There's plenty of room to think outside the box scores this week and use sports small talk to springboard into different conversations. 

The start of baseball season can prompt stories from childhood and watching games as a family. Or maybe it's the ballpark food you indulge in from time to time. When talking about the NCAA Tournament you could turn the conversation towards celebrating successes. How long to you give yourself to enjoy a win? For NCAA Tournament teams there's not much time before they have to look ahead to the next game. 

Sports talk can be whatever you want it to be. These topics could help spark the conversation this week. 

The NCAA Tournament always provides sports fans with the buzzer-beaters, game-winners, upsets and Cinderella stories they crave all year. The games also offer reminders about communication skills we should be practicing with our own teams at work.

Here are three situations you’ll see frequently throughout the tournament that relate to effective communication at work.

High-5’s and locker room celebrations. You’re never going to see a winning team skip the celebration. It might be more subdued after a blowout win and more emphatic after a buzzer-beater, but winning teams acknowledge and celebrate their success. That’s kind of the point, isn’t it? Work hard, find success, celebrate accomplishments and move on to the next goal. When you see a team or player celebrate success, use it as a reminder to not only celebrate your winning moments, but to create a space for others to do the same. Sharing a success statement in response to “How are you?” is one way to acknowledge your accomplishme...

March Madness is officially underway. What strategy did you use to fill out your brackets? 

Are you the type to go with top seeds? Looking for the upsets? Riding the hot hand? Mascot matchups? 

Notice that I'm assuming you're filling out at least one bracket. It's because you should. It's an easy way to connect with sports fans and there's literally zero pressure because there's never been a verified perfect bracket in the history of the NCAA Tournament. So what is there to lose? Nothing, but there's so many conversation starters to gain. There's also these topics making news this week. 

Selection Sunday is a week away, there have been plenty of bombshells in the NFL ahead of the new league year Wednesday and Alexander Ovechkin is less than a month away from breaking Wayne Gretzky’s scoring record.

All of that is to say there are plenty of sports topics that can spice up small talk conversations this week.

For as much as I like to emphasize the importance of small talk in relationship building, sometimes you just don’t have time. Or maybe you have time for a three-minute conversation, but not a 25-minute conversation. I totally get it, but do you ever mention that to the person you’re talking to? Or do you just hope they can read your mind?

It is possible to be direct and kind in setting parameters around conversations.

If small talk feels like a waste of time because it takes too long, be clear about how much time you do have to chat. For example, “I only have three minutes before I need to hop on a call, but I wanted to ask how your trip went over the weekend?” When you set up the conversation with clear expectations it’s not rude to look at your watch or interrupt when it’s time to hop on that call, you’re just doing what you said you were going to do.

If you need a few sports topics to help break the ice in those conversations, these topics can help.

The idea that more is better leads us to believe that longer conversations (i.e. more words) are needed to make an impact. That’s simply not true.

You can’t measure the impact of a conversation by the number of words (although researchers continue to try.) Impact comes down to making an authentic connection that’s driven by curiosity. That means a quick conversation about a favorite team or sport can be impactful in building relationships.

If you don’t know where to start here are a few sports topics making headlines this week.

The flight attendant greeting everyone on my Alaska Airlines flight Saturday night couldn’t have been nicer. She said hi to everyone boarding the plane, and every single passenger smiled and returned a greeting – even though we’d been delayed an hour.

The interactions weren’t long and often just a “Hello” but they made a noticeable difference.

You can have the same impact this week in greeting colleagues and engaging in small talk. Your interactions don’t have to be more than one word, but if you’re thinking about small talk these sports topics can help.

Just a reminder that the way you talk about the outcome of a game is part of your personal brand. You might separate your fandom from who are you are work, but that’s not necessarily how others see it.

It doesn’t matter if you liked the outcome or if you agreed with the ref's calls, hated the halftime show or think the money spent on Super Bowl commercials is a waste. Choose your words carefully in how you characterize the Big Game because it all points back to you in the end.

Speaking of your personal brand and conversation skills, I'm launching a new coaching program in March called Confident Conversations. It's 30 days of conversation skills and encouragement. Early Bird pricing of 40% off ends Wednesday. 

Here are a few additional conversation starters if you want more than the Super Bowl to talk about this week.

Who do you have this weekend, Eagles or Chiefs?

When the best teams in the NFL duke it out Sunday in the Super Bowl there will be plenty of conversation around Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs quest to become the first team in NFL history to win three straight Super Bowls. As for the Eagles it’s a chance to avenge a Super Bowl loss to the Chiefs just two years ago.

You know who we won’t be talking about this weekend?

The best quarterbacks in the league based on the numbers. Or the best wide receivers, or the defensive players with the most tackles, sacks or interceptions this year. Because they’re not playing on Sunday. Their teams didn’t make it to the Super Bowl.

Eagles running back Saquon Barkley is the exception. We will be talking about the best running back in the league this year because he finished with the most rushing yards and the highest yards per game average.

You know what this tells me? The numbers don’t speak for themselves. If the players who did their job at the h...

On occasion I joke about getting “talks too much” on every single report card. On occasion I see other people, usually women, saying the same thing on social media and sharing how those conversation skills led to a successful career. I often add to the conversation and say I was just practicing for my career in broadcasting and as a keynote speaker. What I don’t share is the deep insecurity that comes along with hearing that critique for so many years, and it hasn’t always come from other people. Too often it’s my own inner dialogue that becomes the roadblock.

The fear that I “talked too much” and maybe even was “too much” in general made it easy to follow the advice I got early in my career: it’s best if you don’t say anything and just let your work speak for itself. It’s easily the worst advice, doled out by male colleagues who didn’t know what to do with a woman in the locker room. To be fair, they didn’t have much precedent to go on. When I got into the industry women were allowed...