A Small But Important Piece of Advice for Aspiring Young Women Professionals - Be Able to Talk Sports

You've probably heard of Coach K, Mike Krzyzewski, the renowned head coach of the Duke University basketball team. Over his 33 years at Duke, Coach K has become the winningest coach in college basketball history, 12-time Coach of the Year, and winner of 4 NCAA Championships (1991, 1992, 2001, 2010) and 4 Olympic Gold Medals as head coach of USA Men's National Team.

But you may well not have heard of Sanyin Siang. Sanyin is Executive Director of the Coach K Center on Leadership & Ethics at Duke's Fuqua School of Business. In addition to partnering with Coach K in propagating his leadership formula from the court into the world of business, Sanyin is a renowned in her own right, with influentialwritings on leadership, ethics, and technology in Fortune, Forbes and the Huffington Post, among others. I spoke with Sanyin recently about career strategies for aspiring young professionals and she offered a piece of advice for young women in particular that is as simple and concrete as it is effective.

Be comfortable talking sports.

In her leadership advisory work, Sanyin said that she has detected an unmistakable pattern among female CEOs. “They all have great sports awareness.” This may sound frivolous at best or male chauvinist at worst. But it’s remarkable how often sports come into play in “drive-by” conversations outside of meetings and formal professional situations.

Not unlike talking about the weather, sports are a great equalizer and conversation starter. But better than the weather, they are a catalyst in relationship building, especially in a business world where you have to interact with men. Finding common interests around sports and who you root for touches people emotionally. Therefore, as an aspiring young woman in business, you don’t want to be ignorant or uninterested in sports.

It’s especially memorable to men when a woman is knowledgeable and conversant about sports, especially in those settings where informal, but important judgments are made. That is likely to be at the office cafeteria, in the conference room before a presentation starts, during pleasantries at the beginning of a client meeting, or even at the start of a job interview. In small but perceptible ways, it creates an impression of power to be able to talk about how the U.S. team fared against Germany in the final group match in the World Cup, or how after Rory McIlroy won the British Open he was the third-youngest player to become a three-time major champion (after Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus), or how the San Antonio Spurs’ five NBA titles put them behind only the Boston Celtics, Los Angeles Lakers, and Chicago Bulls on the all-time list.

If you want a little help on how to talk sports, Sanyin is also co-founder of The SportsQuip, a weekly compendium that will give you just what you need to know.

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