Susan Scott
Susan Scott is the CEO and Founder of Fierce Inc., and the author of Fierce Conversations: Achieving Success at Work & in Life – One Conversation at a Time and Fierce Leadership: A Bold Alternative to the Worst “Best” Practices of Business Today.
Known for her bold yet practical approach to executive coaching and leadership development, Susan Scott has been challenging people to say the things that are hard to say for over two decades. Susan founded Fierce in 2001 after 13 years leading CEO think tanks, more than 10,000 hours of conversations with senior executives, and one epiphany: While no single conversation is guaranteed to change the trajectory of a career, a business, a marriage, or a life – any single conversation can. Susan continues to share her expertise with clients through her keynote presentations, best-selling books, and her company, Fierce, Inc.
■ ■ ■
Eighteen years ago, as I read Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises beside a crackling fire, snoring dogs at my feet, I became obsessed with an idea. The implications hinted at my raison d’etre. Obsession with a second idea a few months later kicked the first into motion and brought me to where I am today. More about the ideas in a bit. First, let’s talk about obsession. Dictionaries would have you believe that obsession is a problem akin to stalking:
I prefer this definition:
My obsession wasn’t unwanted or unreasonable and created no anxiety in me; rather it inspired a compulsion to share it with others. To do that on a large scale required people who were, if not obsessed, at least as taken with the ideas as I was. A tribe, a company. Of course, I had to figure out if there were people – individuals, organizations – who saw the implications of my ideas and wanted what I wanted enough to pay for it. But it was my obsession that provided the emotional and intellectual velocity required to make it so, because I knew that the success I hoped for would not be handed to me by an investor or a partner. It was something I had to find and nurture on my own.
Most companies were launched by an idea – Amazon, Google, Facebook, GoPro, WhatsApp, HomeAdviser, Airbnb, GoFundMe, Uber, Miracle Mop, Stitch Fix. All of their founders had a desire they imagined others shared, and their obsessions fueled the energy to build a company, which is no walk in the park. You gotta really want it and love it, and your idea must have a clear and compelling why behind it. In fact, without that why and your obsession about it, it’s possible to spin your wheels and considerable bucks on the what and how and end up frustrated and possibly broke, which explains why so many ideas never get off the ground.
The ideas that led me to found Fierce, Inc., were like kaleidoscopic pieces that, when they shifted, changed my view of the world, of myself in the world, and therefore, what was required of me. They were the whys with which I remain obsessed.
In The Sun Also Rises, a character is asked, “How did you go bankrupt?” He responds, “Two ways. Gradually, and then suddenly.” At the time I read this, I had been running think tanks for chief executives for 13 years and had had more than 10,000 hours of conversations with industry leaders worldwide. I thought back over important events in the lives of my clients. A piece within my internal kaleidoscope dropped.
Our careers, our companies, our relationships, and indeed our very lives succeed or fail, gradually and then suddenly, one conversation at a time.
On the failing side, sometimes the questions were: How did we manage to lose our biggest customer – the one that counted for 20 percent of our net profit? How did I lose my most valued employee, for whom I had great plans? How did I lose the cohesiveness of my team? Why are we experiencing turnover, turf wars, rumors, departments not cooperating with one another, unengaged employees, long overdue reports and projects, strategic plans that still aren’t off the ground, and lots of very good reasons and excuses why things can’t be any different or better?
And on a personal note: How did I lose an 18-year marriage that I was not prepared to lose? How did I lose my job? How is it that I find myself in a company, a role, a relationship, a life from which I’ve absented my spirit? How did I lose my way? How did I get here?
Once the members of my CEO groups reflected on the path that led them to a disappointing or difficult point or place in time, they remembered, often in vivid detail, the conversations that set things in motion, ensuring that they would end up exactly where they found themselves. They lost that customer, that employee, the cohesiveness of their team, their marriage, their joy – one failed or one missing conversation at a time.
On the positive side, here was a pretty amazing place when a company finally landed that huge customer, the one their competition would kill for. Or successfully recruited a valuable new employee. Or a leader discovered that her team was committed to her at a deep level. Or a team blew their goals out of the water. And personally, celebrating another happy year of marriage.
My CEOs got to these good places in their lives, these amazing achievements, these satisfying career paths, these terrific relationships, gradually, then suddenly, one successful conversation at a time. And they were determined to ensure the quality of their ongoing conversations with the people central to their success and happiness.
Imagine you are standing on a game board – the game of life. Your life. How did you arrive at this square on the board, with all of your current results – professional and personal – spread out in front of you, some you like and some you don’t? You arrived here one conversation at a time. And when you project yourself into an ideal future, how will you get from here to there? Same way you got here. One conversation at a time.
Shortly after the gift of Hemingway, I heard Yorkshire-born poet and author, David Whyte, speak at a conference about a young man, newly married, who is often frustrated, even a little irritated, that his lovely spouse, to whom he has pledged his troth and with whom he hopes to spend the rest of his life, wants to talk – yet again – about the same topic they just talked about last night, and last weekend. The topic? The quality of their relationship. He wonders, “Why are we talking about this again? I thought we settled this. Could we just have one huge conversation about our relationship and then coast for a year or two?” Apparently not, because here she is again.
Around age 42, if he’s been paying attention, David suggested, it dawns on him. David smiled. He was 42 and married. “This ongoing conversation I have been having with my wife is not about the relationship. The conversation is the relationship.”
The conversation is the relationship.
To say this landed with me would be an understatement. The idea was simple, even obvious, but I had missed the formula. Conversation = relationship.
As the idea dropped, my internal kaleidoscope shifted. I had just left a long-term marriage and was deeply sad. I felt David was talking just to me and learned later that all 400 people in the room felt the same way. We all had a strong desire to run out into the parking lot and phone home.
If you recognize that there may be something to this, that the conversation is the relationship, then you must know that if the conversation stops, all of the possibilities for the relationship become smaller. All of the possibilities for the individuals in the relationship become smaller as well, until one day we overhear ourselves in midsentence, making ourselves quite small, behaving as if we’re just the space around our shoes, engaged in yet another three-minute conversation so empty of meaning it crackles.
For me, this is a seriously big deal. Our most valuable currency is not money, nor intelligence, attractiveness, fluency in three-letter acronyms, the ability to write code, or analyze a P&O statement. Our so-called pedigree doesn’t get us as far as we might hope. Our most valuable currency is relationship, emotional capital, without which we have nothing, and accomplish nothing. Superficial relationships – the “How are you? I’m fine” variety – are not gonna cut it. It is the depth of our relationships that determines the meaning of our lives, and the depth of our relationships is created gradually, then suddenly, one conversation at a time. Each conversation we have, each phone call, each email or text enriches a relationship, flatlines it, or takes it down. In other words, we are building relationships that thrill or disappoint us one conversation at a time. I founded Fierce, Inc., due to my obsession with these two ideas, having become hyper-tuned to how conversations profoundly impact our lives. In this world of asynchronous communication, where we are face down in our screens trying not to be distracted by what’s happening around us, it seems that when we speak, we skim along the surface of a topic and/or withhold what we’re really thinking and feeling, so that we say nothing of interest, really. And we say it over and over. Even when we recognize our prejudices as prejudices, we continue to feud. Consequently, nothing of value emerges and today is a lot like yesterday.
Sad to say, most people mistake talking for conversation. The usual chitchat doesn’t get us much. A cacophony of voices attempting to peddle self-serving agendas does not advance us. We want to be ourselves, to be heard, yet growth is the process of extending our views, seeking to understand the views of others, and abandoning views that no longer serve us, so we can embrace the possibilities no single person—except a few great minds such as Einstein—could have grasped. I am not an Einstein. I need input and if you’ve got a clear and compelling case, I’m not that hard to persuade, especially if you’re obsessed with your idea.
I am always interested to know if people have something in their lives they love beyond all reason. A person, a place, a product, an activity – cooking, painting, hiking, traveling. Or an idea. The problem is that our ideas, our obsessions, are often degraded by our rational minds. We talk ourselves out of our ideas, which leaves the field open for others to capitalize on them. Don’t let this happen to you. And don’t listen to naysayers. A relative, who supposedly had my best interests at heart, advised me not to write a book, as no one would publish it. A business colleague suggested I would never join the C-Suite because I wanted it too much. Wrong and wrong. Ha! If you’re obsessed with an idea, if you have a passion for something that has been calling to you all of your life, if you hunger for something different, something more, then obey your instincts and do something about it. Otherwise, you are starving a little every day.
Where to begin? A fierce conversation with yourself. Where am I going? Why am I going there? Who is going with me? How will I get there?