The USGA: The Newest 122-Year-Old Startup
The USGA’s Chief People Officer, Steve Schloss, sits down with Metric Collective’s COO Eli Robinson
“What do you think about hosting the United States Golf Association at Metric Collective for a working session on innovation?”
It was a rather straightforward question, but ultimately it took me a second to respond. “Of course!” I said, and set in motion one of the most fascinating (and perhaps unexpected) relationships in Metric Collective’s history.
But before I get to the visit, let’s talk for a second about the USGA.
Founded in 1894, the USGA has long played a critical role in providing both structure and inspiration to the game through its traditional functions — writing the rules of golf that help protect the integrity of the game, maintaining a handicap system unique in sport that allows golfers of different abilities to compete against one another, and conducting 13 national championships that are the ultimate tests of golf and inspire both golfers and fans. These are the traditional and necessary functions of a governing body.
When it comes to golf, the conversation about leadership starts and ends with the USGA. For the last 122 years!
But what happens when such a storied institution is confronted with the realities of doing business in the 21st century?
In their case, the USGA is investing in its people and resources to build a stronger golf community by helping to enhance the golf experience and by fostering a healthier relationship between golf courses and the environment. They are also developing new areas of capability including leveraging data and analytics to empower smarter decision making across the golf community; promoting science, innovation and technology as keys to re-imagining a better playing experience for golfers ; and embracing diversity and inclusion as an essential platform for the long-term sustainability of the game.
In early 2016, the USGA launched the “Leading with Impact” program. This immersive 15-month experience, targeting small cross-functional cohorts of key USGA leaders was designed to better prepare the participants and the organization for the future. You can hear more about the program in the video above.
About halfway through the program, they traveled from the rolling hills of their Liberty Corner, NJ headquarters and headed into New York City for a three-day learning journey focused on disruptive change.
Thus, Metric Collective and the USGA’s company histories became intertwined for the first time.
“So what’s it like for leaders of a 5-year-old startup to educate leaders of a 122 year-old company?”
Honestly, it felt natural.
Steve kicked things off beautifully and set the tone for what promised to be a memorable day. He at first surprised us by describing how important innovation was to their organization, but more importantly he reiterated that his team was there to learn from us!
Yep, these titans of the golf world sat in a line and introduced themselves like the first day of class!
After Steve’s introduction, I took the microphone and walked the group through some of the ways we think about leading innovation here at Metric. I shared with the team these six themes:
You can imagine some of the discussion around these topics was…interesting.
Recommending that these seasoned executives “Just Press Send” or “make sure you’re nervous or it’s not real innovation” caused quite a variety of reactions.
But ultimately listening to me ramble wasn’t the highlight of our time together. It was the opportunity for us to break into groups and facilitate smaller conversations between our team and theirs.
Being disruptive isn’t about bullet points on a slide. It’s about decisions that people make every day. And allowing these two (seemingly opposite) organizations to mesh for a day allowed for everyone to see what you can actually do to affect change in your professional life.
Some of my favorite questions sounded something like:
- “You really do that here?”
- “Can you give me an example of a time you really screwed up?”
- “What’s the craziest idea that ever worked? What about failed?”
- “How do you stay motivated?”
And for every lesson that the USGA folks took with them from that day, I’d like to think our team here was just as inspired.
“So how’d the program turn out for y’all?”
Steve and the USGA’s Senior Director of People Development Kimberly Gallo came back by the office last week, six months later. The first cohort of the Leading with Impact program just completed their experience, and we wanted to reconvene to discuss how everything turned out.
Kimberly and Steve took us through the entirety of the journey. I’m jealous of these eight cohort members who got to be first to experience this great program! Steve said that a few members went as far as to tell him that it changed the way they looked at their job, helped them re-frame some of their challenges and provided a fresh view their world. I’d say mission accomplished.
Ultimately, the proof will be seen in the way that the USGA adapts to the challenges of a more savvy and demanding golfer and consumer. But if our experience together was a sign of things to come, then I have faith that they are up to the challenge.
They’re ready to be a 122-year-old startup.
(Special thanks to Charlie Cowen and Melissa Quinn for bringing us together! And we couldn’t have done this without the open minds of the USGA folks. So thanks for letting us into your lives for a day…and hopefully more!)
