Is Your Private Club Ready for a Crisis? A Conversation with Toni Shibayama

No GM thinks a crisis will strike their club. Until it does. Then what?

Without a plan to manage the event itself, and without a communications plan that keeps staff, members, emergency responders, and the public all working from the same information, a club is exposed in ways that go well beyond whatever happened in the moment.

I recently talked with Toni Shibayama, a risk management and HR consultant at S&K Financial and Insurance Service, who works with private clubs across the country, about how club leaders should be thinking about crisis planning. Her take: the risks clubs face haven't just grown, they've multiplied. "I just think that risk continues to evolve and change," she told me. "The legal landscape, no matter what state you're in, continues to rise, the compliance levels as well. The level of risk has definitely increased."

Here's the number that should get the attention of every board member. When I asked Toni what percentage of the clubs she works with actually have a real crisis plan in place, her answer was blunt. "I would say to be generous, maybe twenty percent," she said. "That's being generous."

Why so few clubs plan ahead

Part of the answer is culture, and, believe it or not, not the bad kind. Clubs tend to build loyal, long-tenured teams that function like a family. That's a real strength, and it can also lead a club to believe formal plans aren't necessary. "When you're kind of a family, you go, we don't need policies," Toni said. "We don't need an employee manual or job descriptions. That's very corporate."

The gap tends to surface later, often after the legal landscape shifts or a board member with outside experience starts asking questions no one has good answers for. By then, a club is completely in reaction mode.

Crisis isn't one thing. It's four.

Toni believes that "crisis" at a club isn't a single category. She breaks it into four pillars, and a crisis plan that only covers one or two of them leaves real exposure on the table.

People risk

“People risk” is about culture and training, and Toni argues it's the foundation everything else sits on. "I think day one, grounds department, please show me where all the sharps, combustibles, acids, corrosives, everything," she said. "If we lead off day one, we're showing we care." When employees believe a club genuinely looks out for them, it can shape how they show up in the moments that matter most, from following safety protocols to how they treat a member in distress. To frame it another way - how do people respond when they don’t believe leadership cares about them?

Infrastructure risk

This is what's actually inside the building and on the grounds, and whether it's been audited. Toni's pushback to busy managers who deprioritize safety training is worth repeating: "I don't want anybody on your team to be disabled for the rest of their life. I never want you to have that phone call."

Environmental risk

Some exposure simply comes with the property. A pool with a diving board, a Monday closure that a member ignores, a yacht club on the ocean. Toni's guidance here isn't to eliminate every risk, since that's often not possible, but to know what they are and have a plan to respond. "What are you doing to prevent a risk, a major catastrophe as well?" she asks clubs.

Coverage

This is what most boards think of first when they hear "risk," and it matters, but it's the last pillar, not the only pillar. Toni recommends every new finance committee or board member get a plain cheat sheet: carriers, coverage, deductibles, limits. "You've got cash at hand, we're okay with that deductible... or you're a little risk intolerant, so you want more coverage," she said. The goal isn't to buy every policy available. It's to understand the club's actual risk tolerance before a loss forces the conversation.

The 3 a.m. test

What are your club’s top 3 risks? Toni has a simple exercise to help her clients figure this out quickly. She walks them through the “3 a.m. test”. You’re sound asleep and the phone rings at 3a.m. Picture the call. What’s the crisis? No water. No electrical. A death on-site. A significant injury. The fire department shutting the club down. "You cannot be compliant in everything. You have to run a club," she said. "But is it fire? Would it be flood? Would it be a lawsuit? Would it be theft? Could it be workplace violence?" If you want to figure out your greatest points of crisis, think of those calls you never want to receive in the middle of the night.

Crisis now includes your phone

A generation ago, the fear was a local news crew showing up. Today, Toni points out, every member and every employee is carrying a camera. A single video, post, or review can shape how a club is perceived far faster than a reporter ever could. She recommends clubs get ahead of this by asking a simple question internally, of both members and staff: would you recommend this club to a friend? A declining answer is often the earliest warning sign of a bigger problem, well before it reaches social media. Seems like a small thing, but it’s often the most ridiculous and insignificant moments captured on video that end up going viral.

Data is part of this picture too. Toni has seen a steady rise in ransomware and system breaches targeting clubs, many of which serve high-net-worth or well-known members. Her advice is to minimize what's stored in the first place, and to have a communication plan ready for members if a breach does happen. "It's just a matter of when and where," she said of breaches. How a club responds in the first hours can matter as much as the breach itself.

Where to actually start

This can sure seem overwhelming, so Toni's advice for a new board member or GM is refreshingly simple: don't try to fix everything at once. Start with an honest look at your managers and supervisors, since they're the ones executing whatever plan gets built. Are they happy? Are they treated well? Then look at the basics. When was the employee manual last updated? Is there a documented safety process? Is there any plan at all for a member medical emergency or a data incident?

"Whoever is at the helm, they really have to say, this is important," Toni said. "I want this rolled out. I want to dedicate some time to protect and train and practice so that way we all feel comfortable."

The clubs that handle a crisis well aren't the ones that got lucky. They're the ones that did this work before they needed to. If your club hasn't run its own version of the 3 a.m. test, that might be worth putting on the agenda for your next board meeting.