The Board of Directors and the General Manager/Chief Operating ...

Internet SitesThe Board of Directors and the General Manager/Chief Operating Officer 73For more information, visit the following Internet sites. Remember that Internetaddresses can change without notice. If the site is no longer there, you can use asearch engine to look for additional sites.American Management Associationwww.amanet.orgClub Managers Association of Americawww.cmaa.orgEducational Foundation of theNational Restaurant Associationwww.restaurant.org/educate/educate.htmEducational Institute of the AmericanHotel & Lodging Associationwww.ei-ahla.orgVirtual Clubhouse Home Pagewww.club-mgmt.comCase StudiesCase Study 1Chris Miller is the new general manager of the Mountainview Country Club, a1,000-member club just ten years old. The club’s board fired the previous generalmanager because it was unhappy with the way the club was run. When Chrisinterviewed for the job, several board members mentioned that club operationsseemed “chaotic” and that the club was bogged down with one problem afteranother. They wanted Chris to “turn things around.” Despite some misgivings(Chris knew that he would be the club’s fourth general manager in ten years),Chris took the position because he felt the club’s potential was worth the risk.It didn’t take Chris long to realize that one of the biggest problems with theclub was the board itself. At Chris’s first monthly board meeting, he had beensurprised at how Ted Fisher, the board’s president, ran things. First, there wasa generic agenda that consisted of an extremely simple outline: “Call meetingto order; Read previous minutes; Finance committee reports; House committeereports; Greens committee reports”; and so on. There were three new boardmembers at the meeting, but they were not formally welcomed and they obviouslyhad not been given any orientation because they looked lost throughoutthe meeting. The meeting itself wandered from subject to subject and took threehours to accomplish almost nothing. It was obvious that many of the committeechairs had nothing to report, but felt obligated to say something anyway. Afterthe meeting, Chris had asked President Fisher about the generic agenda. “Wealways go in the same order,” Fisher said, “so that’s all we really need.” Whatabout the new board members—had they been given any orientation? “We’venever bothered with that,” Fisher replied. “What is there to learn, really? They’vebeen members for years.”After that first board meeting, Chris had asked his assistant manager, Linda, forsome background information about the board and how it operated. Unfortunately,