During leadership and team training sessions, I often divide participants into groups and give each team a puzzle to complete. There is only one catch: before the activity begins, I intentionally mix pieces from one puzzle into another. What follows is predictable.
Teams become convinced someone has lost pieces. Fingers point. People search under tables. Someone insists the puzzle manufacturer made a mistake. Some of them look at me with a “hey, what gives?” look on their face. A few participants start negotiating trades with neighboring teams like they're on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.
Then comes the realization: the missing pieces aren't missing at all. They are simply sitting at someone else’s table. The lesson is simple, but powerful.
Every day, members move through dozens of interactions, experiences, and touchpoints. Communications, reservations, arrival, golf operations, dining, fitness, housekeeping, retail, accounting, member services, events, and countless other interactions which all become pieces of a much larger puzzle.
But members don't see departments, they see one club. And they don't care who places the final puzzle piece. They care that the picture comes together.
The Puzzle Members Actually See
At RCS, we often talk about Moments of Truth—those interactions that shape how members feel about their experience. Moments of Truth can be positive, negative, or neutral.
Some moments are obvious. A warm greeting at the front gate. A perfectly prepared dining reservation. A golf professional who remembers a member's name.
Others seem small. A clean restroom. A quick response to an email. A properly maintained golf cart.
Individually, these moments may seem small or even insignificant. Collectively, they are all puzzle pieces that create the member experience.
A member who receives exceptional service during dinner may never know the coordination that happened between the kitchen, service team, reservations staff, purchasing manager, and maintenance department. Nor should they.
They simply enjoy the finished puzzle.
The Life Meter Nobody Sees
I often compare the member experience to an old-school shoot-'em-up video game where every player starts with a full life meter. Then a dinosaur attacks. Or a flying monster. Or whatever bizarre obstacle the game designer decided would ruin your day. (If you played the original Super Mario Brothers, like I did, you know you started with 3 lives and had to collect green and white mushrooms to earn more!)
Each hit takes away a little bit of life.
Members arrive with invisible life meters too. Traffic was terrible. Their flight was delayed. They had a difficult business meeting. Their teenager just got a driver's license. None of which anyone at the club has any control over, but we are empowered to start refilling the meter.
By the time they arrive at the club, their meter is running low. Now imagine they encounter a negative Moment of Truth. Perhaps their reservation wasn't entered correctly. Maybe no one acknowledges them when they arrive. There’s a big event happening and they had to park further away than expected. Their golf bag wasn’t on their cart. All hits to the meter.
The challenge is that members don't compartmentalize those frustrations. A negative experience in one department often follows them into the next. That's why teamwork matters.
Every department has the opportunity to either drain the meter or refill it. A warm greeting from a valet attendant. A server who anticipates a need before being asked. A golf professional who solves a problem quickly. A housekeeper who takes pride in the details. All positive interactions that help restore what may have been lost earlier in the journey.
Trust: The Missing Piece in Many Clubs
The puzzle activity also highlights something leaders often overlook: trust.
When teams discover their missing pieces are sitting with another group, success depends on cooperation. No one completes the puzzle alone. The same is true in club operations.
Trust allows departments to support one another without worrying about who gets credit. It allows leaders to ask for help. It allows teams to communicate challenges early rather than waiting for a crisis. Strong clubs develop cultures where employees believe their colleagues will follow through, share information, and support the collective goal.
Without trust, every department guards its own box of puzzle pieces. With trust, everyone works toward the same picture.
At the end of my puzzle exercise, someone always asks which team actually won. The answer is easy. The winning team is the one that remembered the objective wasn't finishing their puzzle. It was helping complete the picture. And that's exactly what great clubs do every day.
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About the Author: Chris Sarten
Chris Sarten is an experienced food and beverage leader with over 25 years of experience. His career began bussing tables as a teenager. His private club journey began at the age of 21 in Las Vegas, NV where he would work his way through the ranks and begin his first position as Food & Beverage Director. Chris has spent much of his career at the Food and Beverage Director level. Working at prestigious private clubs, Chris developed a record of improving operations to increase revenues, improve overall financial success and elevate the member experience. Chris has overseen club renovations, openings and has worked at the regional level to assist other properties to achieve operational goals. Chris’ experience at both for profit and equity clubs has allowed him to manage the member experience through multiple lenses. Through training, mentorship and system implementation, Chris believes that each team and individual can have the opportunity to deliver the high level of service their memberships expect.