Every industry needs a conscience, an iconoclast, an inspired, and inspiring, leader to nudge it forward. Laury Hammel may be ours. By Bradley A. Keeny
CBI: Your company's written statement of purpose reads: 'To create a world where everyone's basic needs are met, and people experience love, happiness, and satisfaction . . . ' There are those in the industry who might ask, 'Are you serious?'
Laury Hammel: We consider our company a means to an end, and that end isn't necessarily to make money. It's my belief that the purpose of business is to find a need and fill it, and, for us, that means finding ways to uplift people. If there's some way that we can make a positive contribution to a person's life, and make the world a little bit better, that's exactly what we'll do. We want to make a difference in our local community, and in our world community, whenever we possibly can. The whole idea is to reach out and make a connection with another human being.
Laury Hammel, 54, is the president and principal owner of the Longfellow Sports Clubs, a four-facility, $11-million-a-year operation based in Wayland, Massachusetts. A native of Salt Lake City, Utah, Hammel graduated from the University of Utah with a bachelor's degree in political science and education, and embarked on his club career as a tennis pro at the Charles River Indoor Tennis Club in Newton, Massachusetts. In 1980, he and his partners purchased their first facility, the Longfellow Club in Wayland. Hammel has received numerous awards, and is regarded as one of the industry's strongest proponents of socially responsible business, having founded, among other organizations, New England Businesses for Social Responsibility. Hammel enjoys exercise, tennis, and a wide range of outdoor activities.
CBI: You're one of the industry's best-known supporters of socially responsible business practices. As a result, it seems, you view business quite a bit differently than most other entrepreneurs.
LH: A number of companies—e.g., Stoneyfield Farm, and Ben and Jerry's before it was sold—regard business as an opportunity to contribute to our world, and so do we. If you don't believe that air pollution and global warming, for instance, have a serious impact on everyone and everything, then you obviously have your head buried in the sand; you can't live in a little shell, and try to separate business from the environment. Whether you're talking about individual acts of kindness, or turning around an inner-city club on the verge of bankruptcy—every gesture, ultimately, has some sort of an effect.
CBI: What does it mean, in your opinion, to be socially responsible—that you're friendly to the environment, fair to your employees, truly caring about your clients? What?
LH: Yes, all of those things and more. Some people use the term 'good corporate citizen,' but I think 'socially responsible' is a more descriptive phrase—one that implies something more than just donating money to charities a few times a year. Being socially responsible means that you're committed to ethics and integrity in business, and that all of the stakeholders involved in your company—e.g., your staff, members, vendors, investors, the local community and environment, etc.—are treated with consideration and respect. If all you're concerned about is making a profit, and you're willing to accomplish that in an unethical way, you could, conceivably, have a negative impact not only on the industry, but also on the national economy—just look at what happened with Enron and WorldCom.
The fundamental point is that, while making a profit is important, and while it drives much of what we do, it's only one measuring stick—one way to gauge success. If, however, it's your only measure, you'll probably end up losing. Operating a business in America is like becoming a U.S. citizen—you have to assume certain responsibilities, and establish that you're worthy of being a resident; in both cases, there's an ethic, an obligation, to help care for those around you, to treat your neighbors with respect, etc. I regard business as a community trust; if I sold my clubs to a chain, it would have a devastating impact on a large number of people, so I simply wouldn't do it—unless the people I sold it to had exactly the same values that I did.
CBI: Can you give us a few examples of what that means in terms of how you actually run your clubs?
LH: Well, as far as being environmentally conscious, we have a big recycling program at our clubs, and are always looking for ways to conserve energy and reuse things. We're also proud to participate in a government program called Climate Wise, which encourages companies to do their part to prevent pollution, minimize global warming, etc. But, again, being socially responsible involves more than just being kind to the environment. The bottom line, really, is caring—for one's staff, one's members, one's local community, and the world at large. We regularly give discounts to people who are unemployed, for instance, and reach out to people in crisis. In fact, right now, we're in the process of raising money for a family that recently lost a member in an automobile accident—they didn't have the money to pay for a funeral, so we've stepped in to help.
Another good example is the work that we've done with the Sportsmen's Tennis Club in the Dorcester section of Boston. The facility is located in an underprivileged area, and, five years ago, was about to go under. We felt it was serving an important community need, so we offered to take over the management of the club—for $1 a year. We also helped them raise nearly $500,000 for new courts, and essentially loaned them our construction staff, which redid their ceilings and remodeled their offices free of charge. We no longer manage the club, but I'm still involved in its youth tennis program, which has grown from 37 to 500 kids. It's going great!
CBI: In the course of your career, you've also spent a good deal of time championing the 'small club owner.' First of all, for the sake of clarity, how would you define a small club operation?
LH: 'Small,' of course, is a relative term. Compared to a little, women-only club, my facilities, which range from 60,000 to 90,000 square feet, are obviously quite large. But being a small club operator, to my way of thinking, is basically synonymous with being an independent club operator, and what that involves is: (1) you're a privately held business; (2) you're locally owned and managed; and (3) you have no more than 200 full-time, on-site employees. I'm aware of some companies, which, when they get to the point where they have more than 200 employees in a building, will actually create a whole new location, just to maintain that small business feel. You can work together as a team so much better when the group is small, and everyone knows one another.
But the point that I want to make, loud and clear, is that, in our industry, being an independently owned club operation is an incredibly powerful thing—you can be very successful, and compete effectively against the bigger players.
CBI: What are the one or two best pieces of advice that you'd offer an independent club owner who's competing with a large chain?
LH: It may sound like a cliché, but I think, most importantly, that you need employees who love their work. If your staff isn't truly, authentically, happy with their job, and if they're not at the forefront of the industry, in terms of their skills, then you won't be able to compete against the chains. But if, on the other hand, you have a staff that loves their work, and a staff that ranks high in terms of skills and the ability to provide service, and you truly care about your customers' health and well-being, then you're going to have an incredibly high chance of succeeding.
CBI: And how about you? What kind of competition do your clubs face?
LH: In the traditional sense, our biggest rivals are multipurpose clubs, one of which is part of a chain; most of the others, though, are independents . . . But, in reality, it's bad ideas that are our principal competition—for instance, the notion that working out isn't necessary, thinking that there's not enough time in one's day for exercise, etc. So it's not so much that we're competing with the Thoreau Club, or the Wayside Racquet and Swim Club, etc. The basic struggle is just to get people to exercise on a regular basis.
CBI: You mentioned that it's particularly important for independent club owners to have employees who love their jobs. Perhaps it's a silly question, but how do you ensure that your staff is truly happy?
LH: We have something we call the 'Staff Happiness Index,' which is a series of questions that we've developed to gauge how happy our staff members are—for instance, 'Do you like your coworkers?' or 'At the end of the day, do you feel satisfied?' But keeping employees happy really boils down to three things: (1) compensating them well; (2) praising them often; and (3) involving them in the decision-making process. A lot of business leaders, it seems, are afraid to complement their staff, thinking that their workers will say, 'Skip the praise, give me the raise.' But I've never had a problem giving praise. I fully expect that my staff will ask for as much money as they think they're entitled to, and I'll do my best to accommodate them, but, if I can't give them a raise, I'll try to find a compromise. There's also a lot of discussion in our organization about 'internal equity,' which basically means that, if a hotshot tennis pro approached me about a job and expected to be paid more than our other pros, I simply wouldn't be able to hire him. If I were to do something like that just once, I'd lose my staff's trust.
CBI: What about involving employees in the decision-making process—why, in your opinion, is that so critical?
LH: Preaching the importance of staff happiness is one thing, but ensuring that the conditions required for it are present is quite another. And one of those conditions, as far as I'm concerned, is providing employees with a sense of empowerment. Involving staffers in the decision-making process empowers them, and lets them know that their opinions are valued. All of our decisions are made via the consensus approach; in fact, during the past 30 years, I've only made one decision that wasn't based on a consensus—when I vetoed the idea of bringing tanning beds into our clubs. When you make decisions that way, employees feel included, involved, and, ultimately, more satisfied with their jobs . . . I can't tell you how many people I've talked to, over the years, who feel strained, frustrated, dissatisfied with their position; they're not able to do the things that they know need to be done, because they're simply not getting support from the owners or management.
CBI: It sure seems like your high on tennis, how is tennis doing in your
clubs and what plans do you have for the future?
LH: As you know I've been a tennis guy all my life and love the sport. Tennis plays a big part of our business. Not only does tennis have a certain cachet that attracts new members. Like a pool, even if they don't use it, tennis is a perceived value. But tennis has become a true profit center for us. We've found that if properly programmed with the right professionals we can jam the courts and make tennis profitable. This includes offering adult programs, junior programs, tennis camps, and kids camps taught by USPTA trained professionals together with college students in some of our camps.
We have built eight new indoor outdoor tennis courts in the past three years and plan to build eight more indoor courts in the next 18 months, for a total of 16 in less than five years. Our occupancy is nearly 100 etween 9a.m. and 10 p.m. every day. Tennis is an important part of our business and we see this trend continuing for many years to come.
CBI: Finally, looking at the club business, in general, what, if anything, do you think is preventing it from reaching its full potential? What does the industry need to do in order to reach that next level of maturity?
LH: Obviously, I'm biased as far as my own business model is concerned, but I really do believe that, if we put the concerns, cares, and needs of our members above everything else—including profit—we'd literally bring millions of new people into our clubs. Let me give you an example: We offer a special program designed primarily for seniors that teaches them how they can strengthen their muscles and increase bone density by using pneumatic equipment. Well, it's always a money loser, but it invariably generates new members, so, ultimately, it winds up being a moneymaker. Unfortunately, though, too many club operators base their decisions solely on making money—immediately—and that prevents them from doing things like offering creative programming. I've visited clubs that provide programs for children, that do, in fact, produce a profit, but aren't necessarily in the best interest of a child. Bringing in computers for kids who are in grade school, or younger, or placing a TV set in the nursery to occupy children's attention, really isn't a good thing, in my opinion. These kids need to be active, and have their minds challenged. So decisions like that don't benefit members, and, therefore, are bad ones . . . But if, when making our decisions, we all ask ourselves, first and foremost, 'Is this good for my members, for my community, etc.,' we, as an industry, will be able to provide an unbelievable level of service, attract tons of new club members...
