Well, you know, I’m going to say something that might be provocative to some of your listeners, but I’m going to say it, say it anyway, and that is, I think part of the reason that DEI is under attack is because we haven’t reframed it. We haven’t reframed DEI in a way that a lot of people who have preconceived notions about what that means can hear it, and what I mean by that is, throughout my career, in my careers, I’ve never had DEI in the title of any of my jobs.
DEI is not part of my job right now– growth is what my job is about and I would say DEI is about growth, and that reframing of that for our owners changed the nature of the kind of conversation we were having, and I started with presenting them with the data and the facts right when I started this job, almost seven years ago.
One of the first things that we did was we had the Brookings Institute overlay our hockey markets with their demographic longitudinal data. And what we learned was seven years ago, 23 of our markets were already in states and in locations where this idea of minority was a misnomer. If they were going to grow their business and grow their fan bases in those 23 states, they were going to have to embrace difference, and that alone– that data set, for our owners and our presidents, our CMOS, changed the nature of the conversation.
We never once talked about DEI, we talked about demographic growth. Who your fan of the future is, and how are you going to position your business to attract that fan? And I think that if we reframe this conversation and start getting people to focus on who your future fans, consumers, stakeholders, and employees are, we might change the nature of how people are viewing this DEI moment.
