To break the ice at a frosty executive meeting where she had to deliver a presentation to a cadre of stoic male clients, Mona Robbins pulled off a classic double play.
”I started talking business and baseball,” said the 27-year-old account executive, smirking as if she had smacked a rare inside-the-park home run. ”I brought up the latest Mets debacle and within minutes we were chatting like old friends.”
Being well-versed in the language of sports has helped women such as Robbins and Mary Helen Coulston, another diehard Mets fan, ease their way into jock-locked business networks.
”Sports is a great equalizer,” said Coulston, 32, an oncology pharmacist at Memorial Sloan-Kettering. ”When you start talking about last night`s game, there`s an instant rapport with men-especially the difficult ones.”
As more women climb through the corporate ranks and find themselves in the position of entertaining male clients and colleagues, they`re fast discovering what a social lubricant sports can be. Instead of oiling the deal with business dinners at a stuffy midtown boite, women are opting for the hot dogs, knishes, slam dunks and blind-side tackles that only a ballpark, arena or stadium can deliver.
Knowing sports ”is a way of becoming `one of the boys` without losing your professionalism,” said Lisa Wise, a sales consultant for the New Jersey Nets basketball team. She recently hosted a ”Women and Sports” night to acquaint businesswomen with sports` benefits to their careers.
Debbi Fields, the percolating power behind the Mrs. Fields cookie empire, said her days as a teenage bat girl for the Oakland A`s gave her the competitive edge she needed to cook up one of the decade`s great success stories. ”I always felt that if I could handle famous ballplayers, I could handle any businessman, lawyer, or banker,” said Fields, 32. ”No one could intimidate me after that experience.”
But when the chips were down in the early days of her cookie empire, Fields took solace in metaphors culled from America`s favorite pastime. ”You have to be a team player if you want to succeed,” she said. ”And fame is short-lived. You can`t rest on your laurels.”
