Death, Taxes & the Maple Leafs, part 2

By Pascal Dennis

Last time, I reflected on the catastrophic failure of one of ice hockey’s most iconic teams, the Toronto Maple Leafs.

The Leafs have made the NHL playoffs exactly once these past 11 years, and have not won the Stanley Cup in 48 years. In their first half century, by contrast, the Leafs won 11 Stanley Cups, and were famous for their tenacity and grit.

In a Fan’s Five-Why Analysis (FFWA, ahem), I suggested the root causes include a) disengaged senior management for whom profitability is paramount, and b) market failure (no competition).

If so, what are possible countermeasures? Or are Leaf fans doomed to eternal suffering, like, say, Chicago Cubs fans?

Root Cause 1 – Indifferent Ownership Focused Solely on Profitability

Possible countermeasures include:

• Fan boycott,
• Maple Leafs are bought by a sympathetic billionaire who loves them, and doesn’t mind ‘under-performing’ investments.

Root Cause 2 – Market Failure (no competition)

This systemic failure which requires a systemic countermeasure. To wit,

• The NHL approves a second (or third) southern Ontario NHL franchise. This is turn might require a change of NHL By-Laws to reduce MLSE’s veto power.

How likely are such countermeasures? Snowballs and the Inferno come to mind. (One wag suggested a banner be erected at the Leafs’ home stadium: Abandon all hope, all ye who enter!)

Sadly, the fan’s’ only countermeasure is the boycott, which many, including me, have embraced. For five years now, I have been an avid follower of the splendid Chicago Black Hawks, and their captain, Jonathan Toews.

As it happens, the Maple Leafs once had such a captain - George Armstrong. ‘Army’ led the Leafs’ legendary 1960’s teams that won four Stanley Cups.

Army is also a member of my gym – a gentle giant, still ram-rod straight and pumping iron in his 80’s.

Talking to Army, I’m struck by his humility. “We considered it an honor to play for the Leafs,” he told me. “That blue & white jersey meant something.”

“It sure meant a lot to me,” I replied. Army’s response reminded me of the New Zealand All Blacks motto: Leave the jersey in a better place.

I leave you with one of my earliest hockey memories: Game Six of the 1967 Stanley Cup finals, Maple Leafs versus their arch rivals, the Montreal Canadiens.

Less than a minute to play, the crowd is going nuts. George Armstrong wins the face off. The puck goes to Allan Stanley, who relays it back to Army at the blue line.

Army looks up, shoots and scores. Maple Leafs win the Stanley Cup.

Best,

Pascal

Pascal Dennis Bio

Death, Taxes & the Maple Leafs, part 1

By Pascal Dennis

Trust our northern hemisphere readers are bearing up with winter – and our southern hemisphere colleagues with summer!

Not a bad winter so far in the Great White North, bright blue skies, and less snow than usual. For fans of the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey club, however, it’s another winter of discontent. The Maple Leafs, one of ice hockey’s iconic teams has made the NHL playoffs exactly once these past 11 years, and has not won the Stanley Cup in 48 years. In their first half century, by contrast, the Leafs won 11 Stanley Cups, and were famous for their tenacity and grit.

This year the Leafs are cellar-dwellers once again, having now lost 11 straight games, and 17 out of 20. Yet, Maple Leafs Sports and Entertainment (MLSE) continues to earn record profits. Such is the appetite for hockey in Ontario. Can you imagine Bayern Munich, the New York Yankees, New Zealand’s legendary All-Blacks or any other team sinking so low? Didn’t think so.

When things go this bad, this long, there must be ‘special causes’. (You may recall, dear reader, my earlier philippics.)

What are these causes? And are there management and life lessons in the Maple Leafs’ demise? I hope you’ll indulge me a Fan’s Five-Why Analysis - (ahem, FFWA…).

Five Why Analysis – 1st Chain

Why has the richest team in the NHL sunk so low? Because the players aren’t very good and they don’t care.

2nd Why? Because the general manager, and coaches aren’t very good and don’t care. (As a result, management processes around the team are lousy)

3rd Why? Because senior management doesn’t care that their general manager, coaches and players aren’t very good and don’t care – and that the management processes around the team are lousy.

4th Why? Because senior management is focused on making money, not on sporting excellence. (MLSE’s avarice is notorious, and begins with $ 16 dollar beer, and $ 12 dollar hot dogs.)

5th Why? Because they have no emotional connection to the team, fans or community. (For example, neither the President, nor General Manager live anywhere near Toronto or have meaningful interaction with the community.)

Five Why Analysis – 2nd Chain, breaks off at 5th Why

4th Why? Because senior management is focused on making money, not on sporting excellence.

5th Why? Sporting excellence does not help MLSE make money. At least one senior executive has admitted, infamously, that MLSE makes more money when the team is marginal.

6th Why? There is no competition. The NHL has granted the Leafs a de facto monopoly in a hockey mad region. Applications for new NHL teams in southern Ontario have been repeatedly rejected (after intense lobbying from MLSE).

In summary, the root causes of the Leafs’ catastrophic failure include a) disengaged senior management for whom profitability is paramount, and b) market failure aided & abetted by the NHL.

There are other root causes, of course, which a detailed investigation would uncover. But these seem central to me, and to most other commentators.

A sorry state of affairs! Next time – are there any possible countermeasures? Do forlorn Leafs fans have any hope?

PS Here’s a funny link expressing the depth of fan dismay

Best,

Pascal

Pascal Dennis Bio

One for the All Blacks

By Pascal Dennis

The Maple Leafs – Lowest of the Low blog generated fine feedback - and not a few catcalls from disaffected fans! Thanks, everyone.

Tip of the cap to Mike Butler, my Kiwi friend & colleague, for excellent insights into the nature of excellence in sport, and in life.

Something remarkable has been happening with New Zealand’s legendary All Blacks rugby squad since their disappointments in the mid-aughts.

First, commitment to a set of principles [Here]

Second, an unshakeable focus on the process. [Here]

The AB’s purpose is elegantly expressed: “Leave the jersey in better place.”

Living by a code and focusing on the process takes fortitude, the ancient word for courage.

(”Says easy, does hard”, as we used to say in the old Toyota factory.)

When things are going badly for a business, temptation whispers, “It’s mid-year, and we’re losing the game. To heck with our process!”

In a panic, the management team jettisons its strategy and starts pressing random buttons. (“Something is bound to happen!)

In fact, things usually get worse, because we’ve added random variation to the system.

Don’t want to be misunderstood. By all means review target versus actual, both for end-of-pipe and process measures, and adjust as needed.

But follow the strategy deployment process. Grasp the situation with respect to gaps, go see for yourself, and involve team members in improvement.

Come to think of, this sounds like the AB’s process.

Best,

Pascal

Pascal Dennis Bio

Toronto Maple Leafs – the Lowest of the Low, Part 2

By Pascal Dennis

Thanks all, for fine feedback on part 1 of this blog.

The management and leadership lessons therein seemed to resonate with people:

Monopoly corrupts.

If you treat your customers with disrespect, you eventually lose your soul.

Purpose is more than just dollars and cents.

Here are a few more put forth by our readers:

• Culture is what people do every day. To change culture, you have to change your daily activity
• Humility is a foundation of all lasting improvement. Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment (MLSE) is probably run by arrogant ‘suits’
• Total involvement is another cornerstone. How involved are Maple Leaf team members, playing and non-playing?

All are fine insights. I would add that Culture, our daily activity, is the bridge between today and our Purpose (aka Future State, Vision etc.).

Each team member’s daily actions are another brick, if you will, in this bridge. The leader’s job is to continually reinforce the key actions.

Simple, really, and very hard to initiate and sustain for reasons this blog seeks to illuminate.

A number of you asked, “How come you still support this lousy team?”

Actually, I stopped supporting the Maple Leafs years ago. But MLSE remains a rich store of management & leadership lessons (in a negative, but no less helpful way).

Canada’s national teams where the maple leaf with distinction, and that’s enough for me.

Lastly, our Kiwi colleagues kindly pointed out that the All Blacks are New Zealand’s team, not just Auckland’s.

Quite so – mea culpa. A tip of the cap to the Silver Fern, the AB’s famous logo.

Long may they run.

Best regards,

Pascal

Pascal Dennis Bio

Toronto Maple Leafs – the Lowest of the Low

By Pascal Dennis

It’s official folks. The Toronto Maple Leafs hockey club is officially the worst sports franchise in North America.

ESPN ranked sports franchises according to a range of attributes including Affordability, Coaching, Fan Relations, Ownership Honesty, On-field Leadership, Stadium Experience, and Bang for the Buck.

The Maple Leafs ranked 122 out of 122! They also scored dead last in affordability, ownership honesty and fan relations.

A remarkable achievement, when you think of it. Toronto is arguably the heart of the hockey world. The Maple Leaf logo is iconic and goes back almost a century.

Imagine Auckland having the world’s worst rugby team; Munich, the world’s worst soccer team, or New York, the world’s worst baseball team. (I can hear Met’s fans saying, ‘But we do!”)

The All Blacks, Bayern Munich, and the New York Yankees don’t always win, but they never shame their uniform.

Are there any management and leadership lessons in the Maple Leafs sad decline?

1. Monopoly corrupts.

The Maple Leafs have for decades used their veto powers to keep competitors out of the world’s most lucrative hockey market. (To its discredit, the National Hockey League has let them do so.)

2. If you treat your customers with disrespect, you eventually lose your soul.

Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment (MLSE) are notoriously heartless ‘suits’. They regularly offend and abuse their fans by squeezing every last nickel out of ‘their asset’.

Sadly, the addiction to hockey is so deep, demand is ‘inelastic’, as the suits would say. Insiders suggest MLSE’s cost-benefit analysis indicates they make more money when the team is bad.

3. Purpose is more than just dollars and cents.

MLSE evidently believes their Purpose is solely to increase shareholder value. Jack Welch calls this ‘the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard’.

Can anyone imagine the All Blacks, Bayern Munich or any splendid sports organization taking such a position?

Are fans, employees and the community not stakeholders? How long-lasting is financial success if you lose their respect and loyalty?

I’m reminded of Toyota’s iconic logo – the three ovals. It’s significance was explained to me during my first week there.

“Something for our company, something for our team members, something for our community.”

Is Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment capable of improving? Or are they the bizarre exception that proves the laws of management and leadership?

Financial collapse will take a long time. MLSE has a monopoly and Maple Leaf fans, (like NFL fans), are deeply addicted.

Until then, BOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!

Pascal Dennis Bio

Leadership, Character the Biblical Collapse of the Maple Leafs, Part 2

By Pascal Dennis

Last blog I described the latest humiliating collapse of the Toronto Maple Leafs, forty-seven years now without a Stanley Cup.

The Leafs are the Chicago Cubs of hockey. They always find a way to not only lose, but to do so in the most disturbing manner possible.

The Maple Leafs’ latest debacle can only be described as biblical – evoking as it does the Book of Exodus and its locusts, frogs, and storms of fire.

I suggested that the difference between great teams and also-rans is mental. Great teams invariably have great character and leadership. Therein must lie the root causes of the Leafs demise.

So what is character? What is leadership? What can the Leafs latest demise teach us?

Character has spawned libraries full of books. What is good character? I’ve found no better definition than that of the great James Q. Wilson: Character entails a) self-control, and b) consideration for others.

The Maple Leafs are notoriously lax defensively – fatal in a high-speed transition game like hockey where you go from offence to defence in a flash.

Leafs players frequently shirk their defensive responsibilities in pursuit of ‘heroics’ – a sign of weak character?

“I want to be the hero – I can’t help it! If it hurts my team, so what?” Inevitably, they get caught and it’s 1-nil. To be fair, the Leafs are a young team and young players need mentors that will help them develop character.

The Canadian men’s Olympic hockey team behaved in precisely the opposite manner. Coach Mike Babcock and his team of superstars emphasized the importance of ‘playing the right way’.

In a tournament full of brilliant teams, this means, above all, meeting one’s defensive responsibilities. And so we saw Sydney Crosby, Jonathan Toews and other brilliant talents eschewing heroics for the common good. A team of superstars – in skill and character.

On the Maple Leafs, by contrast, there are no consequences for selfish behavior. Nobody is held accountable.

Leadership entails defining Purpose, communicating it tirelessly, developing a shared plan to achieve Purpose, and holding the team accountable.

The Leafs current captain, Dion Phaneuf, and their prize off-season acquisition, Dave Clarkson, seem uninterested in doing so. Need we say, accountability builds character?

(Maple Leafs management is surely part of the problem. Both Phaneuf and Clarkson recently signed guaranteed multi-year mega-contracts, despite marginal achievement.)

Contrast this behavior with that of great champions: Michael Jordan, Tim Duncan, Mark Messier, Derek Jeter…

A TV interviewer recently asked a Jeter teammate, “What’s the best thing about playing with Derek Jeter?”

“Derek’s always got your back,” he replied. Leadership means putting the needs of the team first. By doing so, everybody wins, including you.

Is it any surprise that Derek Jeter is beloved in New York? Or that Alex Rodriguez, the anti-Jeter, is despised? Good leadership is rooted in ethics. Good ethics is good business.

In summary, in my view the Maple Leafs biblical demise is rooted in weak character and poor leadership. Players seek individual glory and the big pay-off, even at the expense of the team.

Team ‘leaders’ are self-interested and hold nobody accountable. Senior management lavishly rewards them. The absence of accountability holds young players back.

And year after year, the team fails catastrophically at the critical time. (Oh well, I still have the Black Hawks…)

Now we’d like to hear from you.

What are the best, and worst, sports teams – and why?
Who are the best, and worst, sports team leaders – and why?

Best regards

Pascal Dennis Bio