Pro golfers employ high-paid caddies who likely know the game as well as them in terms of technical details, even if the caddie could not win a championship tournament. Sometimes golfers, like business leaders, refuse to listen and end up paying a high price.
— By Vincent Pane

Pro golfer Jon Rahm was leading at the Players Championship March 17, 2019, at TPC Sawgrass when he and his caddie had a discussion about a second shot on the par-5 11th hole where he encountered a fairway bunker.

Caddie Adam Hayes advised Rahm to "lay up" or play conservatively. Instead, Rahm decided a lay up would create a more difficult next shot, so he went against his caddie's advice and went for the green in two. The end result: He hit the ball into the water and ended up with a bogey 6 on the par 5. From that point on, Rahm was unable to recover and seemed to let his temper affect his playing.

In the business world, top executives, especially the CEO, have to be as careful as any pro golfer when it comes to taking or not taking advice. Who is qualified to give the people at the top of an organization advice?

Should Have Listened
It cost Rahm a lot of money and a huge amount of embarrassment when he did so poorly on the 11th hole and then lost the tournament. Rory McIlroy earned $2.25 million, while Rahm earned $253,125 after ending in 12th place. Typical of today's technology saturated environment, the conversation Hayes and Rahm had was recorded and briefly posted on the PGA Tour social channels for all to hear. It was quickly deleted, but not before millions watched it.

Naturally, social media posters had plenty of their own advice to give, with much of it boiled down to "Rahm should have listened to his caddie." However, there were some supportive tweets, and one of them goes to the heart of leadership. It said, "The player is the boss. Sometimes bosses make bad decisions. This was a perfect case in point."

Rahm was the professional who had earned his right to be playing in the tournament. He chose to go with his instincts, and this time they were wrong. One tweet pointed out that people would be talking about what a great golfer Rahm is if he had made the shot after not following the caddie's advice. Probably the caddie would have been the target of negative tweets, too.

People who rise to the top are challenged with first, finding people who can offer sound advice, and second, deciding whether to follow the advice.

Jeff Immelt, prior CEO of General Electric, advised the new CEO, John Flannery, that "every job looks easy when you're not the one doing it." Immelt had been roundly criticized for his leadership of the company, but in all fairness he was leading a company faced with enormous and unique challenges, like the impact of the last recession. However, it was generally known that he would not accept bad news and so feedback on relentless positive over-confidence was not useful and kept the company going in the same direction – down.

Advice is Not Always Cheap
An effective leader takes advice from others, but like Rahm, must decide which advice to follow.

Managers at every level of an organization should be willing to seek honest advice from a variety of people, internally and externally, and then weigh the options. Listening to diverse perspectives and ideas promotes balanced and authentic decision-making. The next step is to choose what is deemed the best advice and use that to develop a path forward.

Instincts are good, but they are not enough in a dynamic business environment. It is important at any management level to listen and learn. Many top executives fail simply because they "know better" than anyone else. A better approach is to listen, give feedback, listen some more, take the pieces that make sense based on personal knowledge and experience, and then put the pieces together to create a strategy.

Did Rahm learn anything from the experience of not taking his caddie's advice? Chances are he at least learned to be wary of microphones and the speed of social media opinions. Rahm is a professional, and it is not the first time a professional golfer has made a poor decision. The question is whether he can win the next tournament and the one after that.

Immelt was involved in the six-year selection process of choosing a new CEO. He said, "We don't put John in place for what he knows, we put him in place for how fast we think he can learn."

Did golfer Rahm learn from thinking about the reasons the caddie suggested a lay up? Did he learn from his mistakes on the following holes? Did he learn that he needs to control his temper and maintain equilibrium in order to reach peak performance?

Everyone is an Advisor
The caddy can help the professional golfer. Phil Mickelson's caddie, Jim Mackay, is known to be the voice of reason to his boss, tempering Mickelson's temptations to gamble on the golf course. Despite his propensity to gamble, Mickelson is known as the analytical golfer who believes the more information, the better. Mickelson and his caddie have conversations about upcoming shots, and Mickelson carefully considers all his options before making a decision about the shot to play. They collaborate, meaning Mickelson respects his caddy's ideas and perspective. Chances are, Mickelson learns from each conversation, extracts what is relevant, combines it with prior knowledge, and makes a decision.

Who can advise top executives? The right answer is everyone can. It is one reason successful CEOs are known to regularly mingle with and talk to employees at every level. Some regularly wander into break rooms or unexpectedly visit production floors. Getting diverse perspectives is important for any manager, even the ones at the top.

There are plenty of accomplished business people and professional golfers who have lost the game because they "knew better."