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Racquet Fuel provides insights into the best practices and innovations of racquets industry business leaders.
Co-hosts Kim Bastable, Director of Professional Tennis Management at the University of Florida, and Simon Gale, Senior Director Racquet Sports Development at the USTA National Campus, help racquets leaders in your ability to grow the game and to improve the experiences you offer to both your staff and players by talking to industry leaders, including USTA executives, authors and innovators. If you are on a career path in racquet sports or already a racquets business leader and you want to stay up to date on ideas and innovations in racquets industry business and leadership, this podcast is for you.
Presented by the Athlete+ Podcast Network at the University of Florida Institute for Coaching Excellence.
Welcome to Racquet Fuel, where we launch into great conversations and share powerful tools to help you become a stronger Racquet's leader. Your hosts are Kim Bastable, a former All American tennis player and now the director of professional Racquet's management at the University of Florida. And Simon Gale, the USTA senior director of Racquet Sports Development. Today on Racquet Fuel, a lively discussion with AJ Pant and Doug Cash about business standards and how leaders must create these codes of conduct to consistently deliver the best product, even when employees might be challenged by these new changes. Here are Kim and Simon.
Episode Narration:Welcome
Kim Bastable:to Racquet Fuel. I'm Kim Bastable, and this is going to be a lively conversation that Simon and I are going to host with Doug Cash and AJ Pant. We love these guys, and we have great fun just having conversations about industry matters. And this one is going to be around standards, brand standards, and and how does your business develop them, how do you manage them, and there are some strong opinions in this group, Simon, as maybe as well as your own and how to how to handle this subject.
Simon Gale:Look. Anytime we can get AJ and Doug on a conversation is always entertaining as well as educational, and I think they bring a wealth of experience around this topic as both leaders of facilities, but former leaders of facilities, but now as consultants, they see a lot and can talk to what they see out there. So looking forward to this conversation.
Kim Bastable:Yeah. We welcome you guys to Racquet Fuel. This is picking the brains of two guys that have been so wise in our industry. So welcome, Doug. Welcome, AJ.
Kim Bastable:Thank you.
Simon Gale:Thank you. They're saving all their words for their answers, Kim. Men of few words. I've never I've never heard the two of them say so little, but welcome, guys. And we wanna kick it off with a general question just to get a a bit of a baseline of what you see out there is with all the clubs you've worked with and clubs you've either managed and and maybe inherited managing, roughly what percentage of them do you see that have some sort of visible or listed nonnegotiables or standards of operation or excellence or expectations, however you wanna word it?
Simon Gale:So, Doug, I'll start with you. What what do you see out there?
Doug Cash:The bigger the club, the older the club, the more corporate the club is, the more they're gonna have a standards written. More mom and pop don't. They take the personality of the owner, whatever that happens to be. And so I'd say the clubs I walk into to have a full set of standards for everything I would like is probably almost nonexistent. Some have some very basic standards like pro has to be on time, that type of standard, which is more of a given in life.
Doug Cash:But I think the every club in the world has to have the right people teach doing the right things. If you want the right things to be done, you have to tell show them, explain to them, teach them, coach them on what those right things are, and they have to buy into it. And in fact, with standards, you introduce it pre hire the standards to a person so they know what they're getting into. So if they look and say, I'm never gonna do that, well, they're not a probably good hire for you. And and most standards are not so they're not cutting off the right arm type stuff.
Doug Cash:It's generally pretty common sense. So I would say the second part of it is more corporate, the more standards. The other part of it that you didn't ask, but I'm gonna answer is how many people enforce them to the level they should enforce them. And I'm gonna say that's very low because that's a skill of confrontation and coaching, and that's another whole subject which we'll get to later.
Simon Gale:So would it be fair to say based on what I'm hearing that your why for standards is is in order to set expectations before hiring someone or during the hiring process, that that stood out to me that it's not something once you get hired, then we put this in front of you and we work backwards. This is something that's clear during the hiring process, maybe in a final interview or as you get to that signing point so that there's no gray area about how we expect you to conduct yourself and why you work for us. Is that what I take away from some of that?
Doug Cash:Yes. And mentioned earlier, Kim, that standards will constantly change over time. So they're not not gonna necessarily be the same from day one to day five years you're there because you're gonna get better, your product's gonna get better, and so they're gonna change. But I like them to know before they get hired, lots of things. For instance, I'll give you another thing I want them to know before they get hired is how do you get a raise?
Doug Cash:What's your review process? You know how many times that's not covered before you get hired? They have no idea how to do it, so I like to get those things out in the open before they ever get there so that just like I like to tell members, when they join, you're you're gonna get a dues raise every January rather than surprise them the next month with a dues raise. So I like to be upfront with those things and transparent.
Simon Gale:So, AJ, what would you add to that?
Ajay Pant:Well, let me start with the unfortunate truth that Doug is correct with most of these smaller clubs. In my experience, they there's just a shocking lack of any standards. But more importantly, from my standpoint, there's there's nonstop conflict between the GM or the manager and the pros or the director because there's no standards. To be more specific, these are real life examples. Obviously, no names or anything of clubs.
Ajay Pant:But one of the ones I see so much is the pro is using a cell phone during a lesson. Where is this anywhere? Because some do, some don't, some can, some are there's nothing in writing. Or this happened two weeks ago where, you know what? This person is teaching with no enthusiasm.
Ajay Pant:They just have not enough energy. It's like, okay. Well, what is the expect you can define that. You can define what intensity looks like and what my standards are. You will not put your leg on the cart, or you will not, you know, look at the clock every there's no standards.
Ajay Pant:So now everyone is in a constant state of agitation because since no one knows what the standard is, people keep making up standards which are situational, and that's very hard to manage a business. I mean, your standards need to be nonnegotiable versus, well, a situation. You know? Today, I like you, and it's Monday, so I'll make up a different standard. That's the bigger concern to me.
Simon Gale:So the way I like to look at it too sometimes is aren't standards in place to establish what good looks like? Is is that part of what this is? And and the why for me is a lot of we're doing this for the customer experience. We're doing this because that's what good looks like, and this is how we want our brand to be viewed by the people who play here or the members who who join our our facility. So I like to look at it that way versus these are our rules, and it's you know, these are these are the rules that you must follow.
Simon Gale:It's geared towards what's good, and and that is why we're here to give the customers a great experience. What do you what do you feel about that, Doug? Or
Ajay Pant:I will say this, that you bring up an excellent point. Obviously, you don't hand standards. You make sure that everyone who's involved, you either involve them directly or you explain the why, and people have to agree. Now in good old days, I used to have people sign off on them. This is the standard.
Ajay Pant:Sign off, and I'll sign off. But going past that, you cannot you can't force this. It has to be, we all agree. And then, obviously and I'll let Doug talk more about this. You know, the first one who doesn't follow your standards, then that's that's where how you handle that will make or break standards going forward.
Kim Bastable:Well, yeah, you say you can't make someone. I think you you can make them. You they can lose their job. So I guess that's that's the other option, but I think you mean, like, to get them on board to want to to wanna respond. Doug, what's your what's your take on how do you enforce?
Kim Bastable:I know you feel strongly.
Doug Cash:Well, go back to Simon's question. I think Simon actually in the USCA national campus, you use nonnegotiable as a word. This is what is expected of you during whatever they're doing. And just think, the word standard does define your brand, your product. For instance, if Apple didn't have high standards and a phone didn't work half the time, you're not gonna buy it.
Doug Cash:Well, if a pro's sitting down on the job talking on his phone, you're not gonna continue to buy that product. Or or if you do, then it's a different problem. But so you you have to have the product that you want. So so let me give you an example of first of all, you gotta make sure they understand what they are. So for instance, even to a general manager, when I hired a new general manager, and a lot of you have seen the standards that we had for clubs, you know, it's it's 20 pages long and with many on a page.
Doug Cash:I took the first week of their employment and spent days talking about every standard, what it meant, did they understand it or disagree with it. I mean, you may have given it to them, but now when you get when you talk twenty minutes about one standard, you're gonna really get into what that means. What does a various report look like that you have to write on the fifteenth of every month? That's a standard. So what does that mean?
Doug Cash:What how do you get them to do it? And and so I'm gonna go in how to enforce for a second as you asked. Number one, you gotta make sure they know what it is. Number two, you gotta follow it a 100% of the time yourself. To be to the captain, to be to the crew.
Doug Cash:So you can't expect them to do it if you're not doing it. Number three, here's my kicker. If you don't enforce a standard 100% of the time, you should get rid of it. If you walk by something that's supposed to happen and it's not happened and you allow that to happen, then it's not really a standard. Now, how you do it, whether you do it in public and private, those are all other discussions.
Doug Cash:You don't chat you don't ever coach a pro in front of people unless it's praise. Praise is public. Coaching is private. K? And so you have to do it.
Doug Cash:And and and by the way, you gotta make sure they understand the standing standards, and that's why you have to meet with people a lot is because you gotta talk about those things when you see it. Because one of the hardest part about a club is called quality control, which is division seven for those who know me. Quality control is making sure what's happening is happening that that you want to have happen, that it actually happens. Does your front desk greet every member the way you want them to greet it? I'm not gonna tell you how to greet it as a group here, but the club should have a way you greet your members.
Doug Cash:Whether you use their name, you say hello, what what how do you answer the phone? And I have three sets of pro standards that I think are important. There's three different areas. The first is off the court, the second is group teaching, and the third is standards of teaching tennis. And those are three different things.
Doug Cash:How to hit a forehand is different than how you do a warm up in a group lesson. For instance, rule number one in a group lesson, you you greet every single person by their first name when they walk in. Rule number two is if there's not a number of people you hit with them, you don't stand over there talking to another pro. Rule number three or standard number three is you make sure you give everybody a compliment and a hint during warm up. Rule standard number four is you just have one conversation with each person about something in their life to build your relationship.
Doug Cash:Kim, I know your grandson was playing in a soccer tournament. How did he do? Hey. Those are four standards real quick on how you walk into a tennis lesson. Now I gotta make sure they do it.
Doug Cash:If they don't believe I mean, none of those are rocket science. To say hello to somebody, that's again, so but you gotta watch them do it, that's called quality control.
Kim Bastable:So what do you do if this is a brand new club and you are building it from the ground up, you're creating this list, and it's you're getting you're getting a fresh start. People get hired. They know the rules. What do you do if you're the new guy at a club? And there have been standards.
Kim Bastable:There have been things. Maybe the club is doing well. Maybe it's not doing well, but you're going to come in and wanna build your own culture. That's the challenge many of the directors of Racquet's may have. What are your let's go through each of you.
Kim Bastable:Maybe give us each one of you, give us some suggestions. How do you be the new guy? Simon, you did it at the campus. So what what was your approach? And then we'll go on to to AJ and Doug.
Simon Gale:I think it's part of a a bigger approach too is is you need to spend time with the team and the individuals and understand what you're inheriting. Where are we? What's done well? What do we struggle with? And get that feedback from the people and see what's in place.
Simon Gale:There's some column nonnegotiables or things that I think you wanna set as expectations, and you'll bring those and add those. But then I think you need to determine what type of facility, what type of experience do we want, and I want those new standards that we put in place to reflect probably my values and the image of the business that I'm looking to impress upon the customers because I wanna show that we take the customer experience and and the development of our facility seriously. I think coming in and setting some high expectations to start with on fundamentals, like turning up on time, being in uniform, doing your attendance, whatever those requirements are, but then adding your own twist on on some of the other standards of delivery and so on that you expect based on listening for a while and determining where we're at and and where do we need to go. But I think the buy in, I think Doug may have talked about it earlier, the buy in from your team and presenting these, and I like working through a lot of them together. You know, it's an exercise.
Simon Gale:What are what are our top 15 things you're passionate about from a standards point of view? Let's rank them one through five. Right. We all agree on this. It's very easy to hold someone accountable to something you've agreed on versus these are my new standards, and you have to you tended to be my approach over time, especially with a bigger team.
Simon Gale:Yeah. I I think that's probably where I would go initially.
Kim Bastable:Okay. AJ, you wanna add add to that?
Ajay Pant:The only comment is I I wanna respond to Simon wisely saying that, know, let me just label them one through five, and then we go through these. My only suggestion is please, you know, work within what what Doug and I would call your musts and your wants. And that simply is you know, it's nothing more than a must. It's just nonnegotiable. There's no debate on that.
Ajay Pant:A want and you can weight them. You know, a want might be higher or lower. That makes a much bigger impact. So as a as a simple example, you know, if I'm setting a standard to be certified or being a part of USTA coaching education might be a must. That we're not gonna budge on that.
Ajay Pant:However, we would like we prefer someone who is a four, five player, but it's a low one. If you're not and you're a three o player, but you can teach, you're one of the best of the best in the business, then that's not a nonnegotiable. There's you can weigh those. I'm going back again to days with Doug at Midtown. I had the privilege of, you know, almost a full two days to design with every director of tennis must and wants for the tennis department.
Ajay Pant:And you think it would take twenty minutes. It took two days because exactly, Simon, to your point, it was an agreement. And how do you define a must and a want? You know, Roger Federer shows up to work with in at your club, but he's not certified. Do you hire or not hire?
Ajay Pant:And something as innocuous as that. It took a long time to break this down, but then it was agreed upon, and that's your standards.
Doug Cash:Doug? Well, you've got numerous possibilities. You take over a new club without any standard. You take over a club that's already got one. You get promoted in a club that's got one.
Doug Cash:There's all kinds of different scenarios you can have. Both AJ and Simon both said you wanna have the team involved in the development of the standards. And I'm gonna take that a step further. I'm gonna ask the team, how do you need to be coached when you don't follow the standard? Let them give you the ideas on what they think you should do with them when they don't follow the standards.
Doug Cash:Amazing what sometimes they're tougher on themselves than I would be. Forget the legal part of this. Well, if I'm five minutes late, don't pay me for the lesson. I can't do that legally, but I I like the set sentiment that you just said so you're not gonna be late. So so the the the real hard part to me is not writing the standards.
Doug Cash:It's making the standards happen.
Simon Gale:Yeah. And I think I had just made a note now as we're talking around, this is all great that you do it, and everything's rosy, and everyone agrees, and we're a big happy team. But when you inherit a team, you're gonna have some some combative members of that team who don't want to comply with your newsstanders. They're used to doing things the way they like it. And so maybe a good question here, Kim, is how do you handle that?
Simon Gale:How do you handle that combative senior pro who's coming in and really challenging you? How how would you work with them, AJ, to to get them on board with you? What what would be an approach that you've used?
Ajay Pant:Yeah. Let me start by saying what not to do, which I have done. I would urge you not to use this technique, which is talk about there was a time we had no indoor plumbing, but now we have indoor plumbing. And that pretty much kinda stops the conversation. So don't tell me what you've always done.
Ajay Pant:There was a time that you didn't have the luxury of indoor plumbing. I'm suggesting don't use that. That's just me. And I say it just the way I'm saying it. I will say I will work with someone like that to say, can we talk to me, tell me, but not if it's going to hurt my entire culture.
Ajay Pant:I will work with you. I'm I'm somewhat patient, but not we're not talking about ad nauseam. This is a very sure. Okay. The rest of the team have agreed to this.
Ajay Pant:It's my job to implement it. Now if you can make a logical case, I'll listen. But I don't wanna mislead you. This is how the team has said we're gonna do it. I tend to be somewhat harsh if someone's not gonna follow what we agreed upon.
Ajay Pant:That just that is my style. I'm not saying it's right, but I don't put up with that very long.
Doug Cash:Well, let me go and the hardest person to manage is the high performer with flaws. Okay? He's teaching 50 a week. People love him. He's late to lessons every day.
Doug Cash:And obviously, a standard is you can't be late. The hardest thing to manage is that, and and they're gonna be a whole conversation called willing and able. Willing and able, there are four types of individuals. They're willing and able, they're willing and unable, they're unwilling and able, and unwilling and unable. So the person who is a high performer is a unwilling but able.
Doug Cash:They're able to do those standards, but they're unwilling. So you must use different management techniques for each of those four groups. And as I said, they're the hardest. The willing and able, you just let them go do it. That's easy.
Doug Cash:The unable but willing, you have to coach them and teach them how to do it because they're willing to do it, but they just don't know how to do it. K? So and the unwilling and unable, you might as well get rid of them today because they're not willing and they're not able, so you probably don't need them. But the unwilling and able is the toughest group. And it takes a lot of time and patience, and it takes a whole lot of conversation.
Doug Cash:And you never know where it's gonna go because at the end of the day, you can't let somebody spoil your culture and everybody else because what you allow them to do and you don't allow anyone else to do. The hardest decision to make in your life is to get rid of a high performer because they're a high performer. Do you have to do it sometimes? Yes. Did I ever wanna do it?
Doug Cash:No. Just don't gotta think about it.
Ajay Pant:Simon, I did no. I just wanted to share. You know, we we talked Doug mentioned how standards can also evolve and change. It's just, again, way back, I was the director of tennis at a Midtown Club and one of our top performers. I mean, consistently doing over forty hours a week, most popular pro, but wouldn't have a name tag on.
Ajay Pant:It just got out of whack. So finally, with some coaching from Doug, my initial thing was, well, I'm gonna have to terminate you. But what we finally agreed on was if anyone teaches more than forty hours at that club at that time, anyone on an average, we will have name tags for you all over the club. The front desk, I'll carry a couple. There'll be couple near the fire extinguisher.
Ajay Pant:There's no way you would. But the standard became, if you're teaching thirty five hours, it doesn't apply. You gotta teach forty plus, and there's name tags everywhere for you. That that kinda sort I mean, it made it made sense in that context, and everyone was pretty happy.
Doug Cash:And I'll tell you one more thing I did with that same problem is we started to embroider their shirts and their warm ups with their name. So
Kim Bastable:That's right. That's the problem.
Doug Cash:To wear a name tag anymore, and it got the same thing done. So that was the way to change the standard to keep the standard, if that makes any sense.
Simon Gale:Yeah. And I always found trying to appeal to that high performer, normally a bit more of a senior pro on your team probably was, you know, picking up on what you said earlier, appraise is public, coaching is private, to not come down on them like, you know, yes, I agree, AJ. I'm not lowering my standards for you and and having different standards for you because you're a high performer, but let's go out to lunch. Here's why this is important to me, but more important to the team. You are a key figure on this team, and there's a lot of pros who look up to you because you're a high performer.
Simon Gale:I need you on my team and to be a role model for what great looks like so that you can help me develop the the culture and the team and see if I can appeal to them being a leader and role model even if they don't have it by title. And sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't, but you have to try and find a way to connect with them because they're not responding to these are my rules, I need you to just follow them. And if it doesn't work, then we go down another path. But you have to find a way to hopefully appeal to why this is important for us. It's not about me and my rules.
Doug Cash:No. And one more thing with that, Simon. It's even harder if they applied for your job and you got it and they didn't. That adds to that drama.
Kim Bastable:Yeah. There's a lot of that drama that can go on where, yes, they didn't get the job and you have to manage to that personality. Yeah. So let's just talk a minute about what is the effect of these clubs you've mentioned that don't have standards at all. Like, what's the result?
Kim Bastable:Is it chaos? Is it happiness? I don't know. Maybe all their staff is happy because they don't have to apply by any rules. I don't know.
Kim Bastable:What have you guys found? Why are you such advocates for this? So what's the what's the risk? What's the ultimate reality with no standards?
Ajay Pant:Doug, would you like to go first?
Doug Cash:Sure. Yeah. Your product varies all over the place. So let's say you have a standard that or I should wanna have a standard that you don't teach with lines. And you can define that lots of ways.
Doug Cash:K? But if you don't have that as standard and you don't like it and some people are doing it, I don't think the lesson is good for sure. Does that mean I'm right or wrong? No. It's what it's what I believe.
Doug Cash:And so I you get the product varies greatly without standards that are being done and coached so your product becomes better and better. Doesn't mean you'd have a terrible product either. You could have great a great pro could still give you a great product, but it won't be consistent in general.
Kim Bastable:AJ, I mean, I I could actually add to that just the idea we talk about off court standards as well. It's like that would say you have to clean the bathroom a regular way at a certain time of day would be a standard. Well, what by your saying is that, yeah, we clean the bathrooms whenever, sorta, sometimes, like but there's no standard. Like, they're not always clean. Like, that kind of an inconsistent experience in the bathroom might be what you get at a tennis lesson.
Kim Bastable:That's right. Am I am I close in comparing those two things, Doug?
Doug Cash:Yes. In fact, I I'd studied Marriott when I was early in my career. And if you you could see the person who cleans the rooms has a 150 page book of standards on how to clean a room so that every room at Hilton looks the same with the same towel animal on the bed or whatever it is so that it looks the same to every place you go so it's not different each place.
Kim Bastable:Yeah. It's a good argument for standards. AJ?
Ajay Pant:From my standpoint, one, for the clubs that don't have standards, it is just a wonderful festival of ignorance. Everyone's happy because no one no one knows. So it's it's beautiful to watch. It's it's everyone's happy happy, and there's no standards, and it it's a festival of ignorance. Now I will say the most I'm not saying all.
Ajay Pant:Most people in the absence of standards also get frustrated. They're just there's a smorgasbord of thing. You don't just come to work and know what's gonna happen. It could be anything. So my own my and takes time, but my own thing is I like to first chat with owners or GM or whoever to say, let let's talk about the why.
Ajay Pant:This is all the symptoms, all the frustrations, even from your pros, by the way. So let's talk about the why and then say, if we try to do this, you know, it's a gentle, gentle introduction of a standard, how do you think things will work out? And that includes the pros. So I just find over if I can do this for a couple of months, not a hundred percent, but about 50% of some of the most perfunctory standards do come into play. No cell phone.
Ajay Pant:Some of the the more sophisticated ones, you know, how I want you to coach, you know, three sixty coaching assignment or dynamic. That takes a little bit more time, and you have to typically, as Doug said, if you're bigger, you might have that, you know, across the board, but that's been my experience.
Simon Gale:I would just add, for me, if there's not clear expectations, you're leaving it up to the employees to interpret what is acceptable. And you ask 10 different employees what's acceptable, you'll get 10 different answers. So some employees will respond to those standards and love the system and will meet those expectations. Some will want to adhere to them but struggle, and you can coach them up. And I'll give you an example.
Simon Gale:If you had six courts of of tennis being delivered and you left the six coaches to do it however they see fit, you're gonna see six different examples. And for a parent paying money on the sidelines, there's one court with the kids having a great time, and there's one court with kids standing in lines looking bored. And the parents look at that and say, I want my kid to be with that coach because they're having more fun. They're hitting more balls. They're moving around.
Simon Gale:That's where I want my child to be next week. You've got a huge problem as a manager if you let that happen on court. So we don't want people to be robots, but we want some standards around this is how long we spend on this part within the exercises. This is what a swing looks like. These are acceptable grips for us to use.
Simon Gale:So that's more on court delivery, but it's it's important because the customer is looking at the difference in delivery and they're comparing the product side by side and saying, I want that product because it looks better than that one. If there's consistency, then all we're looking at is the energy and the effort and the enthusiasm of the coach, but the product looks fairly similar. So I'm super passionate about that at the campus, but every business I've managed it, there's got to be some consistency to delivery on court and to how we conduct ourselves off court.
Ajay Pant:Simon, my my only comment, how could anyone disagree what you're saying? But I find for me what works better is I establish a range of what's acceptable within the standard that if it's grips, you know, I'm making this up. You're playing a red ball. I'm okay with you going from eastern continental to eastern to very, very much of a weaker eastern, but you can go semi. The more you give a range of this is acceptable, I find people are more open to that versus this is the only way to do it.
Ajay Pant:We'll give you a lesson plan. We'll give you multiple options. We'll give you what the theme has to be. The theme has to be the theme. But what you do after that, whether you jump like a frog or like a kangaroo, doesn't make any difference.
Simon Gale:Yeah. And I support that a 100%. We do the same thing. It's it's more defining a here's your lane and stay within the lane. Understood.
Simon Gale:You can't go outside the lane, but this is this is what the flow should look like. But you're you're free to interpret that how you need to, but don't go outside the lane. So, yeah, I agree a 100%. Doug, what would you add?
Doug Cash:We had we had teaching lanes in our clubs, literally and figuratively. We had teaching lanes where you could practice. So that's our lanes. I'm gonna end up with this. Your real culture in any business is what happens when nobody's looking.
Doug Cash:So when no one's looking, what does your team do? Which brings up back to my quality control, which means you gotta show up at the club Tuesday afternoon at 02:00 sometime to see what the team's doing. But it brings up even a bigger question. Fascinating conversation between your team, what should you do if one of your teammates on the backcourts is not following the standards? What is the obligation of the team, and what should they do?
Doug Cash:Not an easy answer, by the way. K? It's easy in theory. You should tell on your part. You know, you should bring it to attention to somebody.
Doug Cash:However, you still have to worry about the team, how they feel, what they do. So if a pro's sitting down in the backcourt to 02:00 on Sunday afternoon because nobody ever watches them, what does that team person do? And that is I can't give you that answer. It's a long period of development to get there because you can't say the standard is you gotta tell me because now you gotta discipline the person who doesn't tell you when their teammate's doing that, and that could be a real hassle. So that's the ultimate.
Doug Cash:Your culture is what happens when no one's looking.
Kim Bastable:I feel like, AJ, you have a response to that.
Ajay Pant:No. I was listening intently.
Kim Bastable:It is it is tough. I was like, the answer isn't there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Kim Bastable:It's a tough one there.
Ajay Pant:Well, the the only thing again, Doug's right. I mean, I I don't have an answer. I can only tell you in few cases where you were actually I was actually given carte blanche to build a culture within the tennis. If you have a smaller team and there's such a high level of pride, this is very interactive, then you can see a little bit anecdotally of, come on. You know, we're we're better than that or but not that's not the norm.
Ajay Pant:It's the exception. But one of the qualities when you look into the sciences behind performing teams, that's one of the commonalities is that everyone takes so much pride that you're willing to pick up and and point out certain things in a in a nonthreatening environment.
Simon Gale:I think, Kim, that you yes. When you're away, what happens? And and and that's the true test of your standards and your culture. I agree a 100%. If you have a larger team in levels or layers of leadership, can you empower, which you should be doing anyway, but the layers of leadership want to uphold your standards versus I'm the upholder of standards.
Simon Gale:So if my head pros and associates and senior pros, which is a team of 12 to 16, it's 50% of my team, are keeping an eye on that pro on Sunday at 02:00 who's sleeping on the bench, Doug, I'm hoping that they are going to uphold the standards, and maybe I'll hear about it, but I want them to put out that fire immediately versus they have to tell me and I have to go and address it on Monday. So I think that is also an ultimate test of how good your team is is are your subordinates or leaders willing to enforce or uphold our standards? And I think that's when you've got a really amazing culture and an amazing team. So that's what we always strive for, but it's very difficult to build that.
Doug Cash:It is. And by the way, you won't be there on Monday because you're on vacation that day, so that's why they won't tell you on Monday. The last part is some of that was corrected, this is just wasn't done on purpose. We put cameras on all the courts, you know, and that makes quality control of your product sometimes easier. Not saying you should do it, but that's just what it was.
Doug Cash:We used it for lots of reasons, and that was a subset. You can see what they're doing.
Kim Bastable:Yeah. Well, as as we realize, I mean, it's it's a challenge. I mean, it's certainly a challenge. But as you as you really put it when we discussed this a week ago was it's about a quality product. It's about putting out a quality consistent product and having the pride in which to do that.
Kim Bastable:And then, again, like you said, defining what that looks like in your environment, what you want your brand to stand for. And then I'm you know, you made the comment, you might need a secret shopper to call the club and see how the front desk answers the phone, to to walk around and watch on a 02:00 on a Sunday afternoon just to have someone that can help you know what's happening when you're not there as a leader. But, yeah, for sure, it's a it's a tricky tricky one. We've we've already spoken quite a list as one of our longer episodes in Racquet Fuel because this is just a really, really good and important subject. So I think any final thoughts?
Ajay Pant:Well, for me, it's something which Doug has started the call with, but I think it's fitting if we at least from my side, this is what I end with is you can bill all the standards, everything you want If the person in charge does not walk his or her talk with the standards, they are not going to work. So this is frightfully important because I've been in some situations where pros, directors, they got it. But if the person in charge really did whatever the heck they wanted, you can enforce the standard. Doug had started he mentioned this when we started, but I wanna really highlight that because you're just spinning in the wind otherwise. You you gotta make sure that standard applies and you walk your talk.
Simon Gale:I mean, that's well said. There's a lot of lot of good takeaways here, Kim, and I think we could talk about this for for a half day or so. But I think, you know, the importance of defining what's right for your facility and to AJ's point, being able to live by them yourself and have your leadership team live by them. And I think make sure you hire people that fit your standards and fit your culture first and foremost, and I think you'll have less problems. Now it sounds easy, but they're not easy to find.
Simon Gale:That should be a major focus of your hiring process is these are our standards. How do you feel about that? What are you used to? How would you feel like being part of a team like that? Is that appealing?
Simon Gale:They're questions I wanna go to during the interview to see if this is someone that fits who we are. So I just say thank you to AJ and Doug for imparting your expertise as always. It's valued and appreciated, and I have no doubt we will circle back on this topic in the future. So thanks so much, you guys, for Thank you. For helping us out today.
Kim Bastable:Well, yeah, I think we'll have potentially some comments on this. It'll be exciting to see what the listeners have to say about this. It's an interesting subject and clearly one that maybe isn't being addressed in enough atmospheres or and may need to be. Well, I really appreciate you all being here. Thank you for your time, and that's what we have for you today on Racquet Fuel.
Kim Bastable:We'll see you next time.
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