Work From The Inside Out 217: Tune Up Your Work Relationships with Susan Spero
What was your first paid job? Do you recall the training you received to perform your duties?
This week’s podcast guest, Susan Spero, vividly remembers the training she got at 18 when she worked at a summer camp. The owners trained the staff on how to understand and manage groups so they would bond as a team and recognize camper group dynamics. They wanted counselors to help campers’ social and emotional development during the eight-week camp season. Susan deeply values her three summers there, crediting that experience as a foundation for how she has negotiated relationships in her adult and professional life.
Susan pursued an education degree in college and taught elementary school for six years. While she was supposed to focus on math, reading, and social studies, Susan was more interested in the student’s social and emotional development, their interactions, and the dynamics between faculty members. Every six years, she had a pattern of getting bored with her work. While Susan was still teaching, she did a clinical internship in digital art therapy. Then, she left her job and pursued a master's degree in psychology and counseling.
After a period of underemployment, Susan landed work in management training as she knew her clinical and education skills were applicable, and she was curious to try something new. Her work expanded to teach supervision and leadership, and she started doing some consulting. Susan was having fun until she got bored again, about five years into it. She left the firm she was working with and gave herself a month to reset. Almost immediately, she received calls for consulting work, and the rest, as they say, is history. That was 35 years ago.
Today, Susan is an executive coach and organizational consultant. Her book, Harmony at Work, Keys to Tune Up Your Work Relationships, is a practical guide to help people better understand relationship dynamics and how to improve their interactions. She uses music as a metaphor to describe how relationships most often evolve. The book integrates popular theories and tools with real-world examples and humorous anecdotes.
In this week’s Work From The Inside Out podcast, learn more about Susan’s journey and work:
- Susan has worked in various industries with corporations and nonprofits ranging in size from five to 5000 employees
Learn more and connect with Susan here:
- Learn and practice simple tools to make your professional and personal interactions stronger, healthier, and more rewarding.
- Spero & Company Consultants, LLC
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