Al Ritter has written a great little book, The 100/0 Principle, subtitled The Secret of Great Relationships. While this may sound like any one of the score of self-help books published annually, one merely has to look at Mr. Ritter’s resume – MBA from Dartmouth, marketing and operations positions with Pepsico, CFO at Swift and Company, Senior VP for Citigroup, consulting for Accenture, and founding his own consulting company – to recognize that this short, simple, and easy-to-read book holds much promise for business leaders in any setting and level of organizational hierarchies.
I believe the simple concept at the heart of this book is arguably the single most important guarantor of success in any relationship, certainly in the personal arena, but beyond that in any organization or business enterprise. Such well-known leadership authors as John C. Maxwell, Brian Tracy, and Warren Blank have all recognized the central role of relationships in any attempt to lead. As Maxwell said, “People who are unable to build solid, lasting relationships will soon discover that they are unable to sustain long, effective leadership.”
What Mr. Ritter so strikingly advocates in his book is that if you want any relationship to be successful, you must take 100% responsibility for the outcome while expecting nothing in return. While this statement may seem shocking to some, I believe it is counter-intuitive wisdom of the highest order. To examine why, consider the following statements relating to leadership:
- A leader is responsible for his own success.
- A leader is responsible for everything her organization does or fails to do.
- In a free society, all but the most socially or economically disadvantaged followers have choice and can go elsewhere.
- Meaningful relationships are based on trust.
- Followers don’t automatically extend their trust to a leader; it must be earned.
- As the one with the power and authority, the leader must take responsibility for establishing trust.
- If, for whatever reason, a relationship with followers is not going well, a leader cannot expect or wait for others to fix it.
- Ergo: He or she must take full responsibility for the relationship.
Mr. Ritter states and I believe that taking complete responsibility for your relationships and expecting nothing in return will yield vastly improved results in every arena of life. His book offers concrete advice and steps, such as creative listening, suspending judgment, and unconditional acceptance, for readers to adjust their thinking and change their responses to difficult people, challenging situations, even “toxic” bosses. While his experience with The 100/0 Principle has been mostly successful, he outlines a few situations where it doesn’t apply. He also candidly admits that there are no guarantees that it will always work, but that in the majority of situations, dramatic results are achieved.
Roger Enrico, former Chairman and CEO of Pepsico said, “The soft stuff is always harder than the hard stuff.” I can’t imagine that anyone who has attempted to lead would dispute this basic observation. Read Al Ritter’s book – it offers a simple and straightforward approach to getting the soft stuff right!
The Book is: The 100/0 Principle: The Secret of Great Relationships, Al Ritter, Simple Truths, LLC, Napierville, IL, 2010
Thanks and have a great day!
Ed Rehkopf
This weekly blog comments on and discusses the club industry and its challenges. From time to time, we will feature guest bloggers — those managers and industry experts who have something of interest to say to all of us. We also welcome feedback and comment upon the blog, hoping that it will become a useful sounding board for what’s on the minds of hardworking club managers throughout the country and around the world.
Club Resources International - Management Resources for Clubs!
“Well, Mrs. Johnson, last year each of our servers had 20 hours of formal training, plus we conduct brief on-the-go training sessions as part of every pre-shift meeting. On average each server who has been with us for six months or more has had over 40 hours of job specific training. Last year, club-wide we averaged just over 92 hours per employee of formal training on a wide range of topics, including organizational values, legal and liability abatement, work rules and club policies, and safety, as well as job-specific skills. This was a 7% increase over the previous year. We’re currently working on a program to expand server training with a series of videos on tableside etiquette and serving techniques, which we’ll roll out next month. We’re always working on ways to improve the efficiency of our training delivery system, but keep in mind that every hour of training costs the club $10.47. I’d be happy to share our methods, resources, and job specific curriculum with you, as we could always use another set of eyes on what we’re doing.”
This leadership style differs from others in its focus on serving the needs of employees to provide them with the proper tools, training, resources, motivation, and empowerment to serve the club’s members. In simplest terms, when a club’s employees are served by their leaders, they will serve the members, who by their continuing patronage serve the club’s bottom line. An understanding of the importance of this style of leadership can be inferred from the simple question,
Over the years while serving as general manager in hotels, resorts, and clubs, I searched a number of times and read a number of books — most extolling the successful leadership techniques of Fortune 500 or celebrity CEOs, or written by Academics with a lot of theory but little practical advice for those toiling in hospitality management. My frustration in trying to find something useful finally led me to write my own leadership guidance for my team, and this ultimately became Leadership on the Line: A Guide for Front Line Supervisors, Business Owners, and Emerging Leaders, first published in 2002 and now in its 2nd edition.
Most of us recognize that our business is not rocket science. The basics of what we do are well-known to any club professional. What makes our jobs so challenging is the sheer volume of things that must be attended to daily in a detail and people-intensive business. Unless a club operation is well-organized and its managers highly disciplined, it operates in a state of barely-controlled chaos interspersed with periods of downtime. The challenge for all is to transition quickly from storm to calm back to storm while remaining focused on long term goals, ongoing projects, and continual process improvement. The solution is to organize the club so that most things happen routinely and that managers at all levels be highly disciplined in approaching their duties and efforts to improve the operation.
Given these and other specific challenges that vary from club to club, it is absolutely imperative that club managers organize their operations in detail. My own list of requirements includes:
Each of these necessities, while challenging, will improve the organization and discipline of the club while fostering consistently higher levels of service. The resulting efficiency and service of a well-run club will make it easier to attract members, which improves dues and revenues and ultimately better positions the club in the marketplace.
1. Start with a plan. As with any major project, there must be a plan. Things to consider when planning include: goals, program requirements, training principles, impacted positions, priorities, budget, timelines and milestones, curricula by position, equipment and supplies, resources and materials, benchmarking, administration and documentation, annual certifications, plan and implementation review, and designated responsibilities.
Tip: Many of these topics have been covered in materials found on the CRI website, for example: 
Training resources can be found anywhere. The advent of the Internet and search engines makes it relatively easy and convenient to find training material for almost any topic or position. Some will be free and some will cost, but once department heads determine topics, they should begin searching for relevant material.
To expect that different managers with different backgrounds and experiences from a variety of operational disciplines — golf, golf course maintenance, accounting, personnel, facility maintenance, food and beverage, membership, activities, tennis, and aquatics — will have a common understanding of and approach to leadership and management is foolish.
First, is the 
The basis for the traditional hierarchical organizational model is the military concept of “chain of command.” In this model, management is represented as the sequence of authority in executing the will of the owners—and certainly management plays that essential role. But in addition to not representing the importance of customers, it also places the employees at the bottom of the chain—thereby visually relegating them to the position of least consequence.
The Service-Based Organizational model depicts the importance of satisfying customers, as well as the important role of employees. The organization’s leaders are placed at the bottom, clearly emphasizing their role in serving the needs of all constituencies.
Instead of the traditional view that employees are easily replaceable elements in an organization, people who must be trained to do narrow, well-defined tasks and who must be closely watched and supervised at all times, the concept of empowerment says that today’s more educated and sometimes more sophisticated employees need and want to contribute more to their employer and workplace. Yet many clubs marginalize their employees by refusing to listen to them and by failing to let them contribute to the enterprise in any meaningful way.