70% of organizational changes fail and these failures can be traced to ineffective leadership.
Women in Business - Golfing Pays Off For Firm's President
Women in Business - American Women's Business Association
Golf champion Dianne Durkin says golf has played a positive role in business dealings. Dianne is president of Loyalty Factor, a training and management consulting firm in Portsmouth, N.H., and author of The Loyalty Advantage. For the past three years she has held the senior club championship at the Wentworth Country Club in Rye, N.H.
During an informal golf outing at the country club she belongs to, she was paired with the CEO of a major telecommunications company. On the 17th hole, he asked her what she did for a living. “I said, ‘I help CEOs like you be even more successful than they already are,’” Dianne says. “He asked me to call him on Monday. By Tuesday, I had a contract with his company.”
Another time, during a tournament, Dianne met a partner in an executive search firm. “One of my clients was undergoing a search at the time,” Dianne says, “so I put the two of them together and advised her on the culture of the organization. They successfully filled the position with a very nice search fee.”
In addition, she has received a number of suggestions on the golf course on how to approach various situations, business opportunities and have received leads on hiring skilled individuals.
“Golf is a great way to build long term relationships in a non threatening environment,” she says. “It is also an exceptional way to size-up people. Golf brings out the best and the worst in individuals, so you can clearly see their personalities under favorable conditions as well as stressful conditions. It gives you great indication of how to approach them in the future.”