Episode 69 - "One Million Followers Wasn’t in My Obituary" with Sanyin Siang of The Coach K Center on Leadership and Ethics
Today’s guest, Sanyin Siang, is the executive director for the Coach K Center on Leadership & Ethics (COLE) at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business and a professor with its Pratt School of Engineer. She is an advisor for Google Ventures (GV), Sports Innovation Labs, Duke Corporate Education and author of The Launch Book: Motivational Stories to Launch Your Idea, Business, or Next Career.
If that list isn’t enough to get you to press play on this episode, you should also know that she has over 1 million followers on LinkedIn. Yet, while that is something we felt eager to point out, she shared how she has had to learn to hold on loosely to that following, which was some advice all of us in this busy social-media-driven world needed to hear.
In our conversation, she shared why she recently took some time to write her own obituary. Turns out she realized that what she wants to be remembered for isn’t her professional success, or even her number of followers—it’s something bigger and more important than both of these...
Listen in to hear the difference between enabling and chasing greatness, what Coach K does to inspire both 19-year-old college athletes and the superstar NBA players on Team USA, and why planning your life with the end in mind might give you some clarity you didn’t even know you needed.
Happy listening!
Useful Links:
3 Lessons From Sports for Effective Storytelling
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
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Henry [00:02:49] Rusty. William, it's great to be back with you guys, as always. Tuesdays are great. Tuesdays are a great day. And today we've got a really special guest, a friend of mine that I've known for, well, more than a decade from my time in Durham, North Carolina. Dermer is killing, as you guys know, is known for lots of great things. I care deeply about DERM, and it's very unique history of entrepreneurship as the Center for African-American Entrepreneurship. For more than 100 years. Just a great story about that as we think about faith driven entrepreneurs. It's also the home for Duke University and Duke Basketball. And many of us will know about Coach K and Coach K has a center for leadership. And that's Center for Leadership is run by our guests today. And Sanyin Siang is with us. And Sanyin. It's great to have you on the program. Thank you for joining us.
Sanyin [00:03:41] Oh, my gosh. Thanks for having me. Be a part of this. I am a huge fan of faith driven entrepreneurs and the amazing work that you're doing.
Henry [00:03:50] Thank you. Thank you. So we want to get started just off the bat. Just give our listeners a quick picture of who you are and what you do in one of your titles, of course, is the executive director of the Coach K Center on Leadership and Ethics at Duke at the Future School of Business. Tell us a bit about the work you do there and about the journey that got you to where you are now.
Sanyin [00:04:11] Oh, gosh. So let me just start with my personal mission in life. It's not to chase greatness, but to enable greatness. And a big part of that is we can't control whether we achieve greatness, but we can control how we enable greatness in others. And so that's expressed in my life as a mom. That's my number one job. Number three. As an educator, as a mentor or as a coach. And so naturally defines me here at the Coach K Center and leadership and ethics at Duke University's People School of Business. The center was started in 2004 because we saw that as an educational institution in the business world. We can't just purely teach only a marketing and finance. Those things are necessarily insufficient. We have a responsibility to develop type of leaders that the world needs. That's like, what does it mean to be a leader in today's world? What does it mean to take on that mantle and bear the responsibility? And what does it mean and how do you enable and make the world a better place? And so that is the work of the center. We start out with a idea of how do we cultivate foster that in all of our MBA students. And as business, one or one dictates, we go talk to our customers. Now, if our end result is when the people development, business, people, knowledge development, business and students are our products and our customers is the world that engages with our students. So we start pulling together these think tanks, which that's one of the first times when we met Henry. Is think-tanks, where we are engaged with leaders across different sectors and industries and trying to understand what are the needs of leadership today and tomorrow, and what we discovered is that we've gone from a world where we used to have all the answers to one where we're developing the playbook as we go along. And so the center has evolved to one where understanding what's relevant, how to engage and how to co-create, recall, order this bright new world where everyone else around us,.
Rusty [00:06:18] You know, I can't think of a better person to probably work with. Coach K, what a great example of leadership. And he's also a great storyteller. And I know there's something that you focus on. Tell us how important it is to be a great storyteller and maybe give a few insights for our listeners or entrepreneurs about how to become a better storyteller.
Sanyin [00:06:38] So Coach K is amazing because with him, he always has that bigger vision. It wasn't just about being winners and winning games. It was developing people for life. And so there's just one thing I learned from him that which sticks with me and this relates to storytelling. He says it's not enough for people to know it. They also have to feel it. And so it's going beyond the cognitive and the data and the information. In order for him to activate and to do something with that knowledge, they have to feel it. And the way they can feel it is through story. So he is a remarkable storyteller. So when I think about stories, stories are information that is put into a context that's emotionally resonant. We as human beings, since the dawn of humankind have been telling stories because we're wired not to digest information. We're wired to digest stories. So in the entrepreneurial context, the entrepreneurs I work with. One thing I think about is at the end of the day, we're all trying to get people to buy into our destiny story. Where are we going? Where are we going with this company? Where are we going with this mission? Where we going with our products and services, whether it's investors or customers, we're getting them to buy into our destiny story. And the way to get them to buy into our destiny story is to have a origin story. What drives us? What motivates us? What was the genesis of this company, this idea? You know, when I look at Iren Calce as an example, Nat Turner started that because his mom had cancer and he was wrestling with all that information. They said, wait, I work at Google now. Why can't I take all this data analytics and make it easier for people who are going through this? And that was a great origin story. And so I think about the origin stories that reveal who we are and what our companies are about and what our startups are about. And that's how we get people to connect and relate to and move for our destiny stories.
Henry [00:08:46] So I know enough about the program and some of the events that you're on to know that you have some of the world's biggest and most successful leaders that come through. And these are CEOs of Fortune 100 companies. These are sports stars that Shane Battier was there. One of the times as there is a four star General Honore, admiral and people like that. Tell us a bit about some of the lessons of leadership that you've learned over the years in some of the patterns.
[00:09:14] And maybe you just start with Coach K, right? Coach K runs the program and it's amazing. I've gone through it a couple of times. It's amazing how he does it. You know, I continue to be fascinated about him as a person and not just because I'm a Carolina fan and trying to figure out why he continues to have a number, but because he has been able to not only succeed on the collegiate level with some young kids, but then to get USA Basketball with a bunch of big egos and very successful, very rich people and get them to work well, to gather and to succeed for maybe not the glory of God, but for the glory of the U.S. of a. What are the things that you've seen that you share with people, with a bunch of entrepreneurs or listen to this in all of whom are going to aspire to be able to be at that type of roundtable someday? And what did you learn through Coach K stories and the others?
Sanyin [00:10:04] So three patterns of successful leaders that I see. One is just continuously learning mindset. And I'll give two stories. So Coach K story is he would say, look, he's getting older and the kids are coming in are age 17 and 18. So the age gap is widening. But instead of pulling them to him, always saying, you have to come meet me where I'm at. He is incredibly adaptive and he's meeting them where they at. He is learning about the music we're listening to is listening to that music so it can relate to them. So from my entrepreneurial experience, that constant learning is about think about your customers. Customer base, they're growing. They're getting younger. Understand? Know your customers. Same thing. Your employee base. The mark of the great leader is the leader takes the time to know domes around them to know does it. And so there's a learning mindset. So that's one I can share. One, make great friends. Bob Lefkowitz is one, the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 2012. And every year in his lab, he'll give away the award for the greatest skeptic. Because I'm like, Bob, you're a Nobel laureate or you're the smartest person. Why are you celebrating that person who's like, well, you know, poking holes at your ideas? And he said, well, I need that person because I have blind spots and I can continuously learn. And I'd rather have the holes in my ideas being figured out and addressed before things go to publication and to public versus after they've been out. So from entrepreneur experience. Think about that person on your team who is needling you and saying, I don't know, this will work and we'll want positive energy, but be mindful of that person because maybe be helping you see a blind spot about your product or that customer you're testing. Why? Because it's much better to address that than before you invest. Millions of dollars in the product goes to market. So that learning mindset is one, too. Is that its sense of purpose? A mission? So how did Coach K get these superstar basketball players around and playing for Team USA? One of the first things he did was help them understand what does it mean to play for Team USA? So he brought in a lot of our military members and shared with them like there was one Scott Smiley. He was blinded during an attack and then he still wanted to go back and serve now. And that was hugely inspiring. And so this ideal sense of purpose, the corresponding part of that story is I think about my great friend of McDonald, Bob, retired as a CEO, Procter and Gamble, and then went on to become the secretary of the V.A. And Bob would say, don't ask me how to become a CEO. He did as far he didn't chase being a CEO. Instead, he was thinking about how can my contributions matter at this moment to those around us? How can I be in service of the organization and the mission? So that's another pattern. Is this mission driven, purpose driven? They all have this deep sense of purpose. And then the third is this understanding that successful leaders, they all understand we don't succeed alone. We succeed with others to think that we got to where we are by ourselves purely. That would be a huge blind spot. We may be blessed with parents and friends who are incredibly supportive. There's an element of luck and timing in the marketplace. So they're incredibly resilient because they understand that resiliency isn't only a single or self thing, but it is a team and community thing. And I think about in terms of my Christian faith, my faith community, my church, that's a great derivation of my resilience. And I think that's a big part of the Christian story, isn't it?
Henry [00:14:11] Oh, absolutely. Tell us about the way that you've been able to translate some of these leadership lessons from Coach K and admirals and the guy from Procter and Gamble to young people that are looking to launch. You've got a new book. Tell us about that.
Sanyin [00:14:27] Oh, so a lot of the leadership ideas and themes, respect for people let go of your ego like you just share a great quote by Bishop Thomas Bickerton, which always resides in my mind. So, Bishop, at your came from a small rural town in Think, West Virginia, and you became the bishop in the Methodist church that was instrumental in the NBA CARES Gates Foundation Methodist UNICEF chef collaboration in helping to manage and alleviate malaria in Africa.
[00:15:00] And one day I asked Bishop Bickerton, you came from the small town and you're around all these remarkable people. How do you have the confidence and then also the humility? And he said, well, I am putting a letter in a sentence, in a paragraph, in a chapter of a very long book. So that's the humility.
[00:15:24] But that book would not make as much sense if it weren't for those chapters and that page and that paragraph and that one letter up in that word. And so I think a lot about that. But so the lessons, though, of leadership, the humility, the engage. With others, the character. How do you build credibility, your character, integrity? Those are not beautiful. Those are always going to be constant. Building trust, building credibility. But I think where I play around with is how do we translate that to different generations so that it's resonant with them.
[00:16:02] And so with young people, it's about stories. It's about stories. It comes back to stories. And for now, I'm this new generation genze millennials. For now, it's more about the journey. They want to know the journey. They don't want just the outcome, the destination, the perfection. They want to understand how we get there. And so couching it, going back to that earlier question. The story matters. Can I share an experience I recently had on a plane? So last week, I was flying to Santa Barbara off to a Linked-In learning course, and we're flying en route to Dallas and trying to land in Dallas. We're facing all these huge storms that caused the plane to just circle in the air. Then we have to divert to Houston to refuel and then come back to Dallas. And then by that time, five hours later, my connecting flight had departed. Oh, you would think that would be the worst flight ever. It was actually one of the best flights ever, because sitting next to me was this high school senior. And we struck up a conversation. And around that time, I was working on a leadership course for high school seniors. And I had this idea that like my course outline, I thought, what? Let me just bounce it by her side of engagement. Then we found sit by her. And she started giving me insights that make me realize how wrong my assumptions about how the sex generation learned of what was interesting that was. So I gave her a list of people, all super impressive. I said, I want to include these people in my course for high school students. And they were like people were astronauts people. I mean, just super, super, super impressive. And she wasn't as interested in those people. And she's like, you know, for us, we want to learn about the career hoppers like the people, we didn't have the answers who are trying to figure out and who have the humility to figure it out with others realize with how we translate all these leadership lessons to this next generation. It has to be about the journey. It's not about, hey, look at us and look at where we are right now. It's more about here's how we got here. Here's the struggles we've had. And by the way, we need your help. Let's figure out together and it could raise up enough.
Henry [00:18:19] Brings up a great point. At some of our listeners will recall that we are involved in a local group of people who get together called Inklings Group of mostly men to encourage each other in the pursuit of faith, family and location. And it started in derm, started when we were living in Durham and we'd have people with the house. And I remember a couple of guys that would come in came for the first ten or twelve, but then they stopped 20 months and they stopped coming. And I went to a mutual friend of mine. I said, So why are these guys? I come in and he said, no. I've figured out. And he'd gone back and done some back channel information. He said, you know what the reason was is something actually resonates a little bit with me. And that is you've had this progression of 20 different successful leaders come in and talk and inklings. And this is how they've been able to be successful and they're all driven by their faith. Yes, but they're 50 years old and, you know, they're the homes of these different companies. And these guys just couldn't relate. They're struggling right now with their wife, who's got depression and anxiety. And, you know, just a story of just how they've been successful for the glory of God is something it is just can't identify with. And that was really seminal for me. I had thought, you know, get these 20 just great leaders in and that gives them the inspiration and they're off the races. But they couldn't identify. And so what we then did was we said to each one of these folks would continue to have leaders that would come in. But we said we want you to share with a spirit of vulnerability and transparency and tell us something that you wish you knew when you're 25 or 30, which connoting convey some level of. They've made some mistakes along the way. What were they what do they learn from them? And now all of a sudden they become more relatable because you know what? Any leader's story isn't straight up into the right. Have all different types of struggles. And so it's interesting that you've heard this through the lens of this high school senior, which is I need to be able if I'm going to seek to emulate somebody, I need to be able to identify with them. They need to kind of get who I am. They need to understand my music and my cultural references. They need to be approachable. Otherwise, it just doesn't matter to me.
Sanyin [00:20:25] And relatable. They need to see their story in you. They need to. And so that role modeling is important. It's accessible and tough on your ability is powerful.
Rusty [00:20:38] Can I go back to something you were talking about with Coach K in your mind? What's the difference between leadership and coaching? Because he's a coach, but he's a leader.
Sanyin [00:20:50] I think coaching is an active leadership, right? We tend to have dismiss that leadership is about position or title. So when are you a leader? Is it because after you get the CEO or title after you when that word. Now we're leading because the leadership is really about influence and persuasion. And it's not only about what's visible, but what's also in this. Which goes back to the idea of team. So when you look at a single team, it might be traditional might it's CEOs most visible where you don't say we're watching a movie and it's a star who's on screen, but there's a whole bunch of leadership activities going on also behind the camera. On the other side of the camera that we don't see. So when we think about leadership as persuasion and influence and taking out the titles, then, you know, there's so many different acts of leadership and coaching is one of them. The players are not going to listen to you only because you have a title. They're going to respond because they relate to you. There's something where you're a role modeling for them, where they want to be. And people feel when you care about them in leadership, that trust element is so important. And in coaching to for them to take what you say and the feedback and do something with it, they have to trust you. I think about parenting as an act of leadership. And believe me, I mean, most of my leadership lessons come from being a mom. Seriously, try explaining positional power to a 5 year old and that they should listen to you because you have the title. Mom does not work. Mentoring is an act of leadership and in leading it's a two way street all the time. I think the best leaders also know when to be followers. The best leaders are also great followers. And so we're constantly co-leading with one another. It's a dance.
William [00:22:41] All together, maybe an odd direction. That's what I usually do sometimes. As you think about leadership, what's maybe one of your favorite biblical stories of a leader and maybe how you see that lands, how what God has revealed to you in that story about leadership that maybe some of our listeners have never thought about it from that perspective.
Sanyin [00:23:03] So I've been thinking about wisdom quite a bit. Now we think about job description. Do we see wisdom in that job description? Often wisdom. And I think back to Solomon, like of all the things that he could ask for. He asked for wisdom, and yet how often do we Klute wisdom or good judgment into job descriptions and the people we're recruiting onto our team? As an entrepreneur, as a CEO co-founder, you can't control how your people think, act or feel. But you can control two things. You can control the environment that they're in and you can control who you bring onto the company, who you hire on to the company. And so I've been thinking about how do we hire for wisdom for that judgment and by what lack of judgment? You could take that person, put them in a customer interaction and you lose your best customer with bad judgment. And judgment is contextual. It's an understanding of what's the situation and what does that situation require. It's looking at these different factors and being able to understand. It's like a jazz jigsaw, you know. You'll understand where the key elements, but you're able to improvise based on what the situation requires. And I think more and more in leadership, judgment and wisdom, contextual leadership is not something we talk about. But I think in today's volatile, uncertain, chaotic, ambiguous world, we have to also develop leaders who have that wisdom and understands that context. We talk about integrity. We talk about trust, but we don't talk about incorporating that contextual element and that wisdom.
Rusty [00:24:51] I know you like to talk and speak about identity. So how much of that ability to contextualize that is identity and how do we go about marrying that all together?
Sanyin [00:25:04] All right. So let me wave two things and share it since we've been talk about personal struggles. Then you just go ahead and share that with listeners. Identity is so key, right? But unless we are intentional about who we want to be and what matters, we can easily get distracted by all these things that are not true to our identity. But we think we are. So as an example, early on in the introduction Henry mentioned on my LinkedIn influencer with more than a million followers, I do not set out to build a following of a million followers on LinkedIn. What I wanted to do I set out originally intentionally was, hey, this is a great platform where I can share ideas and where I can cast attention on stories and people and ideas that inspire me and share it with others that can help others. That was my intention and purpose as I built up a following and then as I get. Introduce us. Oh, you're an influencer with more than a million LinkedIn followers. Suddenly that aspect start creeping into my identity and I became shackled by it. Suddenly, before I didn't care about views and Elmo liked him like, oh, how many views did that post get? Oh, gosh, how many more followers did get today? All the things that are distracting to us that we really can't control and that are not really a part of my identity suddenly is gripping so much of our mind. Right. And I think about entrepreneurs. I mean, there was a great article in The Wall Street Journal recently about the dark side of startups. It's like your mission is to create a product that can really change the world or a service that can make life better. But as you become more successful or as, you know, a product to solve time, only people start saying, oh, you're this person or you're that person. And you became shackled by, oh, how is the product doing today? How makes it all the things that did matter as much before suddenly seems to consume your day. And so as we struggle through that. Recently, Henry and I got on the phone. I reached out because didn't I say earlier that resilience is where strong either. Resilience level 2 out of 10. It's really, really low. But I know I can go up against someone with a resilience level 9 of 10 because I've got great community and great friends. So I reached out to Henry as a Henry. Can I just talk through some of this with you? And that was a pivotal conversation because what Henry shared with me, you know, he's like, well, this is actually very normal now. And I wait. This is how you analyze it. These things are distractions. It's like when you're CEO and your company goes public, suddenly you're now watching the fluctuations of his stock price, which may be market forces beyond your control. And so unless you sent her back to who are you? Could you want to be? You can end up using your energy in ways that are not healthy. And one exercise in throughout that process and after that conversation I end up doing was writing my ultimate end game objective. In other words, my own, not the Treasury. And because every strategy is really about we have to start. The outcome. And what's the ultimate outcome of our lives but how we want to be remembered. So in writing that game objective where obituary? You know, I was writing about how Sanyin Siang was a good mom, wife, daughter, boyfriend. She wasn't always brave, but she made those around her braver because she believed in them. She kept her promises, made moments great and small. She discovered the awesomeness in others. And the last line was she was a good and faithful steward of the gifts that God gave her. And this is how she mattered. And I realized that's it. That's how I want to matter. Hispanic steward of these gifts.
Henry [00:29:03] That's beautiful, Sanyin, you are a beloved child of God in whom he is. Well, please. You don't need to earn a thing. And I don't either. I need to tell myself that. And listeners need to hear it, too. And I'm grateful for you sharing that and being vulnerable. And that's super kin's very, very encouraging.
Sanyin [00:29:23] Henry, thank you so much for your friendship and for being there. When I reached out and helping me think through this, you helped me be more resilient. And I'm grateful for that. Thank you.
William [00:29:37] So that's a great Segway, I know I struggle with that, is it hard to actually just ordered a 50 day journey called Grace Emersion? So that is something that I am still trying to capture. I've talked about it on the podcast before of how my son's been teaching me the story and God's been teaching me through that. That I'm a bit of a child, but I'd be lying if I said I'd grasp that if I was all over that. I just don't. And so I think that just preach that topic as much as possible to as many people as possible, as many ways as possible, because I just have a feeling there's more kindred spirits out there that are struggling with that like us. And so as we do come to our time. I'd love to know what part of God's word. Does he have you in these days? Maybe it's a section or verse. Could be anything that's maybe come in alive to you in a new way. And the season could be this morning. Could be this year. Right. It could be anything but just some version of his word. Because it's just always fun to think about how living an active God's word is. And we always love inviting our listeners into the stories that God's weaving through our guest lives.
Sanyin [00:30:40] So my church, Black Knoll, Presbyterian and Daro, we've just gone through a book of acts that's heavy.
[00:30:49] There's a lot there. And so some of the things I've been thinking about in relation to that is the sense of control. And it's this relates to leadership, too, because the more successful we become or the more validation there seems to be, the more we find to the solution that we actually have control, that we have control over everything.
[00:31:10] When that's such an illusion, God has control, we don't. And it's been in the moment and being responsive to what he's calling us to do. And part of that is also just really being appreciative of the gifts that we have around us. How often do we take the gifts? We have them around us for granted until we can't anymore. So the French the French swear they are our children's health. How often do we think about that? You know, our children's health. That's a gift. That's a gift until it's you know, and and so how are we responding to that as a gift? And I think when we see more of the world as these gifts are cheering our way, we're going to have the sense of wonder. And with that sense of wonder, the sense of gratitude will come to a sense of stewardship. And we are students. We're students. So how do we want to be good and faithful students? So those are some of the things that's been occupying my mind quite a bit as you're going through the Book of Acts and as I think about the world and and the things I'm struggling with. And how do we be menders, how do we be stewards and how do we retain the sense of seeing the goodness and the beauty that he has gifted us? It's all around us.
Henry [00:32:31] That was beautiful. It was awesome being with you, Sanyin. It always is. I'm grateful for you sharing and for a time together. And I hope that our listeners will be encouraged to learn more about you. And we now know, since we've firmly established that you're a Lincoln follower, account is not part of your identity. We can now encourage people to check you out on Lincoln here. That will just build you up. But Sanyin is very intentional about encouraging people and has that spiritual gift of encouragement. If you're going to follow somebody online, then she's a great wants to follow. And also check out her book. It's called The Launch Book. It's Motivational Stories to launch Your Idea of Business Where an X Career Soniya. Thank you for being with us. God bless you, sister.
Sanyin [00:33:15] Thank you so much to all of you and did a great work. Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast is doing. Thank you for having me on the show.