Mike Ishizaka’s Future Golf Diary Vol. 5: How the Pandemic Convinced Me We Need to Update How We Work and Play

Fostering play as a part of life: As Golf Digest Online (GDO) entered its 21st year as a company, it announced a new slogan, “PLAY YOUR LIFE,” and a new vision: “Working toward a tolerant society where diversity is respected and life is enjoyable for everyone.” Today, GDO CEO Mike Ishizaka shares his thoughts on work and play, and describes the concept behind and efforts of GDO Chigasaki Golf Links as a “test bed” for new ideas.

——These days, everyone is talking about changing the way we work. But GDO was promoting remote work even before the pandemic. And now, strangely, it seems that approach is helping us stay running smoothly even as COVID-19 upends people’s lives all over the world.

Since GDO’s beginnings, we’ve always tried to make people’s working conditions as comfortable as possible, rather than just making them switch to “work mode” when they come to the office. One simple way to do that is to keep things tidy. From 2006, at the time of the office relocation to Toranomon, we implemented a “free address” system where employees don’t have fixed desks; the goal was to keep clutter to a minimum and avoid having desks covered in piles of papers like you used to see. When we first moved offices in 2006, we kept printing to a minimum, installed projectors, and saved documents to cloud servers to make our workplace eco-friendly. Then, when we moved to our Higashi-Gotanda office in 2016, we refined it even further by, for example, streamlining our workspaces. I think it’s fair to say it was mostly thanks to this paperless, free-address approach that we were able to switch so seamlessly to full remote work when the COVID-19 outbreak hit in February 2020.

ーーGDO’s Higashi-Gotanda office has a “Clubhouse”, a lounge-style space where people can work, relax, eat lunch, and even hold large meetings and events. With almost everyone working remotely, do you think there are people who miss going to the office?

Who could have predicted that things would be like this under COVID-19, right? We introduced the “Clubhouse” to give people a shared space where they can switch on and off at work at their own discretion and for their own needs. These days, people are forced to create their own work environments at home, and they have to switch on and off there. Our goal for the “Clubhouse” was to make it easier for people to make that switch at work. But even now, with the home office replacing the actual office, I feel like our employees have managed to adapt pretty flexibly.

ーーYou have a keen interest in how people work, but at the same time you also care about how they play. And for a long time you’ve observed that in many respects, Japan is intolerant with respect to how people play. Can you tell us a bit about the new slogan, “PLAY YOUR LIFE”?

I think that fundamentally, golf—the heart of GDO’s business—is all about play. But in Japan, golf was originally used as an extension of work. It was more formal and more rule-bound than in Europe or North America, and harder for ordinary folks to get into. Golf had a reputation as something that kept men away from their families. Fathers would get up early on the weekends and be gone all day. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, of course, but I always thought, even before starting the company, that there should be more types of golf to choose from. 

In Europe and North America, golf is often something that families enjoy together. The huge boom in golf we’ve seen in the US during COVID is, in a lot of cases, a result of families going out to play. In Japan, by contrast, there are almost no courses where you can take a young child who’s never played before. Golf is supposed to be a game, and yet too often it’s still a stiff, formal affair limited to a small group of people. My hope is to change that culture and give people more options for playing golf. If more people could play golf on their own terms, they’d have more chances to enjoy their lives and broaden their perspectives. It was with that hope in mind that we created our new slogan, “PLAY YOUR LIFE.” 

ーーYou’re now living in the US. Has the COVID-19 pandemic changed the way you work and play?

Yes on both counts, and in a big way. What’s more, it’s cemented my attitudes toward work and play. In terms of how I work, the move to the US and the pandemic have led me to adopt a “discontinuous” work style. I eat breakfast with my family and then spend two hours in virtual meetings. Then around noon I go grocery shopping with the family. In the afternoon, I have more meetings and then play a few holes at a nearby golf course. And after dinner, I have about two more hours of meetings. As I mentioned before, I’ve been encouraging employees to switch on and off at work since before the pandemic, but since COVID hit that on/off switch has become a reality for me, and it’s given me a better sense for the different possibilities for using your day. 

As for how I play, about 70% of the rounds I’ve played in the US have been less than 18 holes. Sometimes I’m done after 6 holes. Because both my family and I are at home all the time, in the evenings I often go to a course where I’m a member and play 6 or 9 holes with my kids. It’s opened my eyes to golf’s potential as something you can enjoy casually. 

ーーI think it might be a while yet before you can play just 6 holes of golf in Japan.

For sure, it might be hard for people living in the city because they don’t have courses nearby. But with remote work becoming more common, more people now have the options to take workcations or split their time between city and suburbs. By taking advantage of those options, they can integrate golf more closely into their lives. Even playing just a few holes could become a realistic possibility. 

ーーGDO now operates its own course, GDO Chigasaki Golf Links. Do you see it as a model for “PLAY YOUR LIFE”?

It wasn’t my intent originally to operate our own course. But it’s close to our Tokyo office, and I figured if we could lease instead of own, we could use it as a test bed for new ways to make effective use of golf courses. Initially, I was even thinking about moving our main office to Chigasaki; now that would have been one heck of an experiment. We’ve used the course to try out a variety of ideas, including as a model for “PLAY YOUR LIFE.” And we’ve actively shared both our successes and our failures with other courses across Japan, the aim being for them to learn from our experience. 

ーーLastly, do you have any ideas for future initiatives at GDO Chigasaki Golf Links that you can share with us?

GDO Chigasaki Golf Links itself has only 9 holes, so space is limited, but I’d like to build out the “work” part of it a bit, such as with a satellite office or a training facility. That way, we’d be able to work and play without changing location. And it’s easy to access—only about an hour from Tokyo—so I’m also thinking it would be nice to have lodging facilities there, like for example a campground or motor homes. With the option to stay overnight, you could effectively combine work with play and make even more productive use of your time.