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🎙️ How World-Class Clubs Are Built — Lessons from John Caven, GM at St. George’s G&CC

On this episode of The AceCall.ai Podcast, we sat down with John Caven, the General Manager of St. George’s Golf and Country Club—one of Canada’s premier private clubs and host of the 2022 RBC Canadian Open.

With over 25 years of international experience, including time at Scotland’s elite Loch Lomond Golf Club, John shares how transformative leadership, cultural alignment, and operational excellence are the pillars of long-term success in club management.

🏌️‍♂️ “It’s About Golf—Everything Else Supports That”

St. George’s isn’t a country club with golf—it’s a golf club, period. No tennis. No pool. Just an exceptional golf course designed by Stanley Thompson, world-class food and beverage, and a membership that deeply values the game. John emphasizes that understanding your club’s identity—and doubling down on what you do best—is a competitive advantage in today’s crowded club landscape.

🌍 Learning from the Best, Adapting for Your Own

John reflects on his time at Loch Lomond, a global standard-bearer for elite private clubs. From international members to white-glove service, the lesson was clear: world-class isn’t just about amenities—it’s about personalized, anticipatory service. Clubs of any size can deliver world-class experiences by focusing on the details that matter most.

👥 Staff Culture and Ownership Mentality

John makes a compelling case for investing in staff training, even if those staff eventually leave. “What if we don’t invest in them and they stay?” he asks. Training creates buy-in, and buy-in creates better member experiences. At St. George’s, he’s fostered a culture where members and staff alike adopt an “owner mentality”—believing in the shared responsibility of maintaining and improving the club.

🤖 AI, Feedback Loops, and Continuous Improvement

While John admits he's not a tech expert, he sees huge potential for AI to help clubs personalize service, improve operations, and gather more timely member feedback. From AI tools that track member preferences to voice AI applications that collect real-time suggestions, he sees the tech as a partner—not a replacement—for great people.

🎯 Final Takeaway

The best clubs are built on thoughtful leadership, relentless attention to detail, and a commitment to constant learning. Whether you manage a public, semi-private, or private club, John Caven’s insights will inspire you to raise the bar—one detail at a time.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Clay (00:02)

Welcome to The AceCall.ai Podcast where we help golf club managers win with AI. Managing a golf club today is harder than ever. So we created simple AI solutions and a podcast to make it easier for you. I'm Clayton Elliott.

Brad (00:18)

And I'm Brad Milligan. Together, we bring a mix of entrepreneurial innovation and decades of golf club management experience to help you optimize your club, increase profitability, and elevate the golfer experience. So let's dive in. Today's guest is a seasoned leader and one of the most respected names in Canadian golf club management. John Cavan is the general manager of St. George's Golf and Country Club, one of Canada's most prestigious private clubs and host of the 2022 RBC Canadian Open.

Originally from Scotland, John has brought a wealth of international experience and a passion for excellence to the Canadian golf scene. With over 25 years in the golf and hospitality industry, he has led transformative projects, elevated the member experience and played a key role in modernizing operations while respecting the legacy of tradition that St. George's is known for. Under his leadership, St. George's has not only continued to rank among the top clubs in the country, but it

has also embraced strategic innovation, balancing timeless service with modern expectations. Whether it's hosting world-class events or overseeing significant club improvements, John has earned a reputation for thoughtful, principled leadership and for delivering results. We're incredibly honored to have him with us today to share his career journey, his take on the evolving role of the GM and how clubs like St. George's are adapting in a fast-changing landscape.

He also has the best accent of any guests we've had on so far. And that's nothing against our other guests. John, welcome to The AceCall.ai Podcast.

John Caven (01:51)

Thank you Brad, thank you Clay. I'm delighted to be on the podcast and hopefully I'll say some words of wisdom that might resonate with some people. But first of all, thank you for giving me the opportunity.

Brad (02:05)

Sounds good to us, John. Let's kick things off at the top here. For those who might not be familiar with your club, can you tell us a bit about St. George's and its history and what makes it such a special place? And while we're here, are there any recent projects or events you're particularly excited about or proud to share?

Clay (02:06)

Yeah, thank you, John.

John Caven (02:25)

Okay, well St George's dates back to 1929, so we're only sort of, what's that, maybe four or five years away from our centenary of celebration. The golf course itself is excellent. I would go as far as to say it's a world-class golf course, not just in the design that was originally done by Stanley Thomson, who's pretty much known as the leading, or was one of the leading architects of Canadian golf, and all over North America really, predominantly in Canada.

So the golf courses, would say that St George's is all about golf. You know, we used to have curling, was done away with, we've now got an indoor golf centre. We don't have tennis courts, we don't have an outdoor pool or an indoor pool, we don't even have a gym facility. It's really predominantly about golf and I think the membership at St George's, that's predominantly why they join the club, because of how good the golf course is. But once they become a member...

and they get to use the other amenities, which is really the clubhouse, the food and beverage facility, the camaraderie, the networking with very like-minded people. And I would say that St George's members, I would say that the golfing IQ is pretty high. Now when I say that, that's nothing to do with ability. I mean, yes, there are a lot of good golfers here. There's some mid-handicappers, even high-handicappers as well, but...

Everyone here I think is into golf and understands that side of things and that's why they predominantly join St George's because they want to experience the best conditions in the golf course all the time. You asked there about projects, know we've, interestingly enough I would say 24 was our first year where we didn't really have much going on in the background. If you go back to 2015 the Greens were rebuilt. There was then a bunker project through 17 and 18.

Covid comes along, let's try and forget about that, but it was there. That had an impact on operations. We then had a Canadian Open back in 2022, which is a big event and I would say that that would be the first Canadian Open for three years at that point. There was a big appetite for Canadian golf for a Canadian Open to happen. Rory McIlroy comes along and wins the event. And the viewing figures were...

Every ticket was virtually sold out for the event. Corporate Hospitality was sold out. Live Golf that week was their first ever event, so the spotlight from a media standpoint was very focused, not just on live, but also what's happening on the tour this week. And we had Jay Monican was up here for the weekend, did quite a lot of press conferences. And then we end up with Rory McIlroy shooting 62 on the last day to win the tournament. And you sort of...

You think, how did that all happen? How can you all these things, tick all these boxes? It made it an amazing week. So we had that, and then we had a water management irrigation project. We were renewing the irrigation system in the golf course that was over 20 years old. But we also decided to upgrade, and we built a one million gallon concrete cistern under the ground on the practice facility. We put in two new pumps and a pump house.

and we've got two boreholes that go down about 200 feet and we pump water now into the cistern which works for the irrigation which means we're off city water which is sort of, it's almost like an insurance for the future because we don't know how much water they're going to keep letting us get from the city or what the cost is going to be. So when we were doing the irrigation system we upgraded that as well, we redid the practice facility because we built the cistern under the ground.

and we took the spoil from that hole and we redid the practice facility. And that ended up being about a $12 million project. So between 2015 and that project completed at the end of 23, there was always something happening at St George's, whereas 24 was our first year where really we were just concentrating on what we're here to do, which is to look after the members and give them the best experience that we can every day, whether that's the start of season, right through to the end of the season. So there's a bit of a...

an overview of who the golf club is and what we've been up to the last few years.

Brad (06:43)

No, that's a great summary there, John. It is a, you know, when I've been on the property, it's really a golfer's golf club. I think your members really take ownership of the golf club. They're very, very proud to be there. I hear nothing but good things. And it's really a special, special property when you're out there. You know, I was at the open. I wasn't there for the one that Rory won, but I was there years before.

and walking the grounds, I was like, this place is really special. That was the first time I was on the property and seeing the clubhouse there on 18 and, you know, a good golf course, every single hole is memorable. And that's what that's what you have there. You don't have a weak hole where you're sort of like, oh, this this hole, we, know, we don't need that hole or that one's kind of weak. But every every hole you get to the tee and you look out and you're like, oh, this is a great golf hole. Right. So you painted that picture really clearly. You spoke about your club. Now let's talk.

Talk about you a bit. You've had an impressive international career in club management. Looking back over the years, what's one career changing win that really shaped how you operate as a leader today? Or maybe a few key wins that still stand out as turning points.

John Caven (07:54)

I mean first of all I feel very privileged virtually everywhere that I've worked right to the beginning as an assistant golf pro but I think for myself probably going to Loch Lomond Golf Club back in 2007, Loch Lomond

is a genuine world class facility. When I was there, there was 43 bedrooms, we three restaurants, had a world class spa, we had a limousine service to the airport, lots of other things happening as well. We had 550 members from 42 countries when I was there. So you start to understand expectations and what members are looking for. at different, not completely opposite ends of the spectrum, but there was probably some local members in the Glasgow area that might

be there two, three times a week playing golf and then you might have a member from the other end of the world and they only come across once every two years and they're looking for the same experience whether they're there or not. They want to be recognised, they want to be understood, they want to know that it's their club, they want to feel an engagement. So when I went to Loch Lomond in 2007 I would say that that opened my eyes to

what's really required to, there are a lot of facilities that will, are.

looking to attain to be world class. Sometimes you look at the facilities you've got, whether that is the golf course, the buildings, even the location, things like that. And you know straight away whether somewhere has got that potential or whether it being disrespectful, it doesn't. It's not going to be world class, but it can still be very, very good. it can, it's interesting because you can still deliver world class experiences, but maybe not on a world class scale. So, so, but when I went to Loch Lomond, I think we ticked all the boxes there. It was a,

a high performing club trying to understand everybody that came on site every day, as I say, whether they're there three times a week or they're only there once every couple of years. You're trying to look after everyone and give them that memorable experience that when they leave, they go, wow, that was amazing how I was looked after. So I think Loch Lomond would be the club that I would say that opened my eyes to what's genuinely world class and trying to achieve that.

Brad (10:16)

Yeah, that's a, it's, it's amazing because you, know, you can take so much of your experience in golf, you can take from one facility and bring to the next, right? If you're, if you, if you come from one place, taking those little tidbits and bringing them with you is so unbelievably valuable. And there's some things that you, obviously can't bring with you that, the members don't want, right? So it's really identifying the culture that you're

you're stepping into, and I'm sure there was, there's obviously going to be a difference. Any property that you walk onto, it's not going to be this carbon copy. And that's what we're finding in having all of these conversations is one club's needs at a specific point in time can be so different from another club's needs based on what the membership is looking for and what the board of directors are looking for if they have one and the culture of the club or if it's just an owner.

one single owner, where does the owner see that going? Right? So it's unbelievable when you take all of these pieces that you have in a long career like yours and what you can bring to the table. And I just find that so fascinating having these conversations.

John Caven (11:25)

Yeah, and it's very interesting what you said there, Brad, because I've worked for an owner. well, the one club, was really four owners, but one of them was the main shareholder. And if you wanted to get something done or you wanted to try and spend money to improve facilities or do something different, then it was going to one person for that. Interestingly enough, at Loch Lomond, it was owned by the members.

But there was no committees. There was a board and the board would only meet maybe half a dozen times a year. Twice it might have been on site and the other four times there was a New York board member, there somebody from, I think was Dutch, there was a South African. And in real terms committees didn't exist at Loch Lomond. It was felt that the management should know what the members' experience should look like, feel like. And we were left to go on with that. And it was felt that if we didn't know that, then probably it was the wrong...

management team that was in place. And then you come across to somewhere like St. George's, I know Dale where I was previously, and the board and then the committees that play a real active role in giving you that feedback and passing on information. I'm coming up with some really good suggestions as well because, know, at St. George's we have members that do travel all over North America, go across to the UK, all over, go to Australia and play golf and they come back and sometimes it's that little thing

they saw, they witnessed and they think, well, could we try that or have we done that? So having committees is your sounding board and you can bounce ideas off with them as well. And it's interesting because as a golf club at St. George's, in golf club terms, we're probably a reasonable sized business. a pretty big business in golf. In business terms, we're a small business. We don't have directors of this and directors of that all over the place. So we do require either to have

really good stakeholders that we work with, partners, but also include the membership in that, because our membership has got some fantastic experience, whether it's in finance and legal stuff, HR stuff, there's a lot of really good resource here with the membership. And if we can channel that towards our committees and then ultimately our board, then we can only be stronger for that. So it's an interesting point about the different structures that you can work for, who you're working for and understanding.

the best way to make use of that resource that you've got in front of you, whether it's a single owner or whether it's nearly 600 members. It's interesting.

Clay (13:58)

No, that is, that's very powerful and very interesting, interesting perspective. There's not a lot of businesses and even not a lot of golf clubs. Some, lot of maybe more public clubs and ones that have less of a private membership.

component, you know, built into them. Very few businesses can tap into their customer base and ask their customers, Hey, we need some financial advice. And you got like 10 different guys who are world-class in finance. You're like, yeah, pay me for a consulting session. I can help you out. And, and they want you to succeed because they're members there too. So they, everyone has a mutual benefit and a vested interest in the ongoing prosperity of the club. And there's the improvement of the club because they're the direct, literally it's being done for them because they are the direct beneficiary.

John Caven (14:43)

Yeah.

Clay (14:59)

And the wealth of intelligence is right in your network of your members in your community. So that's very cool. it's,

John Caven (15:07)

And I

think there is an interesting point to that Clay because it's just my opinion is that the clubs where you have members who actually have an owner mentality, then that's a lot more powerful. And I don't like taking us back to COVID, but in COVID, if you were a member of probably the local gym just down the road from you and you're paying your a bucks a month comes out your bank account.

Clay (15:21)

Yeah.

John Caven (15:35)

Most people would have gone on to their bank account and canceled that payment. You know, when COVID was there and we were all at home for whatever it was, nine or 10 weeks. At golf clubs, was like, no, our members will want us to, they will want to continue to pay because they want to know that that asset is getting looked after even when they are not there. Even when you think about that, there's, and I'm probably exaggerating, it feels like about half our membership disappears in the winter time, but they still have to pay to be a member all year round. And that's owner mentality.

Clay (15:54)

Yes. Yep.

John Caven (16:05)

comes around to when you're doing capital projects and you need to upgrade things or even just renew it. Just look after the depreciation that's happening every year on the balance sheet. You have to reinvest and that's owner mentality. It's like if you own your house, you're going to make sure you look after it because if you're have to sell it one day, you've got to have kept investing in it. And it's the same here with our membership. Now our members, when they leave the club, there's no equity that they get back when they leave the club, but we have to edge

them and I say that and not saying that our members don't understand how this all works, they do, but we just need to remind them about they are the custodians of this club, they need to pass it on to the next generation, hopefully in an even better condition. So having that owner mentality against just a member mentality is a very powerful thing to try and culture with the memberships.

Clay (16:59)

Yeah, very cool. And you know, I like what you're saying, how you came from a world-class club in Scotland. I forget the name. I apologize.

John Caven (17:08)

Lock moment.

Clay (17:09)

Lackl and that's it. And you brought from there, you were there, you spent so much time there. You saw what the standard is. And you know, sometimes we can learn more, sometimes more from our losses than our wins. Sometimes, you know, the pains teach us more than, than the wins, but, but the wins, anyone's from anywhere.

within our industry, within our different respective niches, they give us a model and they give us a standard and they give us a bar and they give us best practices to either replicate and then get those wins for ourselves just by pure replication, but also on innovation and improvement. So you can take what's working somewhere else and be like, how do I make this 1 % better? How do I make this 2 % better? How do I make this faster or whatever, or deeper value or whatever, whatever it may be. that's a perspective that only comes with experience and seeing what is working in different places and, and working in different places. It's one of the reasons we created this podcast is we want to help other managers learn from veterans like yourself, from losses, but you know, as much from wins as possible because.

learned from losses is a negative. Well, now know what doesn't work, but I still don't have the fastest path to success. And there's the wins that you replicate over and over. That's the winning prototype. That's the winning, patent, you know, that's, that's the winning, process or plan or whatever. And that's really why we did this podcast. So from here, let's, let's shift now. Let's talk a little bit about, know, what it's like out there in club management today.

And, know, based on what you're seeing, what you're hearing across all your conversations from everyone in the industry, just your finger on the pulse of things. What would you say are some of the biggest challenges facing general managers and know, golf clubs right now and feel free to speak on, know, each club type. you have opinions on each one fully private, semi-private and fully public clubs, you know, or just whatever one you feel you want to speak on more.

John Caven (19:10)

Yeah, I mean, I think sometimes the challenges lately have felt the labour market, you know, it's not as... And probably when you look at the green keeping side of it as an example and their alarms go at four o'clock every morning.

in the summertime and trying to get the seasonal staff that want to come and work and work those. We're fortunate at St George's I think because we've got a good reputation if you have got an idea that you maybe want to work in the turf side of things, the turf maintenance, it seems okay. Hospitality as well.

it's probably not quite as easy to get people. We seem okay, but speaking to other GMs, I think that the labor market is not. It's maybe coming back a little bit, but the other side of COVID, wasn't, I'm not saying people didn't want to work, but there wasn't 20, 30 applications for each role. It was maybe down into single figures. So that makes it more of a challenge, but maybe we're coming through the other side of that.

I think as a club, and I think every club is the exact same regardless of whether you're talking about clubs that at the top end of the market, that are maybe 100 % private, or whether it's the daily fee courses or the semi-private ones that do a little bit of both. I think costs, I trying to control cost has become a challenge. When you look at, you know, labor rates now, I mean, I think minimum wage is up at nearly $17.50. And to be honest, most people don't want to work for minimum.

They're expecting a little bit more and then the people above them are going well I used to earn two dollars a year more than or an hour sorry two dollars an hour more than minimum wage well minimum wage is going up again so I go up as well even though I'm still above it and the cost of living let's be honest about it for all of us you know whether we're putting gas in the cars or

going to Longos or Sobeys or whatever on the way home, that everything's become more expensive. And I think we're very aware of trying to produce what I would term value for money. Now value doesn't mean to say, in fact, a lot of the time it's not doing it the cheapest way, but it's still saying, right, how do we equate to what the members are paying and what they're actually getting? Where does that sit in value terms?

And I think that's the same for everyone whether you're paying a hundred dollar green fee for the day as I guess just to play a visitor golf course or whether you're paying X amount of thousand dollars a year to be a member of a private club at some point people look at that and go is this value for money? How many games did I play last year? How often did I use the club? And they divide it in and all of a sudden it's like well that's quite expensive to be a member but so it's so for us I think is and

last

one at the moment I will talk about is Capital. You know, mean a lot of clubs now, as they're getting older, whether it's the golf course, whether it's the club houses that are aging, whether it's car parks that need to be redone.

whether it's insurances that are getting higher. Sorry, that's more of an operating cost, but the capital side of things where you have to maintain what you've got, you know, I there's obligatory capital that you must do every year. And if you don't have a budget for that or you don't have a membership that is prepared to put that money in, then the standard of your facilities, which means the standard of the offering.

are going to dip. So having a robust capital plan, remaining sort of value for money at whatever value that sets, what is the expectation of the member? And then I think attracting the right people, which is the labor side of it, and then keeping the good staff. I think if you could tick those three boxes off, you'd pretty much be in a strong position, I would suggest.

Clay (23:03)

Yeah, those are definitely a lot of the challenges that we're hearing, you know, echoed across these conversations we're having as well. And ones that, you know, need continuous exploring for, you more solutions and different ways of approaching it. It's, and for those listening, it may help to know how universal some of these obstacles really are. that there's cost controls, there's best practices, there's

policies and procedures that can be put in place that can help with these things. But like you said, you got to be thinking about the immediate, which is labor. Like how do we fulfill our obligations and being a business, but then also foresight and looking far down, down the, down the, down the green, right? To be like, where are we going? What's, what's breaking? Do we have money for that now? Is that a five year fix or is that, know, so you have to kind of have that in line.

And to be able to make those capital, you have to have good financing, good credit, good business, good marketing. If you're a public club, you got to keep that machine going and you got to keep it going. And if you're full private, you got to keep delivering value and you got to keep making sure your members know that they're, they're not taken for granted and that they are not, there's not complacency. That's like the, you know,

the foundation of the club is like, well, we already have them and they're already paying. So, you know, if they're happy this year, they'll be happy next year. Why do we have to do anything differently? It's just a bad attitude to have. And some people might fall into that when everything else is chaos going all around them, but they can't lose sight of those, those bigger, you know, points on the, on the map that they're trying to get to help, help orient their whole navigation.

John Caven (24:42)

And I think there's

another interesting thing as well, think, Clay, and I think, again, regardless of what level you're at, benchmarking yourself and actually see how well you're doing, but not just within the golf business.

You know, so you think of all the other things that we do here, we have to communicate with membership. We've got an admin, know, office and admin and billing and receiving monies and we've got the food and beverage side of it. That's not, that's relevant to us as a golf club, but that's not a golf business. That's an outside golf business. We have to have a wine list that we think the membership are going to want to have. We've got to make sure we change the menu as much as possible. If we host, we do some outside events, which are all done through members, but it could be, you know, a wedding. It could be,

Clay (25:02)

Yeah.

John Caven (25:30)

lots

of different things, business things that we don't do a huge amount of that but we do some stuff but are we going to compare ourselves in the golf business or do we want to compare ourselves to what's the best practice whether that's at the restaurants in the city or the function facilities, the conference facilities we need to look at those things and go right

how good are we at doing this? Because it's all these things that if you are certainly at our level trying to be regarded as one of the leading private members clubs, it can't just be how fast the greens are rolling and whether the fairway's in good condition. It's maybe a big part of it for some people, but how you're being treated and communicated with and the engagement factor, I think all those things are really big. So benchmarking out with just the golf industry I think is a really positive thing to do.

in the mirror because you might find that you're not doing things as well. You may be fine compared to another golf club, but is that who you should benchmark against? I would suggest probably not. So having that mindset about growth and training and getting better all the time, I think it's very important to tie in with what you're seeing.

Clay (26:43)

Cool. Yeah, thanks.

Brad (26:43)

Yeah, yeah, I

would agree. mean, that's that's a and it's good to have real practical examples. They're they're very this is like the gold for our listeners is hearing practical examples and things that you're bringing up here. So what advice would you give to GMs or boards who are staring down these issues right now and looking for smarter or better ways to adapt and respond?

John Caven (27:07)

So at a high level, I think it's very important to train. There's a great little analogy which you've maybe heard before, which is where you're doing a budget for the following year and the CFO, the financial person, is sitting looking at this. Let's make a number up. You'll get $50,000 put down for training, for staff training. And the CFO says, well, hold on a minute. We're spending $50,000. What happens if we invest that in staff? And then they leave.

and we spent that money and that training all walks out the door. And I'll see the GM, let's make the GM the slightly more forward thinking person, says, well, hold on a minute, what happens if we don't spend any money on the training and those staff stay?

What have we got? You know, we've got we've got staff that are and I'm a big believer in training now some of that training can be done internally It doesn't have to be that you're spending huge amounts of money sending people to conferences or going away You get a lot more stuff online now You can get a lot more webinars that you can sign up to that are not a fortune I think allocating the not just the key staff members, but Go down the organizational chart in each department and see who are your people that you think have got a real career ahead of them and maybe could have future

here at the club as well and allocating them a training budget, give them money every year. Their senior manager has to sign off on what they're going to go and get trained on. I think that side of things and that helps with staff retention as well because if we're investing in the staff, are you going to want to stay somewhere that's investing in you or are you going to want to stay somewhere that looks like they don't really care how much you're doing or how much you're progressing?

So I think that's very important is getting training budgets in place and supporting the staff members in that way. I think that would be one of the biggest things that I would start to look at. The benchmarking thing is a big one as well.

And benchmark it in different ways. I go back to the committees that we've got here at St George's and getting some of those members that travel a lot and play at different places and experience different things. Staff members as well, we'd away. I'm fortunate I've been on a couple of decent trips the last few years where I've gone and played at some amazing world-class golf courses.

And when you're there, sometimes you look about and go, you know what, yeah, we actually do it okay at St George's, we do it, but when you're away, you might just see something or the way something's handled or the communication you get in advance or whatever it might be, there could be a small thing that changes it. And when you get to the higher end of things, it does become the small things.

that make the difference. think sometimes it can be a bit, you know, it's like, we don't have X amount of million dollars to upgrade that or to build that or to change that.

But in real terms, a lot of time it's the small things that I think the member experience can be can be upgraded. I'll give you, I was going to say a quick story. I'll try and make it as quick as I can. But when I was at Loch Lomond, we had a member from New York that used to come across, maybe twice a year he would come across and it would be him and his wifey, two kids, two teenage boys.

and one set of grandparents would come as well. So they would have three rooms for maybe five nights. They would obviously have flown across. We picked them up at the airport. They came out, they played golf every day. They dined at the club every day. They used the spa. They would spend money in retail. So you could probably imagine they would have quite a hefty bill at the end of every week that they were there. And one of the years, the gentleman, he used to always ask to play golf with me on his last full day at the club.

and I met him and he said to me, this has probably been the best week we've ever, ever had at Loch Lomond. And I was, I mean the weather was good and I thought the golf course was good and I said, tell me, he there was one thing that happened that just set the tone for the whole week. He said, we flew across as we do, it's a night flight from New York back over to Glasgow, we get picked up.

It's about half past nine in the morning. said, my wife and the kids and grandparents, they've gone to their rooms. said, I went to the Spite Bar, which is just the normal, it's where everyone goes for breakfast and stuff before they go out. He said, I just love going to Spite Bar because it makes me feel at home. And I sat down and ordered a cappuccino and...

The woman came across with the cappuccino, put it down in front of me and said, there you go sir. And he said, by the way, I need a sweetener for my cappuccino. And she goes, it's already in it for you sir. She'd remembered that he took sweetener. Now, I don't know how much a sweetener costs, is it 20 cents, 30 cents for a sweetener? He spent thousands of dollars that week.

And his lasting memory, because he said as soon as he walked in and that person, waiter put down a cappuccino with a sweetener, he said, I felt as if I was back at home. He said, so my take on that, sometimes we get engrossed in all these massive gestures and big things that you can do and that's fine. But actually just remembering what maybe what type of tonic they want in their gin or whether they like Coke or Diet Coke or whether they take a sweetener and their coffee.

things like that can make a huge difference. And getting the staff to understand that they are all pieces of the jigsaw, and sometimes they may not think that they're very big piece of the jigsaw compared to other pieces. But actually, if you've ever looked at a jigsaw, one piece missing on a jigsaw, and the jigsaw just looks incomplete.

So actually just getting them to figure on that. They might be a small piece, but it doesn't matter. Take that one piece out and it just doesn't look right. So getting the staff to understand their role and give them the confidence to go ahead and do it and be confident, have fun, interact with the members. I think I'm probably rabbiting on a little bit now, but I think you get where I'm coming from with this. I think it's all parts that can work towards it.

Clay (33:16)

100 % and on the point of the jigsaw, when the piece is missing, that you notice that piece. don't even, your eyes kind of lose focus of the whole piece of art that you're looking at that was chopped up into a thousand little pieces that you put back together and has this texture of a jigsaw design. It's cut through it, but the one piece, your eyes focus on that one piece that's missing. You're like, oh, that's a shame. That's a shame. Where is that piece?

And you can't even enjoy the jigsaw you just completed because you're missing one piece. It's like a pebble in your shoe or something like that, you know? And it's noticeable and your attention goes to it. Like you said, the guy spent thousands of dollars. He remembered that because that's a memorable moment. It's a memorable, it stands out and then everything else that he's done, which is not to say routine, but there's an expectation of the beds are made when I come to my nice room.

Right. When I go to the green, there's not like holes chewed in it. Like these are all, as long as those expectations are met, people don't notice it. They just notice it when it's not there. So there's almost, it's hard to get a win when they're there. But with this server who remembered that and gave it to him and he asked for it, he's like, I'm one step ahead of you. He's like, now I'm impressed. That's it. That was impressive service right there. And back to your saying with the staff, it's an ownership mentality. If all the staff have, you need to get paid 20, 25 bucks an hour and some tips. If they're just like, I'm a part of this.

this, this operation. I'm a valued and important and integral part of this whole operation. And this thing will make or break based on how I show up today and perform my role. And that buy-in from the bottom up, from the top down and everybody in between, creates those opportunities for those to wow, to wow, to wow your members, to wow your golfers. And to the point you mentioned about, people say, what if we invest all this money in them and they leave?

And you're like, what if we don't invest it and they stay? Like, what's that going to, I've heard that in a different, it's, let's just say it's got, it's in every industry that saying is in everything with HR, everything with staffing, with talent acquisition and talent retention. There's always this push and pull between the money and the, and the managers ones like, but that's a lot of money and they could just leave and they don't understand. They're like, yeah, but it's a lot of money if they stay and they don't know these things.

They're facing our customers. They're interacting with our customers. They could lose this business if they don't have these abilities, this skill, this knowledge, this wherewithal, right? Like they're facing our customers. How much money? That's $50,000 we lose if we spend it, but what about $100,000 of lost revenue or $200,000 of lost revenue? It's an investment. so, yeah, so, and these are great points. And so I would say, you know, let's transition more because I want to hear your perspectives.

You know, it's a key point that's made over and over when we're speaking with industry experts is that, you know, golf and you've said it already in this conversation, it's a people game and it's, the value is creating more FaceTime with staff so that members can be with staff. And, know, it should be a goal for most club managers is the, do I help my staff spend more time with my members? Right. And so this is a chance. We want to talk a little bit about the tech side of things and how tech can do that and get your opinions.

on how you see tech being able to do that or how you hope, you know, tech can do that. And there's a lot of talk in every industry about AI, you know, that's a big part of why we created this podcast. It's not just to share wisdom from experienced managers such as yourself. It's to get those managers perspective on AI and where they see it going. And, you know, I'll ask you one of our standard questions we ask everyone in a few moments, but it's really hearing your perspectives. It gives us insights into real.

golf club problems. And it gives us ideas for how different AI solutions that we can create to solve those problems or that we can curate from other AI vendors, you know, in the, in the near future, who can we can, you know, introduce to our golf club connections. And these guys have solutions that can help them. So I like to really dig in and figure out, you know, where essentially when you think about all the manual and repetitive tasks that, you know, club staff face daily admin.

Greens, golf pros, everybody, that are really universal in any club. Where do you think AI could offer the most immediate relief and deliver the best ROI based on what you know about AI right now?

John Caven (37:52)

So

yeah, well, I think for me, there's not two sides, but there's two aspects to this. think, first of all, if we could know our customers better, our members, if we could actually understand them more, what their needs are. And we do some of that already. So when a member's turning up to play golf, we know whether they normally walk and carry their clubs. Do they walk and use a push cart? Do they walk and use an electric hand cart? Or do they drive?

So there's something that allows our staff to be ready to have everything seamless that when they turn up their clubs are either sitting there or sitting on the right mode of transport to go. So I think that's a good start. But is there other things that we should know about them? We know some of the dietary needs about them. But also what's their preferences? What would they like to see more of in the pro shop? What would they like to see more of in the restaurant?

How do they want to be communicated with? Are they still happy opening emails, which seems to be getting old hat these days? Do they want to be communicated in social media? Do they want that? We have a club app and we do a lot of push notifications. So I think AI could probably help us understand who our members actually are. And the more information we've got from that, then potentially the more seamless the operation could be, which could free up more time.

that they've either got to stand in front of members and be interactive face to face, or just we've now got more time to do our job even better. But it's interesting because going back to something I said earlier about benchmarking with regards, where do we benchmark? So at the moment, should we benchmark only within the golf industry? my answer to that is no, I think that would be quite narrow-minded to only benchmark it. So as a...

54 year old general manager who's probably not that tech savvy. I think it becomes reliant on myself or as the general manager of St. George's to make sure that we do understand what I don't know I don't know yet. So I don't know what AI can do completely. I really don't. I hear about people and they type this in and it tidies up a letter for them or it does things and maybe gives suggestions and offerings and.

You know, you can do things, but I think that's where people like you, that's where if we're have a partner to see where AI can take us, we need to have the right partners. And I think that's an interesting word to use because if we're, you know, our insurance, our legal side of things, our HR, suppliers that we use, we're not just looking for people that we order something, get an invoice, we pay it, and it's delivered or it gets delivered and then we pay it.

We're looking for partners that when they're out there, they're saying, right, okay, I know that's what you're doing at the moment, but here's a suggestion. And it might be a change of product. It might be a change of coverage. might be, you know, there could be lots of different things, but I think AI has to fall into that because I think that's why my title is General Manager. I'm not a specialist in anything really. So if I'm the person that's driving that forward, the chances are it's not gonna go that quickly.

And I think that's where companies like yourself who are out there not just working in the golf industry, but looking at all these other industries that are using AI in different ways, and it must be that some of it could be translated or changed and made compatible for what the golf club is trying to offer. So I think it's that mindset, you talked about mindset around training and growing. I think you've got to have it because...

you know whether I can see it right now or not, think about 10 years ago where technology's taken us. The next 10 years is going to go just as quick if not quicker with AI. So I think we've, now does that mean you're going to sign up and do everything that's offered? Probably not. But there's still elements of that that are either going to make the member experience better, the staff's experience better, financially it might help the business as well. Why would you not consider doing stuff like that? That's what I would say.

Clay (42:07)

Yeah. And that's a great take and something that we encourage people listening is if it's not us, find your AI partner, find someone who you can speak with ongoing, inform an ongoing trusted relationship where if it's consultative, they can help you see things that you can't see in your workflows and your processes and where certain areas are just right for AI and certain automation.

And it's, you know, you're most people in the golf clubs, if there's one person on staff who loves it and like wants to eat, sleep and breathe it, you know, if you can task them with figuring out where AI can help them, then they can do the research, the consultative, the problem discovery, the solution discovery, kind of, high level thinking with not a lot of, you know, time or money invested. and I always encourage people to start with.

this is the question I'll ask you now, it's start with the end in mind. Start with, like you said, you would like,

better knowledge of your members' preferences and more personalization and customization and understanding what it is they want, what it is they like, what it is they expect, and how do you integrate that and weave that into your standard services for them, where now, like you said, it's the little things, the little qualitative differences that they start to perceive. And they're like, how did you get on top of that? How did you do that? So we have some new software. It's helping us in the backend to just make sure we're not missing things, that we're staying on top of things and we're

keeping you top of mind and what you want most and what would make you happiest in your experience here as a member. even if it's a little incremental improvement in the service, it's that devotion to the constant continuous improvement that I would appreciate. think most people appreciate more than the actual results sometimes, especially these new times where in five, 10 years from now, people's expectations for AI will come a lot more, will be a lot more,

Articulated, refined, clear. People will have so much touch points in, in, in business and society. They'll know what is a good AI experience and a bad AI experience and what is useful, what is not useful for them. But right now for people to just say, that's a new thing and we don't need it. It's like people say, it could make my experience better. And you don't think it's necessary. Why am I not worth, am I not worth that to you? Or is your membership, is your customer base not worth it to you?

to have one of your staff investing a little bit of time to figure out how this software, is becoming ubiquitous in the next coming years, it'll be as normal as having an email right now or having a website right now. It'll be woven into most tech stacks for most any size business, small, medium or large. And if you get ahead of that, then you can have things refined and proven and perfected in the years ahead. But if people just wait and they wait and they wait till it's all perfected,

There's pros and cons to both, you know, being an early adopter or a late adopter. But if you, you know, can snap your fingers right now and you could have a bespoke customized AI tool created for any process or recurring problem at St. George's, what would you want it to do? Like what pesky problem would you want it to solve that perhaps many, or even most golf clubs also experience? Specifically, let's just say private clubs.

John Caven (45:37)

It's a very broad question for me, Clay. I mean, think from my perspective...

mean maintaining the standards of what we're doing is high. A member experience is the key thing. You know I think if I were to be not just myself but as a club how would we be judged? It would be judged on what's the member experience like and is it value for money?

That's the two key things, because if it's a great experience and it's deemed to be value for money, even though it might be more expensive than the vast majority of clubs, then I think I'm doing my job and my management team are doing their job properly. Getting the feedback from the membership and getting feedback as early as possible, I think is one of the key things. We do a big annual survey, which goes out normally second half of September.

It's completed by early October and that gives us a lot of feedback on how things have gone throughout the whole year. The only downside to that is sometimes is that if you find something out in October and you think, if I'd known that back in May or June, I could have had that, we could have started to address that. So we are looking at ways to see how we can get feedback without getting every member to fill out a survey every time they've either been on the golf course or been in the restaurant here at the Clubhouse, because that's not a private member's.

and experience either. But I think there's ways and means that we can do that to see how we're dealing in it. And I think moving forward, that could be something that giving us real time feedback on how we're doing and seeing if there's any trends, where are things going? I don't want to find out September, October that that wasn't good and it could have been sorted with either a simple thing or a change of direction. I mean, that's very broad what I'm talking about here, but really that's a lot of the

what we're looking at.

Clay (47:32)

That's a very good point. And it's actually something I did not think of, but it is.

the challenge that you just expressed there would be solved by one of our voice AI applications, which is just, you can have your annual member survey, which is more of an official, like you said, you send it out. There's a, you know, the goal is to have everyone complete it by within a month or so. And there might be a lot of questions and it's kind of clicking boxes, entering, I imagine it's a mix of text responses, multiple choice survey.

John Caven (48:07)

Yeah.

Clay (48:08)

scale of one through 10, things like that. So yeah, so it is still that, it's a tech experience, right? Someone's having to check a form and you don't want to do that every month. You definitely don't want to do that, you know, weekly or monthly, even quarterly would be too much. But to have something available where you let the members know, we have this phone line, put it, all of you put it on your phone, save it as St. George's feedback hotline. And anytime they are anywhere in the club,

And they have an experience that either just falls below their expectations or they have a great experience, but they have an insight or an idea or an epiphany about how it could be made better. They can just pull up the phone, call, talk to the agent and say, hi, I got a tip. got an idea. I'm here on this green or I'm here in the restaurant or I'm, you know, I'm trying to book for an event coming up, whatever they're where they're getting this idea, this insight, this epiphany.

They just speak it. just call and they just talk to bot and they say, Hey, this is what it is. Okay. Thank you. That's all. And they get it. They can express it. They can get off their chest. They don't have to go find a form. They don't have to click which box it goes in. They just speak from the heart, whatever's on their heart to this bot, which then takes it, gets a transcription and the audio recording and a summary sends it to you and whomever else, but it can go to one inbox and it could just be ideas, improvement ideas, right? Continuous improvement ideas.

And if they're just trickling in one a day, one a week, two a month, five a week, whatever, they'll be high as the lows during busy and low seasons. But the summaries, the summaries this AI does is it can take a five minute conversation and give you two or three sentences or one or two sentences of the gist of what that person was trying to communicate. And if even those were transmitted over into a spreadsheet or a database or attributed to a member's profile in your CRM,

then you can say, know, Brad 15 times a season, he's given us these insights, you know? So all of a sudden you can reward Brad for that behavior. You can say, Brad, we never asked you to do that. You do that on your own free will. And we thank you. And we really appreciate it. And cause it's, it's helped us make things better. And then if you can go and implement easily or quickly or cheaply or, know, in a reasonable amount of time, Brad's ideas, now his buy-in, he's like, wow, they took my ideas and they did something with it. And pretty quickly didn't take a year.

to get the survey coming around before I was able to express my idea that I've been having on my heart that I wanted to share with them. So it's just more this unofficial direct line of communication that is in their format, the easiest one, they call a number and they just talk. They don't have to text, they don't have to type, they don't have to read, they don't have to do anything, just talk. And so I'm just thinking now that that could be a solution where if the goal is constant member and golfer feedback as much as possible that in...

is designed in a way that encourages them to do so often, not like once or twice, but as often as they want to, then it gives us this input, this constant stream of data and input. And they say like, it takes six data points to show a trend. If six different members all say something similar, you're like, we should be paying attention to that now. That's not a one-off thing. That's six data points right there. And again, that could be built, you know, a very short period of time with very minimal tech infrastructure needed.

very little learning curve for all your members, very little tech savvy ability for any members or any staff even for that matter, but it could give you that data. And it's just a quick build we could build right now. So for yourself and anybody listening at home, that's a build we could build pretty quickly right now with our voice AI software. So if that was a use case you're interested in, please do get in touch. We love to speak with you about that one.

John Caven (51:52)

Yep.

Brad (51:55)

Yeah, no, that's, that's great stuff. I would even open it up to, to your staff even calling in, like give them the ability to call in as well, because staff will often see deficiencies on the property. Or they'll hear from a member of certain deficiency. You know, like I, have a, I have a story where this, yeah.

Clay (52:02)

Mm-hmm.

That's a great point, Brad. That's a very

good point. The member might not call it in, but if they tell someone, they complain, it's voiced to a person, you're like, gotcha. And then you just put it in the app. And then it's logged and then it's cataloged and then it's recorded.

Brad (52:19)

Yeah, then they can share it.

Because.

Because the current system is, know, Mr. Johnson comes in and he tells me that there's a panel missing from the fence on 11. Right? And then I'm the only, I listened to Mr. Johnson and if I'm good at my job, I relay that information to the Greens department, the head of the Greens department. But let's say, you know, something's going on and I write it down and then my note gets thrown out. Well, then that information is lost at that point. Right? Mr. Johnson comes in the next day and says, that, that there's still a panel missing from that fence. And I'm like,

yes, no, sorry, or he tells somebody else, right? Now he's told two people. And then that person, maybe they pass it along. they, you know, you're playing this game of broken telephone at that point. And that little tiny thing where he keeps returning to the 11th T and he looks over and he sees that panel missing. If it's the, you know, a certain type of member who's very detail oriented.

You know, a lot of members won't even notice that. But he's a member who, again, takes ownership of the golf course and says, I love this place. I want it to be as pristine and perfect as possible. And I'm noticing a deficiency and nobody's listening to me. Nobody's fixing it. You know, that really, really gives us an opportunity with something like this to gather that information. And then again, create data around that and drive data around it and then figure out where the deficiencies are. And some members are quiet and they won't actually say anything.

you know, in the flesh in the moment, they'll kind of hold it in. And when you actually ask them, you're like, because I've gone to members before and I've said, what's one thing you would, you know, I know you love this place so much and it's great and you're here pretty much every day, but what's one thing you would love to see change around here or improve? Right? And then they'll give you a 10 minute discussion and you're like, well, that person's never said anything negative to me ever before, but they're hiding all of this information.

that is relevant information that can truly change the operation if they will just say it in a comfortable manner. And yeah, a bot like this could be phenomenal for that.

John Caven (54:30)

Absolutely,

Brad (54:32)

Yeah, Clay, you have anything to add there?

Clay (54:36)

No, no, I would just be echoing and reiterating what you said, but I think we're, we're, we're working out these use cases as we speak with people and they say, if it could do this, this would be helpful. And I just keep going back to our software because if it can, if it can be a solution, I see how it can be a solution. and again, this is, we just add it to our R and D list and it's, something that we want to, the software is the same. It's, it's the use of the software. It's, it's people's applications and people's.

implementation and it's the main problems they're trying to solve. If it can relate back to a phone system or that phone process, then, you know, we're always trying to understand that, but there's, there's many more AI applications. I don't want to ramble on too long, but,

Brad (55:22)

Sure. Yeah, yeah, you've had great perspective on stuff. You actually just gave us an amazing idea there, John, so thank you for that. Just on the fly there, we appreciate that. But last question before we wrap, it won't take up too much more of your time. If you could go back and give your younger self some advice, knowing what you know now, what would you tell the John Cavan who was just stepping into a GM role for the first time, but was doing it now in 2025?

John Caven (55:51)

So what I would say is a little bit, not a story, but what I would say is I remember being at Lough Lomond. I was there from 2007 till six full seasons I think I did up till 2012. Now I remember back then without saying that I didn't think I was pretty good at my job. And I think I probably was half decent. I was on it in a good position, know, learning and everything. When I'm sitting here right now and I think back to what I was like let's just say 15 years ago.

I've developed an awful lot in the last 15 years. Some of it consciously I've developed. Other times I've just been fortunate I've worked alongside some amazing people, people above me as well, boards that I've reported into that you learn and learn and learn. But I'm now consciously, you know, even at my age of 54 I'd like to think that if I'm still working in 10 years time do I think I'm good at my job at the moment? Yeah, but I think I probably must be pretty good.

But I hope that in 10 years time I'm gonna look back and think, do you know what, 10 years ago I actually wasn't that great. You never stop learning. And I think the other thing would be is vulnerability, I think, putting the right place is a strength. So actually putting your hand up or trying to say, yeah, I'm not up to speed with that, or I don't know that, or whether it's finance, whether it's the AI stuff of the future, I know that's not gonna be.

I'm not trained in that. I may be the wrong age to be so techie that I understand all. So I think looking back to X amount of years ago to now, I think I consciously, genuinely try and learn literally something every day. Learn something new, whether it's a small thing that I can do something a little bit better. Sometimes it's a big thing. Sometimes it's about learning all about products that they've grown on the golf course with the agronomy side of it, whether it's building menus down the stairs. I've got an unbelievable.

F &B team here that are so talented. We got a new controller a couple of years ago that came in. She's amazing. She's opening my eyes to how we can report better and better and better. You just cannot close yourself off to education. Whether that's doing it formally through conferences and making a real conscious effort to read something every day or whether it's just having a... I believe that education needs to flow both ways.

If you've got something you can teach people, teach it. But you need to also open yourself up to receive education. And that could be a 19 year old seasonal staff that's gonna walk in here this summer to work for us and has still been through school and has got an idea about how we could do something a little bit better. We've got to feel secure enough that it's okay to keep learning. And I think that's something that I've learned over the last, don't know how many years now.

15, 20 years I think. I think I've got better at putting my hand up and going, I don't even understand that. And it's okay to say that even as a general manager. So continue to educate.

Brad (58:54)

Yeah, yeah, that's a, I mean, that's a really, really strong leader mentality, right? Is, is, is I always like to say, like, I need to pretend like, you know, I'm not the smartest man, but it's like, just, just realize like you're, you are not the smartest person. You need to take in information. Don't think you know everything, right? Sit there and listen, listen to experts, listen to people who know more than you don't think you know everything. Just keep taking it in, right? Take all of this information in.

And I think that it ties way back to those points you made earlier on about staff investing heavily in your staff and them leaving. But that's not necessarily the worst thing. If you've built up incredible staff that are too good to do their current role and need to go somewhere else to get that upgrade in their career, you won the game. You made an incredible staff member. You don't want...

staff necessarily. Obviously you want to keep staff as long as you possibly can, but when they've outgrown their position and you've given them all of that education, all of that leadership, and now they can go off and kind of walk in your shoes in a different role. Or if they're, you you saw them start younger in the club in their 20s and now they're in their 30s, 40s, and they want to become a head professional and they're ready to go do it. It's like that shows so much about your career as a general manager or as a head professional about building up those individuals.

and then sending them off on their way. So I think your leadership mentality is extremely on point, John.

John Caven (1:00:26)

I appreciate that. I think it's, you know, just quickly on this, as I always say, as a general manager, you know, I'm not standing at the gate to welcome people. I don't pull the golf bags out. I'm not the starter of the first tee. I'm not cutting the greens or raking bunkers. I don't cook food. I don't serve food. I don't even send out the member statements. So my job, it's a little bit like being the conductor of the band as such.

My job is to stand at the front. I can't even play every instrument. I might understand each one a little bit and I know how it all works. Maybe one or two that I maybe think I could do. But in real terms, it's my job that when that band or that...

orchestra is out of sync a little bit for whatever reason. Somebody's not pulling their weight, somebody's timing's not right, somebody's maybe in there and they shouldn't be, they've been given a position that's not quite right. How can I bring that all back together again? How can I train them to be better? can I, and as the conductor of the orchestra, as say, I don't play an instrument, but if there's no conductor, it's very difficult for that orchestra to get any, to really achieve what they think they can achieve. And as a general manager, in some ways, I maybe makes it sound as if

I

don't do very much. But in some ways that means that I am not doing the detailed jobs that some of those people have got, but I've got to be there to support them, make sure they've got the right resources, maybe represent them when you're going into budget periods and we're trying to achieve more or do something different or spend more money. And I think I've got to understand what it is that makes them all tick.

Because not everyone's the same and not everybody needs the same support. Sometimes it's different levels of support, sometimes it's getting right and involved with them, sometimes it's not. Back off. Let them do it. Let them know that they've got support and that allows them to flourish. So as a leader there's quite a lot of different ways to do it but I think that's certainly my style, Brad.

Clay (1:02:25)

Yeah. And you've said a couple of points here though, is an old adage that came to my mind, which is if you're in the, if you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room. It's not great to be the smart, you look around, you're like, I'm smarter than all these dummies here. It's like, you should, that's not great. But if you look around and you're like, I'm the dumbest person here. They're like, well, only, only up to go from here for me. Right. It's only because it's a rising tide raises all boats, right. But it's, it's, but then another,

concept came to you, which is exactly what you said. Sometimes depending on the topic, depending on the focus of the conversation or the project or the problem, you might have the teacher hat on where you're teaching others what you know. And as soon as that shifts to another topic where you're not the teacher and someone else has more stripes, they've learned more and they've earned more, I guess, authority on a topic.

Then you meet even as a general manager, you take your teacher hat on, you put your student hat on, take your teacher hat off, student hat on, and you say, cool, young, you know, 20 something year old working in my club here, teach me, I'm here to learn from you right now. You know more than me. You take teacher hat off your hat, give it to him and say, give me your student hat. I'll put the student hat on and you put the teacher hat on. And the staff are like, wow, talk about a leader I want to follow. This person is recognizing, has the wisdom to recognize.

John Caven (1:03:47)

Mm-hmm.

Clay (1:03:51)

They don't know what they're talking about. And I do know what I'm talking about. And instead of them blustering and being like, what do you know, young and what do you know about this thing? But it's, it's, it's a way to demoralize and alienate and not build trust and camaraderie and rapport is by trying to hold onto the teacher stick. So the speaking teacher stick so hard, cause you have so much pride that I can't possibly not know about something. And everyone must learn from me. Cause I'm the one in charge.

And like you said, it's lack, you have to be vulnerable. The vulnerability requires humility and humility. doesn't, the connection between humility and humiliation is a very interesting word. The people who feel humiliation don't have humility. They have pride. Only the prideful can feel really humiliated when they don't know something. But if you're like, I don't know something that doesn't affect my sense of identity. That doesn't affect my sense of, personal.

confidence, just admitting I don't know something. Then the people around you who do know that are like, wow, what a great leader. Cause he sees they you're living in reality, you're living in a reality and it gives them job security knowing my leader is not a blustering, prideful person who's going to lead us off a cliff. Cause they don't want to just admit I have something to teach them. Right. And so I think it's, it is it's, I'm going to echo what Brad said. It's a great attitude and it's the right approach to leadership in general, because the best leaders make

other leaders. The best leaders don't have dependent minions who just follow them around and do whatever they say. The best leaders are cultivating more leaders. They're developing the leadership and others where then they can sit back and say, I'm not an expert in any of these fields. I'm just good enough. I know just enough about each one of these departments to make sure that, and like you said, the conductor, that was a great metaphor. You have an ear to hear when things are out of tune.

when they need to be reharmonized. We have to bring them back into harmony again. And that's the conductor's job. Otherwise people just banging instruments around each other and they lack that perspective and the ear, because the person, the conductor is standing in front where the music is being played at. The person sitting in the middle of the music doesn't have the ear. They don't have that, the ear of the audience, but the conductor is standing in a position where they're closest to the audience perspective.

And so they're hearing it as closely as the audience would, as close to the audience's ear, if that makes sense. So they're the best person to be like, no, no, no, quiet over here, louder over here. And then it brings back an harmony. So the audience is having the best experience and that's, you're not the trombone player. You're not the cello player. You're not an expert. Anyone that you may not even play an instrument yourself, but so I just, I really, I really loved that was a very insightful point and perspective to close on. So I really appreciate it. And just thank you again for sharing your wisdom and your.

your perspective and your great stories with us and for our listeners today.

John Caven (1:06:45)

No, delighted and you know what, I think we've all learned something on the call as well, so hopefully the listeners go back to the old education thing, we never stop learning, so I know I've learned some stuff today, so thank you for giving me the opportunity, it's been good to talk, that's for sure.

Brad (1:07:03)

Yeah, thank you, John. We know our audience of golf club managers is going to walk away from this episode with a lot to think about, especially as they look to navigate the massive change affecting all of us and lead their people to build exceptional club experiences. We really appreciate your time and willingness to join us for this conversation.

John Caven (1:07:21)

Thank you.

Clay (1:07:23)

Cool. And I know for many of our listeners, you're going to get value from everything that we shared here. Listen to it again. If we ran through things quickly and you didn't have a chance to note it down. And John, we'd love to have you on once again in the future when you have some more experience at your club with whatever AI you guys end up working with in the future as you roll it out. We'd be happy to hear about your wins and your learning experiences with that software as the years unfold.

John Caven (1:07:51)

deleted too. Thank you.

Clay (1:07:52)

Cool. Thank you. And to everyone listening, if you enjoyed today's conversation, please follow and or subscribe to the Ace Call AI podcast wherever you listen to your audios. We've got more interviews coming with more forward thinking leaders who are also shaping the future of golf club management. And if you're curious about how AI can help you save time and support your team and better serve your members and your golfers, please visit us at acecall.ai.

to learn more about our voiced AI receptionists for golf clubs. It can help you eliminate voicemail and reduce missed call response times. So you can wow your golfers and members with new levels of customer service without overworking or stressing out your staff. And if you want to see how our voice AI receptionists, if you want to see it in live action, check out a demo, it a call for, or sorry, 1-866-838-8581. Again, it's 8-

66838-8581 and ask any question someone calling your club might ask and hear how it works for yourself. We're also happy to jump on a call with you for a complimentary AI strategy session where we can discuss your dream AI uses and applications in your club and see how we can help make those real for you. That's it. We'll see you in the next episode of the Ace Call AI podcast.

where we help golf club managers win with the AI. I'm Clayton Elliott.

Brad (1:09:23)

I'm Brad Milligan.

Clay (1:09:25)

Take care. Have a good day.

Brad (1:09:27)

Thank you, bye bye.