Dear Members, There is a saying that life is what happens when you’re busy making plans. It’s a reminder that we can create all kinds of goals, resolutions and ambitions for the future but when we have a strong orientation only towards those big future plans, life unknowingly passes us by. The same applies to running the Club. Many of us in The Committee understandably want to make our mark with transformational projects but it’s too easy to forget that what our Members face are less to do with a lack of grand ambitions but are instead day to day foibles and frustrations related to unglamorous bread and butter operational and maintenance issues.
I regularly tell the team that whilst waiting to execute larger ambitions, all we really need to do is make one small improvement to the Club each week. That positive enhancement may itself be marginal but 104 marginal improvements over the two-year term of the Captaincy will surely be noticed. In the same vein, expecting the Club’s operational culture and attitude to efficiency and effectiveness to materially transform overnight is unrealistic. We have had many very capable Captains before me and all have already made worthy contributory improvements. Truth be told, we already actually have an effective team in place under GM Jung. Regardless, one key barrier to attaining that gold standard is the governance structure of the Club.
We currently have 10 Committee members with 9 portfolios run by the respective Convenors and their Sub Committees with up to 10 members and advisors each. We also have 5 independent Sub Committees with their own members and advisors. These Sub Committees mostly meet once a month, reporting to The Committee that itself meets once a month. Committee and Sub Committee members then change with the yearly AGM cycle. The positive side of all this is that we have a significant number of Members participating in the running of the Club with a diversity of contributory knowledge and a club camaraderie that makes us the Club that we are. The flip side is a governance structure that certainly does not make for quick or consistent decisions.
Within this structure, the management team and particularly the GM are the only constants with The Committee rotating in and out. They are our “Civil Servants” with quickly rotating “Ministers”. They are the ones who will determine how well our Club is run day to day. Possibly the most important role of The Committee is setting the GM’s KPI and ensuring he cascades those objectives down his chain of command. Once the KPIs are set, The Committee will need to support the GM with consistency and political cover for him to meet those objectives.
We are after all a social club and the governance structure set up for us by our founding Members no doubt had this in mind to prevent the RSGC from veering away to become a corporate culture driven purely by productivity, efficiency and possibly profitability. We had previously mandated Towers Watson to advise on how to tweak our governance structure to be more effective and we are putting some of those ideas to work. Regardless, even within an overall structure that encourages only glacial progress in many of our larger endeavours, there is room for that one small improvement each week and for an efficient and responsive “civil service” consistently and continually working to reduce the day-to-day frustrations of Members related to unglamorous bread and butter operational and maintenance issues. Your Captain and The Committee will endeavour to ensure that happens.
Raymond Yeoh
Captain
