me, my buddy, Sean Blyle members first, Y'all know him Good dude.

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We planned a little poker game, a little poker tournament, a little invite only VIP thing in Vegas, the CMA conference, and he got invited.

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Josh got invited by Sean and I was doing really well and, side note, I love poker.

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I love poker probably too much.

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I don't play a lot, but I love the game.

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And let me just say Josh knocked me out and I'm just still a little bit bitter, that is all, but I don't let that get in the way of a really good conversation.

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No, but because of the poker tournament and because of him knocking me out and just us conversing there at conference and after he and I connected and he's a really good dude and a really good, sharp leader, a very intelligent leader, and after chatting and just learning about him a bit more from Wade Hampton Country Club, Atlanta Athletic Club, Dunwoody Country Club, Ansley Golf Club to now he is general manager of Old Town Club, the OTC.

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You down with OTC, yeah, you know me.

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He's also a past chairman of the board of directors for the Carolina CMAA a very strong leader.

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So we talk about leadership, communication strategies, we talk about some club innovations and advice for clubs going through renovations, handling confrontation and just a good it's a good quick chat.

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And before we get to the episode, a quick word from some of our show partners.

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You're going to have a chat with Paul Dank.

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It's going to be good, he's a great guy.

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Also, be sure to check out our episodes of Member Vetting here on Private Club Radio.

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And now please welcome General Manager of OTC, Mr Josh Parris, CCM CCE.

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You just went through a renovation.

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We did.

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We're buttoning up a pretty massive undertaking here.

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We reconverted greens to an ultra dwarf Bermuda strand, TIF Eagle, redid capillary bunkers, added new fairway space, tea grounds, and then we decided to redo an entire new pool complex with outside dining, so added probably another 4,000 square feet.

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Yeah, about 4,000 square feet on the backside of the clubhouse throughout, and yeah, about 4,000 square feet on the backside of the clubhouse throughout, but really just trying to focus on all the amenities pillars here that we offer.

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That kind of prop up Old Town so a little bit something for everyone Right now.

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looking back, what advice would you give to somebody just starting the planning?

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Oh, just spend as much time as you can.

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You know, dotting the I's and crossing the T's.

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I don't think you can over prepare for any size capital project in today's environment.

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The supply chain issues we were affected a little bit early on in the project.

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I mean we were coming out but there was certain motors, there was a significant size filter that was needed for the pump, actually for the pool system.

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That was six months delayed and that was ordered a year before we started the project.

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We started the project so there were still minimal things that you know just would slow it down and you could find alternate solutions.

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But in the end you really wanted to put in what was spec'd by the contractor as well as the architect, I think.

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Here you know our original building was completed in 1939.

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So any time that you're adding on to an older structure pre-1960, you're going to run into issues.

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A lot of my colleagues that you know everyone's building right now.

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Let me just let me start there.

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But I think the more time you can put in on the front end it'll save you on the back end.

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I think a good communication strategy is always paramount.

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I think you know one thing that I wish I would have done better was just continue to communicate to the membership and let them know.

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That's something that I think we can always improve upon.

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Can you touch on that a little bit more?

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So like how, so how?

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Looking back, how would you communicate more?

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So like how did you communicate?

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How do you think you could have done better?

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So I think on the on the golf side, we did a.

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We did a phenomenal job.

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I mean, it was pretty cut and drop.

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Um, you had a, you had a begin date, you had an end date.

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You build in a great contingency window and, barring weather which someone can touch, can feel, you know they can look out the window and know it's raining.

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I can't do any work outside.

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We were able to kind of update folks more on a weekly basis with the transition, the progress that was taking place within the golf course, within the other construction still, we're affected by some of the elements.

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But the delays whether it was the pump, the filters, you know a contractor got pulled somewhere else or what have you.

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Just, I've always learned in my industry unless you know, it's for certain, you never commit to writing, putting it out to your members.

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And unfortunately, during our project I relied on some folks and was misinformed and miseducated and didn't end too well.

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I mean it ended well, but I wish I would have been more educated, more informed throughout and just kind of let the let it unfold a little better.

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I will say if to all my colleagues.

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Just prepare for construction fatigue.

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When you're doing doing a process, both from the member side, you're disrupting their, their playground, Right, and it's OK for a little bit.

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From the staff, you're asking your team members to really alter their daily routines.

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As well as the members, we are creatures of habit, so that tends to settle in and kind of can rock the boat.

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And at the end, as a GM, I find that when you're leading a project, you end up taking on more areas that you're not as familiarly comfortable with and willing to deal with on a daily basis.

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So it taxes what you know, and that can be fatigue-consistent as well too, because it's just another layer of something that we have to be experts in.

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That's what's fun about it.

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But when things are delayed and out of your control, you're the face of the organization.

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How much did you account for being over budget and where do you think you're at?

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Oh, goodness.

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I mean I would say we started in with around a 15, actually about a 10% contingency.

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We'll end up around that number, maybe a little north of that, but at the end of the day I will say our group did a really good job in maintaining expenses even with the delays.

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So there wasn't a lot of scope creep, and that's the other thing.

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You know projects will change throughout.

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Even with one area we're looking at now, our vision at the beginning of the project has completely changed to what we'll end with, but luckily it didn't incur a lot of scope creep and cost expense associated with that.

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That's good.

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And how long has the whole thing been taking?

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A little bit longer, a little bit shorter.

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Who would I give it a percentage?

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It's probably 20% longer than what we anticipated, and that's just once again, a lot of it due to weather and just coordinating multiple, multiple contractors under one roof and still trying to run a club.

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I mean, I think that's the other thing.

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There was a Chick-fil-A Everybody loves Chick-fil-A right.

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Best business model, probably.

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In America.

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They're not open on Sundays, they have set hours.

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Their drive-thrus are phenomenal.

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You're never waiting.

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They've created these new mobile lines, but where I go with is we have two locations here in Winston.

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One just completely shut down their entire operation for six months, ripped it to the ground, completely built it back up.

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Zero business Clubs.

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I've not known of any of my colleagues, any of my friends in the industry, that have started a construction project in the last 40 years, that have not completely closed their club to regular operations in some form or facet.

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So you're doing some massive type of construction project.

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Meanwhile you're still offering your full litany of services to your membership.

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That's impressive, yeah, I mean.

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I think it's a testament to just our flexibility as leaders within this industry to know that we're still going to do construction but we've got to operate a club, you know, and so I can't think of any clubs right now.

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In the last five or six years I know that have completely ceased operations.

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If there are any clubs out there that have done that, let us know we would love to chat.

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Yeah, you know, other than, like a natural disaster, your club was destroyed with a hurricane.

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Yeah, you know.

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You mentioned something when we chatted the first time.

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Can you dive into a little bit your escalating staircase of anger?

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Well, it's not anger, I call it the escalating staircase of confrontation.

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Oh, I think anger is to work under the director of security at one of my previous locations, and for years he was an undercover detective for the Cardex Task Force of the Atlanta Police Department, and just his outlook on life, one is just, is remarkable.

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But one thing that he, that he taught me um and not only I, not only I was taught but also learned in dealings with him is just, when you're presented with any type of confrontation, how you addressed it initially will carry you throughout the entire duration of whatever situation, and I use it in training with our team as kind of the stepping stone or the staircase of escalation.

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Whereas if 10 is at a top, everybody's screaming and yelling at everyone and each other you definitely won't be at a 10.

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But sometimes, when you're presented with confrontation, if the individual you're talking to is at a other, you definitely won't be at a 10.

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But sometimes, when you're presented with confrontation, if the individual you're talking to is at a 5, you've got to start at least at a 3 or a 2.

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If you come in at a 5 immediately, if you match their intensity, you match their emotion you're just going to propel yourself to a 6 or a 7.

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And where I've seen that success in diffusing any type of situation is you maintain you know even tone within your voice, you're respectful, you listen a lot, but you try to diffuse it.

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And nine times out of ten, if you stay always one or two steps below, and nine times out of ten, if you stay always one or two steps below, those individuals will come down at least to your level or a lot lower than when you started.

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So what you're trying to prevent is that nine ten.

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You know embarrassment for both sides.

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People are yelling, and in a private club it's just never a good situation.

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People are yelling in a private club it's just never a good situation.

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Or really, when you're dealing with staff issues.

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I mean, I think that's the biggest one that I've taken away, when you've got to have those uncomfortable conversations with folks.

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But if you meet their intensity right off the bat, it's just going to escalate.

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And your job and two things within this industry is one, you're never to have confrontation with anyone, right?

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I was taught that many, many years ago.

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Your job is not to have conflict as a leader within the club industry or really anything in hospitality.

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And then two if you're able to de-escalate a situation and just let folks be heard.

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The outcome, nine times out of ten, is much better than when it started.

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So that's my staircase of anger, as you refer, but we call it the escalating staircase of emotion.

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Yeah, I just have a dash and escalating staircase, but then the gap between staircase of and anger is definitely a bit longer.

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So I think I went to probably put it, but my head went other places and put anger.

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That's so funny If you remember, though let's say you've been able to associate staircase anger at the height of the staircase.

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I'm furious At the bottom.

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I'm not quite there yet, so it's our job to make sure we never get to the top.

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It is funny.

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And then my note right under.

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That just says the fine art of not telling people no Kind of.

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Back to my first one You're not to have conflict, You're not to be an individual or an entity of conflict within the club industry.

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I think that is one of the best lessons I ever learned and was taught by one of my mentors the former GM of mine, and it's just.

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It's a hard lesson to learn, but I think it's one of the most valuable ones, and some of that is yeah, they're here to have fun.

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Let's not tell them no every time they want to do something fun.

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But yeah, be mindful of everyone else's enjoyment while they're using the facilities.

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Yeah, it's like they teach in sales.

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There's always like commit first or, like you know, agree to what they're saying hey, can we get this?

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Oh, of course we can.

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Yeah, yeah, yeah.

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But you know, there's always like, oh, of course that first, like, of course we can.

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It's going to cost, but you know, of course you can always do everything.

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There's always something else that's better or whatnot.

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You know the acronym for but right.

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Behold the underlying truth.

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That's funny.

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I can do this, but it's going to cost x.

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Yep, oh, what's in that styrofoam cup, sir?

00:18:08,688 --> 00:18:10,150
Oh?

00:18:10,570 --> 00:18:12,252
uh, little little coffee.

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Here I'm on my second cup of the day.

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I'm usually about a three to four cup kind of guy Um, and then just just wean off and then water the rest of the day.

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So used to be a deadly combo.

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I shouldn't say deadly, it's probably the wrong choice of words.

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But coffee and tea here in the South and um that uh caffeine that's a lot of caffeine.

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That's a lot of caffeine.

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My body didn't react to that very well.

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What do you mix in your coffee?

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First cup of the day is just a spoonful of brown sugar.

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Well, I shouldn't say brown sugar, turbanade sugar, and then the rest of the day it's just black.

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Respect yeah strong, strong.

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Now I will like a Starbucks latte every now and then.

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Uh, every now and then, uh, guilty pleasure.

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Really get your fix.

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Yeah, conference, you can go right over there to the corner and, uh, they, they, they had the good stuff.

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Oh, man, it's.

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I mean 24, seven.

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I mean you're just, you're just wired.

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I mean I learned many years ago just bring your own cup.

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I mean it's just, you know, try to skimp you.

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I need the full 16 to 20 ounces.

00:19:20,147 --> 00:19:21,888
That's smart, that's smart.

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Bring your own cup.

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Less trips, less trips.

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Hope you all enjoyed that episode.

00:19:28,095 --> 00:19:29,696
Thank you so much, josh.

00:19:29,696 --> 00:19:36,060
Look forward to many more fun conversations and good conversations that you and I are going to have.

00:19:36,060 --> 00:19:39,907
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