Why My Team and I Always Run Back to the Middle
By Matthew Hagnauer, Assistant General Manager, Victoria National Golf Club
Matthew Hagnauer, Assistant General Manager of the Dormie Network’s Victoria National Golf Club, believes in hustle, hard work, and self-reflection.
I spent quite a bit of my life in a wrestling room. One of the concepts from the sport of wrestling that has served me well in my career, especially when I face adversity, is to “always run back to the middle.”
By always running back to the middle we show that hard work and belief in the fact that hustle and pressure win matches. You can have a couple of trick moves and that works most of the time but the kid with good solid technique who can pressure his or her opponents is going to win more often than not.
I always enjoyed seeing an opponent’s face when a match was deep into the third period and we’d go out of bounds. He was still on the mat while I was running back to the middle, regardless of the score. This set the tone that I may or may not beat that opponent, but no matter what happened, I would not be broken.
Why do I bring this up here and now? Because it’s a vital concept in both my own and my team’s success.
We all have member-guest tournaments and holiday weekends where no matter what we do we just can’t seem to get staff motivated. If we wait for that moment to motivate our team, we’re too late. We should always be asking for our staff to run back to the middle. It should be part of our culture that hustle and hard work lead to success. By creating an environment where the team knows to “always run back to the middle” we can confidently set trends, expectations and behaviors for the foreseeable future.
At the end of each day, I ask myself these two questions:
What have I done for my team today?
How have I motivated them?
These questions can create mindful reflections at the conclusion of a long day. And the answers—whether they are what you need, want or expect—will help you to be honest with yourself and better lead your team to success. It’s okay if you fall short on these questions, but are you also running back to the middle?
I am currently focused on encouraging my team to self-analyze at the conclusion of the shift. You’d be surprised by how you change the way you close out your evenings with your staff and yourself when you include this in the schedule. Part of the close-out process should be answering those two questions.
So much of our success in managing is the motivation we produce for our teams. This may not be something that rushes to the forefront for most in ways of powerful management styles—but it works. Find something you are passionate about and find the motivation in it. Take that same passion and get your team to understand the motivation behind it.
No one has the right answers or the correct way to manage. We all have ideas, but ideas can change a team member’s career. Motivate your team and the team will motivate you. Don’t be afraid to ask yourself the hard questions and make sure you are all always running back to the middle.
Original Article written by Matthew Hagnauer on Club & Resort Chef on April 13th, 2021
Read the original article HERE
