Toward a Strategic Future – Why?

Toward a Strategic Future – Why?

By Todd Powless

The typical Ontario lacrosse person may not like this.

I recall a conversation with a local lacrosse builder years back.  I suggested that the promotion of lacrosse in Ontario needed to take a new direction, specifically marketing to new Canadians, especially the parents.  The way to do this, I explained, was that we needed to appeal to immigrant parents in, their native language, in Hindi, Pakistani, Hanzi, Mandarin and so on.  His response was not so subtle, but to the point: “we can’t even get the white kids to sign up, why worry about anyone else?”

Ouch. 

I had to admit that my OLA award-winning, Junior champion, club-building colleague was correct in his observation and to this day that attitude still holds (mostly) true. At least from my somewhat involved OLA user-client perspective. 

Lacrosse still has an image problem.

If you want to see for yourself, check out the OLA’s media page, or even the photos accompanying the news items on the OLA’s homepage.  What you will see in those images is a sport that is predominantly male, white, and English.  (I cringe using the word “white,” but I don’t think it will serve any good sugar-coating the problem.)  Take a look at the composition of the OLA’s Board of Directors or staff and what do you see? 

Yes, there are some women in Board and staff roles and that is great, but the case can be made as to how they got involved in the administration of lacrosse in the first place.  And, when they look around the room, do they see ethnic diversity to any degree?  I don’t think they do.

Now, before anyone gets in a knot over the use of the word “diversity,” none of what I am saying has anything to do with merit.  I know most of those people on the Board and staff, and all of them deserve to be there.  We are better for them being there in fact.  Diversity doesn’t mean someone isn’t worthy or that someone will lose their position “because.”

Over two years ago the OLA recognized diversity as a serious strategic problem that needed to be addressed.  Here’s the proof: some time before the autumn of 2022, the OLA discussed strategic directions for the association and agreed that the first two points of the official Strategic Plan would be - in the Lacrosse for Everyone section - Breaking Down Barriers of Participation and Fostering a Culture of Diversity and Inclusion.  The plan is right there on their website for all to see.

My apologies if I missed the memo, the module, the poster, or the handshake, but I am not seeing any diversity efforts on behalf of the OLA.  What I see, when I go to the rinks for games and tournaments, is reflected in those photos posted on the OLA website.  Of course, I see Indigenous kids and parents at the rinks, and I do see a scattering of Black & People of Colour here and there, but no more in number than I saw all those years ago when my learned colleague offered his blunt assessment.

Anecdotes make for lousy policy, I know.  Let’s try some basic statistics: according to the Wikipedia article on the ethnicity of the GTA, from Durham to Halton, slightly more than 55% of the population is BIPOC -  Black, Indigenous, & People of Colour (from the 2021 census – likely even a bigger percentage now).  From a business perspective – and certainly this perspective should be front and center with the OLA - that is a huge market – over 3.35 million prospective OLA clients.  Capturing even 1% of that market would almost double OLA registrations.  Imagine capturing 2% or 5% of that market!

I’ve always maintained the opinion that lacrosse does a wonderful job of promoting itself to itself.   Products and services, special deals and events – we, in the lacrosse community, get every opportunity to access this vital information.  The best example of this are the unaffiliated third-party “elite” clubs that promote their special programs to kids already involved in lacrosse.  (Even the OLA is getting into elite-centric promotions now.)  The problem with this promoting-to-ourselves concept is that it does practically nothing to recruit new registrants, let alone contribute to the diversity side of Strategic Planning.

If one is not involved in lacrosse already, either through the direct contact of registration or through family or friends, chances are they know very little about lacrosse, how it works, what the game is really like, what levels are involved, or how they can participate.  I am betting that 98% of that GTA BIPOC demographic doesn’t even know what lacrosse is or if they do know of lacrosse, it is from a peripheral exposure that originated outside of lacrosse promotional efforts.  (I am not aware of how many sign-ups were generated by American Pie, but again, white, male, English)

“It is important to understand that this is a strategic plan, as opposed to an operational plan or action plan. This strategic plan is meant to provide an inspiring vision, clear mission, strong fundamental values and the key strategic goals and objectives that can be achieved with impactful actions. Each stakeholder in the game is responsible for developing and aligning their own strategic and operational action plans to deliver upon the strategic plan.” – Summary to the OLA Strategic Plan

The OLA Strategic Plan unequivocally states that a (better) effort – from all of us - needs to be made towards inclusion and diversity.  What are the timelines and milestones?  What are the deliverables?  What are the measurables to determine whether the plan is working or not?  How do we connect or align the local club level strategic goals to the expected OLA objectives?  

There are downloadable Google sheets from the OLA Strategic Planning Guide, but there is no rationale provided for the Key Performance Indicators (KPI) or what targets should be or why.  There are more questions than answers. The leadership of this important strategy appears to be a 5-page guide devoid of very important details.  This is not good.  And this is where it gets confusing:

“Gather the leaders of the organization and have them independently input ideas to help the club achieve the objectives under each strategic direction. You might want to assign one strategic direction/or objective to each member of your leadership team and have them lead the charge for getting that direction/objective fleshed out. This process should empower people throughout the organization to come up with their own projects and is a great way to gain momentum and buy-in to the strategic plan.” – pg. 5, Strategic Plan Implementation Guide

I would expect the “leaders of the organization” to include the OLA Board of Directors and staff as the first group of stakeholders in their Strategic Plan.  I would expect these leaders to show the way, by example, by resourcing, by encouragement, by communications, etc.

Again, I apologize if I missed the memo, but I believe I have been fairly connected to things OLA in the past few years and I am not seeing the results of any efforts by the OLA to enact the diversity slice of their own Strategic Plan. If the OLA operates on a top-down governance model, shouldn’t they show us the way by showing us the results of their efforts as the example?

In my experience, operational and action plans are aligned with the strategic plan, so I would expect the OLA to have done this in the subsequent years since their Strategic Plan was published.  I am not expecting operational plans to be published on the OLA website, but it would be beneficial if the results of the Strategic Plan were published, the statistics, the demographics, and so on, for all interested public parties to view, not just OLA members.

The OLA Board & staff are there to provide leadership services for their membership.  Or am I mistaken in thinking that?  If they are going to create important initiatives – strategic plans that all other organizational plans need to align with - I believe it is a top priority to act in a transparent and timely manner.  It’s been two years, what has been done – nothing?

Finally, I use “diversity” here as an example of just one of the inclusionary targets of the OLA Strategic Plan.  It is a fairly visible outcome that anyone can be confirm by experience as is gender, abilities and, to a certain extent, language.  There are other inclusion targets, less visible, that I hope are on the radar of the OLA including income, affordability, the reputation for lacrosse as a violent game, and probably a few others you can think of. 

It goes without saying that diversity and inclusion in all of these strategic portfolios is beneficial to everyone, not just the target groups. How we get to that benefit is another question altogether, but we need to get there, sooner than later.