Define the Ideal First
The evenings members talk about the longest often feel unplanned. A moment lands, a room laughs together, and the following week at the bar someone says, “You just had to be there.” Those evenings are rarely accidental. Behind each one is a decision made before anyone arrives. Someone defined how people should feel when they walked out the door at the end of the night, and every choice after that had a direction.
Exceptional clubs define the ideal first, then plan backward from it. That holds for a single dinner, and it holds for an entire club’s identity.
Three Questions Before Any Room
Denny Corby has worked hundreds of private club rooms as a magician, entertainer, and emcee. I had the chance to watch him present at a conference, and one of his slides hit home for me. It listed three questions he asks himself before he walks into an important room:
- What energy do I want to bring?
- What does this room need from me?
- What should people feel when they leave?
The third question sets the direction for the other two. He answers it first, and the energy he brings and what he gives the room follows from that.
He applies the same discipline to the clients who book him. Before a show, he asks them to picture the Monday after, in the staff meeting or board meeting where someone brings up the evening. What would they need to have experienced to know it was a success? Some want a standing ovation. Some want to hear, the next time they see him, that the evening was fun. Some want members to find the general manager on the way out and say how much they enjoyed it. Whatever the answer, whatever the goal, that picture of success becomes the outcome he builds toward.
The slide frames the questions for an important room. I’d take that a step further: in a club, every room is important to the members standing in it, from a milestone celebration to a quiet breakfast on a random morning. Club leaders can ask similar questions. What energy do we want to bring? What does this room need from us? What should members feel when they leave? The answer gains force when it is specific to the club. A club known for warmth and informality will want members to leave feeling at ease. A club known for tradition and ceremony may want them to leave proud of where they belong. Each answer comes from who the club is, from whom it has decided it is.
Preparation That Feels Spontaneous
The best hospitality, Denny says, “isn’t always spontaneous, but it feels spontaneous.”
That matches what I see in clubs: the evenings that feel effortless are the ones someone prepared for.
That preparation begins before the room fills. He reads a club from the moment he walks in: how the front desk greets him and how staff talk about the evening in the pre-shift meeting. Staff is often the first and last impression of a club, and their energy sets the tone before a single member arrives. In his experience, that energy starts with leadership and then spreads to the team. When a club defines the ideal first and shares it, the team has something specific to be excited about.
The Same Question at the Scale of a Club
That slide is a practical version of the question behind every identity project my team takes on. We help clubs define what belonging means for them, and that work starts before we design or build anything. Who are we? Whom do we want to be? What do right-fit members look like for our club? Once those answers are clear, the club knows whom it is looking for, and it can go find them.
Our strategy follows the same order. We decide what we need to learn first, then build the process that uncovers it, so the insights either validate what leaders believe or challenge it. Starting with the question keeps the results useful.
A member forum follows the same path. When a club we work with unveils its new identity at a town hall, we start with the outcome: members understand the why, and they leave excited about the direction and proud of how it was shared. Then we work backward. We prepare for the questions members are most likely to ask, and for the hardest ones, so that no answer is improvised. When a leader already knows the hardest question they will be asked, the answer sounds like confidence.
Guiding Takes Authenticity
Working backward means guiding people toward an outcome, and that raises a fair question: where does guiding end and steering begin? Denny’s answer is that authenticity is key. In his view, a leader does not change who they are from room to room. To me, different rooms ask for different parts of the same person, and an authentic leader stays true and consistent in each one. The same holds for a club. When the ideal comes from who the club is, guiding people toward it is simply an invitation to belong.
Where This Leaves You
Before the next dinner, event, team meeting, or committee meeting, write one sentence: what should people feel when they leave? Then work backward. What should people experience in the first minute after they walk in? What does the staff need to hear in the pre-shift meeting? Which question will be hardest, and how will we answer it with confidence?
Then try the same sentence at the scale of the club: what should it mean to belong here? When the answer sounds like your club, and only your club could say it, every decision after it has a clear direction.
Do that well, and the evening ends the way the best ones do: someone at the bar the following week saying, “You just had to be there.”
This article draws from Episode 121 of Clubs Made Meaningful, a conversation with Denny Corby 🎤, a magician, entertainer, emcee, and host of Private Club Radio.
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Clubs Made Meaningful
A Podcast by Sussner
