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Women, Networking and Golf
September 15, 2005
Elizabeth Johns, Managing Director, Communications
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Since the average swing takes only 1.4 seconds, there’s plenty of time for networking.
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This article appeared originally in the Sept./Oct. "networking" issue of AFP Exchange magazine.
With over 90% of Fortune 500 executives claiming to be golfers, here’s one skill women in finance should have to reach the higher ranks.
Once a gentleman’s sport, golf is now the most common leisure activity among senior executive women, according to a 1996 survey by New York-based research group Catalyst. More than a sport, executives see golf as a business activity. That’s why the Executive Women's Golf Association was founded in 1991 on the belief that women in management should have access to informal networks like the golf course.
Women take up golf for a variety of business reasons, in some cases because their companies suggest it. Think of the corporations that maintain club memberships just to entertain clients. Increasingly, women play because their careers can’t survive without it.
“One woman financial manager told me she noticed her colleagues were dividing up prospects during their Wednesday games,” said Suzanne Woo, president of BizGolf Dynamics consulting firm in San Francisco, which teaches people how to use golf to increase business success (www.bizgolfdynamics.com). “She had to learn if she wanted to stay in business.”
Author of the book On Course For Business—Women and Golf, published by John Wiley & Sons, Woo sees specific benefits in finance. “A senior-level financial woman may find that her business partners are board members. With that level of executive, it’s important to be where rapport can occur.”
Her premise: subtleties of the game can teach you more about your business partners than you could possibly learn at a power lunch, such as composure, ability to handle stress, straightforwardness and a sense of humor.
For Ruth Ann Marshall, president of Americas MasterCard International, the global payments company, the need to network after a job move was evidently the turning point in her decision to play. Marshall told Golf Digest, "At an important point in my career, I knew I needed to be where the decision makers were."
Follow-through Important
Freed from the constraints of the office, conversation tends to flow on the green. Since the average swing takes only 1.4 seconds, there’s plenty of time to talk. According to Amy Smith of The Payments Authority, Michigan’s electronic payments association, the key is to "file away" bits of information to follow-up on later. Since you aren't driving around with a laptop or pad of paper, you have to remember where your greatest opportunities appear to be and react quickly after you return from the course.
Networking on the course isn’t only for executives. With stars like Tiger Woods and Annika Sorenstam earning millions a year and making front-page news, the sport has entered the mainstream. With increased interest, developers have built an enormous number of courses—so many that there’s now a surplus of courses in the U.S. just waiting for people to use them.
“Some of these are gorgeous. It’s now possible to have a high quality experience without paying exorbitant fees,” Woo said.
Yet, no one says the venue is at all what forms the bond—rather the camaraderie. Sure you’ll impress a guest with an invitation to a prestigious club, but you might also raise eyebrows.
Lack of comfort with the game, rather than accessibility, is the reason it’s been described as “the grass ceiling” for women in business. Indeed, Washington, DC-based consulting group The Grass Ceiling, Inc. (www.thegrassceiling.com) has developed a series of leadership workshops aptly titled "The Art of the Deal: Golf."
“I don’t think there’s a managerial woman who should be without golf in her portfolio,” Rose Harper-Elder, president and chief operating officer, said. “It’s as important as her financial degree.” With 30 years in the financial world, including a chairmanship of the D.C. Retirement Board, Harper-Elder has observed that the game earns the respect of male colleagues without the hazards associated with direct competition on the job.
Not that this concept is anything new. Of some 21 million women in business, about 10% already play, suggesting they have discerned the sport’s benefits.
In a joint survey of business women by Golf for Women magazine, Oppenheimer Funds and Mass Mutual Financial Services, 73% of respondents said that playing golf helped them develop relationships and network for business. And in this era of Sarbanes-Oxley concerns, the survey found implications far beyond networking: 79% said that integrity on the golf course translates to honesty and integrity in business. That’s a reading beyond the old, “He plays golf, so he must be a great guy” perception.
What’s more, half of executive-level respondents said that even their ability to talk about golf, let alone their handicap, made them somehow more successful. Consider the terms that are now business jargon. Hole-in-one. Bogey. Gimme. When presenting an idea, a good strategy is to have someone “tee it up” for you. There’s even a new book on networking titled Gimmes, Bogeys and Business, by Jane Blaloch.
Harper-Elder cautions, however, that there are some gray areas not printed in the rule book, such as dress code. Some business people are scratching their heads about whether etiquette may be changing along with the new brand marketing campaign of the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA)—“These Girls Rock”—intended to attract a new generation to the sport.
“Professionals have to remember that golf for them is a business tool,” Harper-Elder said. “They shouldn’t dress like these new LPGA stars on tour.”
Send comments on this article to Exchange@afponline.org
Copyright © 2005 Association for Financial Professionals. All Rights Reserved.
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