hockey

Jan 22, 2015

When is it okay to have your most loyal customers arrested?

Whether you’re a hockey fan or not, you have to admit that the Toronto Maple Leafs brand is addictively interesting.  In fact, I can’t think of a single company whose financial success has absolutely nothing to do with the quality of its product.

Ranked by Forbes Magazine as the National Hockey League’s most valuable franchise, we should be able to point to the Toronto Maple Leafs organization as a bastion of best practices, innovation and vision.  Instead, we see an organization that has fired at least two V.P.s, two assistant coaches and a head coach in the last six months and is paying at least three players millions of dollars in severance as they play for other teams.  Yet, despite its consistent underperformance as a team, the Leafs manage to pack their arena for every single game and draw Canada’s largest NHL television audience.  Is it mass hypnosis?  Is it a cult?

The latest intriguing bit of brand-building from the Leafs organization is a crack-down on Leaf fans who throw their jerseys onto the ice at the Air Canada Centre.  Not only are the jersey throwers ejected from the game they’re watching, but they’re also banned from Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment venues for a specified period and issued a police summons.  So, to sum up, a Toronto Maple Leafs customer spends probably between one and two hundred dollars for a ticket, between one hundred and one hundred and seventy dollars for a Maple Leafs jersey and in a fit of frustration because the team is playing indifferently, throws said jersey onto the ice.

I guess my question to the Toronto Maple Leafs organization is, ‘why would you want to punish a loyal customer who is willing to give you about three hundred dollars and is already cruelly disappointed by the quality of your product?  Hasn’t he suffered enough?  Why would you not take the fan quietly aside and tell him how much you appreciate his continued patronage and abjectly apologize for the performance and attitude of his beloved team?  Why would you not give him his jersey back with the, wink wink, promise that you’ll try to do better in the future and give him a $12 beer on the house?

Someday, the curse on the Leafs will lift and the team will win a Stanley Cup.  Either that, or the blue magic spell will wear off and Leafs customers will stop caring and spend their money somewhere else.  I know which scenario I’m betting on.

By

Category: Branding, Spyder Works

Tags: , ,

3 Comments

May 28, 2012

The right vision can inspire innovation, passion and pride

Originally published on May 23, 2012 as a Special to Globe and Mail Update

the globe and mail canada

As Canadians, many of us understand the enormous power of a vision. Just imagine holding the Stanley Cup over your head. Millions of fans share a passion for the quest for hockey’s greatest trophy and we continue to believe that the right people, with the right plan, will someday make it happen for our team.

In the corporate world, your goals may not be summed up as neatly as they are in a single gleaming trophy. Nonetheless, your vision for your organization must fuel your people’s hopes and dreams. Your vision should be more than a bottom line or a number on a sales chart. It should be a tangible big-picture goal that galvanizes your people and exemplifies the pride – and the values – of your entire organization.

Professional hockey players will leap off their sick beds or skate on broken legs to play in a Stanley Cup final, driven by that vision of drinking from the Cup or flashing their Stanley Cup rings. To get similar commitments from your team members, your organization must invest time and energy to create lofty, future-oriented visions that everyone can share.

Crafting your vision statement is more than a goal-setting exercise. The process of envisioning and articulating the future offers a singular opportunity to gather the whole team together to build a consensus around not just the organization’s objectives, but also its purpose. With an aspirational vision that goes beyond the company and the immediate needs of its customers, you can create a powerful new springboard for growth and innovation.

To me, the responsibility of articulating an organizational vision belongs to the CEO. As the boss, you are your company’s chief innovation officer. Through the creation of a specific and compelling vision, you can also become chief inspiration officer. Consider Jack Welch, who reignited people’s passion for the behemoth known as General Electric by announcing that GE would exit any industry in which it could not be the clear No. 1 or No. 2 in the market. He focused the company on eliminating waste, trimming bureaucracy and upgrading its products and processes in order to serve customers better – a much more tangible goal than his predecessors’ objective of increasing shareholder value.

With the right mission and vision, you too can tap the true creativity and passion of your people; those deep reserves that most people don’t bring to work unless they’re fired up and striving for meaningful goals.

As an entrepreneur, you have an advantage as an inspirational leader. It was likely your vision of creating something new – a product or service that was much better than anything that came before – that spawned your organization in the first place. Keep that vision alive. Update it and share it. Your singular vision will bolster the energy and clarity of your whole team. It will act as a beacon to guide future decisions and rally others – customers, suppliers, and other potential partners – around your mission.

My advice: Keep your vision lofty. Of course it must be doable – but maybe it shouldn’t be too easy. To drink from the Stanley Cup, your team must win four hard-fought best-of-seven playoff series against equally fired-up opposition. That’s what makes a vision so powerful; who knows when you will have a chance like this again? Make sure your vision appeals to the highest and best values of your team – and keep the pressure on.

By

Category: Culture, Icicle, Spyder Works

Tags: , , , , , ,

No comments