Michelle Snow

Michelle Snow was a two-time WNBA All-Star and the first woman to dunk in a nationally televised basketball game. After 16 years of professional basketball, Michelle now brings the lessons she learned on the court to Nike!

At six-foot-five inches tall, the Pensacola native commands a sweeping view of the impact sports can have on business leadership. Among the most memorable of the lessons she learned came while she played basketball at the University of Tennessee, where legendary coach Pat Summitt prepared a generation of young women to succeed in basketball and life.

“The biggest things Pat taught us were, first, that if you’re on the basketball court, it should never be silent,” Michelle explained. “She was talking about communication. Things are always moving fast on the court, so you have to be constantly communicating to leverage each moment. The second lesson was not to dictate to other people, but rather to empower them.”

In the corporate world, says Michelle, things move just as quickly and can take a turn for the highly unexpected just as quickly as in sports. The COVID pandemic illustrated this. With a touch of irony, perhaps, Michelle says that the best way to empower people and ensure a noisy court full of communicating teammates is for leaders to be quiet, at least at first. So, when she holds her routine “huddles” with her Nike team, the woman with a voice used to shouting over the din of opposing players and cheering crowds remains quiet, allowing others to speak.

“People want to be valued, seen, and heard,” she noted. “Your job as a leader is to give them this opportunity and find alignment with their thoughts and dreams and those of the organization.” In the podcast, Michelle shows her agility at applying the habits of successful athletic competition to the conference table.

Michelle knows she owes her success to a combination of effort and perseverance and the network of people who brought her along on their own journies. “As you progress in your life, you’ll only be alone if you don’t bring someone along with you,” she observed. Michelle has been mentored by some of the best and she constantly reaches back to make sure that she is bringing others along. “They say birds of a feather flock together, right?” noted Michelle. “I’m meeting all of these people who are extraordinary in their own ways, and who have a viewpoint that everything is limitless, and anything is possible. It’s just a matter of connecting yourself with those types of individuals.”

You Will Learn

• 5:00  The secret to changing your next “what if” statement.

• 12:00  The lesson boxing great Roy Jones, Jr. taught her about mentorship.

• 20:00  How to empower people through communication.
• 26:00  How to make your meetings more efficient.
• 28:30  The benefit of practicing the most underestimated quality — helpfulness.
• 31:00  Why every person should wear a “whatchamacallit” to stand out.
• 36:00  The best way to ask for advice.
• 39:00  Why “brilliant brainstorming” is your greatest leadership tool.
• 41:00  Three questions you should ask yourself to get better every day.

Resources:

• Connect with Michelle on her website.

• How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie.

• DISC personality test referenced.