4. CHAPTER 1 Becoming a Member of the Club
I'd caddie thirty-six holes a day if I could get the work, and I made sure I treated the club caddie-master as if he were a king.
My first year, I won the annual caddie award, which gave me the chance to caddie for Arnold Palmer when he came to play on his hometown course. Arnie started out as a caddie himself at the Latrobe Country Club and went on to own the club as an adult. I looked up to him as a role model. He was living proof that success in golf, and in life, had nothing to do with class. It was about access (yes, and talent, at least in his case). Some gained access through birth or money. Some were fantastic at what they did, like Arnold Palmer. My edge, I knew, was my initiative and drive. Arnie was inspirational proof that your past need not be prologue to your future. For years I was a de facto member of the Poland family, splitting holidays with them and hanging out at their house nearly every day.
Brett and I were inseparable, and I loved his family like my own. Mrs. Poland made sure I got to know everyone in the club that could help me, and if she saw me slacking, I'd hear it from her. I helped her on the golf course, and she, in appreciation of my efforts and the care I bestowed upon her, helped me in life. She provided me with a simple but profound lesson about the power of generosity. When you help others, they often help you. Reciprocity is the gussied-up word people use later in life to describe this ageless principle. I just knew the word as "care." We cared for each other, so we went out of our way to do nice things. Because of those days, and specifically that lesson, I came to realize that first semester at business school that Harvard's hypercompetitive, individualistic students had it all wrong.
Success in any field, but especially in business, is about working with people, not against them. No tabulation of dollars and cents can account for one immutable fact: Business is a human enterprise, driven and determined by people. It wasn't too far into my second semester before I started jokingly reassuring myself, "How on earth did all these other people get in here?
What many of my fellow students lacked, I discovered, were the skills and strategies that are associated with fostering and building relationships.
In America, and especially in business, we're brought up to cherish John Wayne individualism. People who consciously court others to become involved in their lives are seen as schmoozers, brown-nosers, smarmy sycophants.
