Lives of Consequence
Susan Scott '67
The New York Times bestselling author of Fierce Conversations and Fierce Leadership, Susan L. Scott ’67 is the founder and CEO of Fierce, Inc., a global leadership development and training company. She has spent the past 19 years leading think tanks for CEOs and teaching people around the world how to have "fierce conversations."
Scott's company teaches corporations and organizations how to have enriched conversations that lead to financial and personal success. Fierce, Inc. has worked in 18 countries with Fortune 1000 companies, including Ernst and Young, Starbucks, Wal-Mart, Coca-Cola, CARE and Crate and Barrel.
At William Smith, Scott became an English major because she loved the subject matter and reading novels. After graduating, she worked as a high school English teacher and later worked as a headhunter and at an adult training organization.
After several years, Scott began running leadership training sessions for Vistage, an international CEO-education and development organization. In this new role running think-tanks, Scott engaged in more than 10,000 hours of conversations with CEOs and senior executives, helping them to facilitate better conversations.
In the midst of working for TEC Worldwide, Scott had two epiphanies. The first, a result of a 1999 keynote speech by poet and Yorkshire business strategist David Whyte in which he used the term "fierce conversations," led her to completely redo the outline she had been using for years.
Her second epiphany, which gave rise to the big idea that launched a bidding war among New York publishers for her book, happened while re-reading Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises. "A character is in a bar drinking with his friends and someone asks, 'How did you go bankrupt?' He responds, 'Gradually and then suddenly,'" recalls Scott. "And when I read that I had a sudden insight: our careers, companies, relationships and, indeed, our very lives succeed or fail gradually and then suddenly, one conversation at a time."
In addition to providing certified facilitators to provide hands-on training seminars and workshop materials, Fierce, Inc. began offering their principles to schools in 2002, when they started Fierce in the Schools (FITS). FITS provides students and teachers with the skills to enrich classroom engagement and make their conversations more meaningful and better aimed at achieving personal and professional success.
A loyal alumna, Scott has returned to HWS to serve as a Leader in Residence at the Centennial Center. While on campus, Scott met with groups from across campus, including a session with Reader’s College students, workshops for campus supervisors, faculty members and staff.