What is culture?

Culture is the essence of an organisation!

Every organisation has a culture whether planned

or unplanned.

Why not create a great one.

Why not create an organisation that

we love!

A Great Culture• Helps attract and keep great people

• Enables these people to do great things

This document is part MANIFESTO

And part EMPLOYEE HANDBOOK

It is part who we ARE and part

who we WANT to be

The LSC Culture Code

1. Our Vision matters

2. We are here for the customer

3. Our brand defines us

4. We strive to give you the freedom and responsibility to be awesome

5. We constantly question the status quo

Before you startWe are realists and understand that our culture

along with the product it produces is not for everyone!

We are upfront about what we stand for and who we attract as customers and employees.

We understand that some people will be uncomfortable in this working environment.

Our vision matters

Our Vision is to make golf fun!!

We want to transform the way people think about golf as a leisure activity.

Our guiding principal behind our vision is to “delight our customers”

We are not one of those companies that puts nice

words in its foyer and then does the opposite

These words were displayed in the lobby of Enron as there values!

Integrity

Respect

Excellence

There owners went to jail for fraud and the company went bankrupt

Every day in everything we do we must keep our vision and guiding

principal top of mind.

We are here for the customer

have the courage to start with the customer. My biggest regret is the moments I let a lack of data override my

intuition on what is best for the customer

Andrew Mason

Former CEO of Groupon in his departure email.

We are a YES! Organisation.

Our first thought must be;

How CAN we complete a request not why we CANT do it! YES WE

CAN

When our Lady members ask if they can play off the men's tees in the men's competition?

We reply?

“YES! We will set up a men’s handicap for you….. good luck!”

When the local Soccer Club wants to come

in and watch a world cup match at 4 am?

We say “GOAL!!!!!!!!!!”

For every decision we face we ask ourselves

“Selves! what is in this for the customer?”

Customers come to us;

1. Lonely

2. Scared

3. Uncomfortable

It is our responsibility to

1. Give them dignity

2. Give them status

3. Show them the Lurv……

4. Create a Buzz.

When you call a customer by name, wish them a happy birthday and then remember what they drink!

This simple act:

1.Gives them dignity

2.Gives them status

3.Shows you Lurv them

4. It will create a buzz.

When you excitedly enthuse a customers achievements and downplay your own!

1.You give them dignity

2.They gain status

3.Shows you Lurv them

4.It will create a buzz.

Our Roles• Our job is NOT the task we are doing, it IS

the person we are doing it for.

• Our job is to make customers come back!

The next time you are pouring a beer for Big Al or helping Jan try on a pair of shoes. Deliver them an experience that ensures they return

I am sure you have heard “the customer is always right!”

Well in today’s world……..

I am sure you have heard “the customer is always right!”

Well in today’s world……..

The customer with a smart phone and a Facebook page is absolutely positively

ALWAYS right!

The Facebook post that nearly shut down a business.

This Facebook post received over 150,000 likes and 11,000 comments, expressing similar

experiences at other shop locations. It also started a wave of thousands of other similar posts on David’s Bridal’s Facebook page complaining about terrible customer service. As the company failed to respond to the complaints, it triggered a discourse encouraging other brides-to-be to shop for dresses elsewhere and encouraged a boycott of this previously popular place to shop for wedding dresses.

One last thought on our customers

“Money cannot buy the feelings you can create with a good experience”

If we make the experience really big, we can charge whatever we want for it.

Brand Defines Us

Why Branding?

• Definition of Branding -“the process involved in creating a unique name and image for a product in the consumers' mind, mainly through advertising campaigns with a consistent theme. Branding aims to establish a significant and differentiated presence in the market that attracts and retains loyal customers’

Without Branding

• There is no differentiation

• There is no long term profitability

People do not have relationships with products!

They have relationships with brands!

Why is this one $4.50?

Why is this one 10k?

Wearing the Rolex says something about them.

When Kraft bought Cadbury for $19.5b

What did they buy?

Chocolate, factories, recipes…………..

No!.... They bought brand.

We are lucky!!

Building a brand today does not require $$$ spent on TV advertisements and blockbuster product placements.

Brands are built on a cultural movement.

• What is our cultural movement?

• What is our Brand?

Make Golf Fun!!!

Branding V Advertising

A final thought on Brand

Ask yourself am I representing

the brand well.

–What I wear?

–How I talk to customers?

We Give you thefreedom and responsibility to be awesome!

WE TRUST OURSELVES

Just because a mistake has been made in the past. We do not need a policy for it.

WE WILL NOT PENALIZE THE MAJORITY FOR THE MISTAKES OF A FEW

Just because a mistake has been made in the past. We do not need a policy for it.

WE WILL NOT PENALIZE THE MAJORITY FOR THE MISTAKES OF A FEW

We are not afraid to experiment

We are not afraid to fail

We tried to use golf carts at our first night golf!!

We tried a chipping challenge from the balcony with real golf balls!!

We thought leaving the rough long looked good

There are a few ways to fail that we WILL NOT tolerate!

1. Repeating the same mistake.

2. Not listening to the customer

We do not have pages of policies

We have one simple policy that covers most things.

“Use your best judgement..” Keep in mind our guiding principal.

We have one simple policy that covers most things.

“Use your best judgement..” Keep in mind our guiding principal.

What is good judgement?

1. Team Over Self

2. Company over Team

3. Customers over Company

Debates will be won by those that keep our guiding principal top of mind, not by job titles.

We try not to pull rank.

Debates will be won by those that keep our guiding principal top of mind, not by job titles.

We try not to pull rank.

More on Job titles!

If we had our way we would not use job titles.

For clarity to external stakeholders we still have them, however internally we like to think everybody has the same title.

Brand Ambassador

We find having our staff see themselves as Brand ambassadors their day to day activities have more importance on our overall brand.

We constantly

question the status quo

when you find yourself on the side of the majority, its time to pause and reflect

- Mark Twain

At LSC we thought that Blue- White – Red and Yellow tees brought a sexist and elitist stigma to golf so we threw out the tradition……… and we have Slate, Crimson, Tuscan & Mocha

At LSC we saw the market moving in a different direction and were the first to introduce “non traditional” membership model.

Believe me! This was not a popular decision at the time.

At the time Golf Australia (golf’s governing body) whose vision is “to grow the game” were vehemently against such a membership structure.

A few years on Golf Australia have implemented its own membership product which is very similar to ours.

In both of these (and many other) cases we;

1. Listened to the customer!

2. Realised tradition was getting in the way!

3. Started a new concept

4. Implemented and kept our guiding principle top of mind

Some Things we are currently working on

1. Bare foot golf

2. Horse race members event.

3. Take away liquor

4. Phone app trivia

5. Big Hole golf

Some Things we are currently working on

1. Bare foot golf

2. Horse race members event.

3. Take away liquor

4. Phone app trivia

5. Big Hole golf

The following response is forbidden and ALWAYS not acceptable

The following response is forbidden and ALWAYS not acceptable

“that is the way its always been done”

We are never done!• Never Done re thinking

• Never done implementing better ways

• Never done learning

SUMMARY

We Move fastWe make quick decisions and are constantly changing, this may feel chaotic,

that’s ok…..…… It sometimes is!

We also have IssuesOur ownership model (Local Government) at times can be bureaucratic and slow. (We just don’t use this as an excuse or make customers aware of this).

Decisions are at times un popular, they do not get made by popular vote.

Data is analysed

Opinions are heard

In the end someone has to decide

Whenever you see a successful business, someone once made a courageous decision

Peter F. Drucker

Author and Management Expert

Some things we do not do well1. Helping new people find there feet.

i. One of the reasons we are compiling this slide share.

2. Internal information sharing

3. Formal Peer reviews.

What happens if all this does not work?

It Does!If you find yourself in a group or project that is

not meeting these goals/values… STAND UP and be an agent for change! Help bring the group around.

Compromising on Culture is simply NOT ON!

While it may seem “reasonable” to hire for skills when the need is painfully acute.

“Reasonable” is WRONG!

The interest rate on bad culture debt is high and compounding.

Thanks for making it this far!

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