The End of Leadership as We Know It

4Stop Strategizing and Start Doing

The United States Golf Association (USGA) is 127 years old, serves 25 million members, and is a far‐sighted organization. But sometimes even the best‐laid plans aren't enough. In 2020, as the organization prepared to roll out a new three‐year strategic plan, the COVID‐19 pandemic hit, turning the sports world on its head. Uncertain of what to do, the association leaned into one of its core capabilities: running large championship tournaments.

A typical US Open brings together 200,000 people over the course of a week. Steve Schloss, then chief people officer, pointed out that “running a national event at scale requires you to continually reset goals and targets because every day, every hour even, brings new issues and challenges. You have to be able to pivot in the moment.”¹

In confronting the pandemic, the nonprofit took the same approach, Schloss said. “We asked everyone to put aside what they said they would do in 2020. Instead, we created a new system where each team worked in 7‐, 30‐, or 90‐day sprints. The approach gave people greater control in an environment that felt out of control, with the freedom and tools to constantly assess and reassert what is achievable. It's an approach we'll take forward. We're constantly responding to change and asking everyone in the organization to do the same thing.”

By continually adjusting their approach, the USGA successfully navigated the pandemic. It was a significant shift from relying on long‐term ...