About the Business Chemistry Blog | Deloitte US has been saved
Welcome to the Business Chemistry Blog, a place to explore leadership, teams, and how relationships fuel our work.
Have you ever wondered what it is that makes two people click or clash? Or why some groups excel while others fumble? Or how a leader can make or break a team? These kinds of questions are the focus of this blog.
Imagine you had a more in-depth understanding of yourself and why you thrive in some work environments and flounder in others. Or, suppose you had more insight into what makes people tick and what ticks them off, and how some interactions unlock potential while others kill it. Envision creating a work environment where all types of people excel, even if they have conflicting perspectives, preferences, and needs. If any of that sounds good to you, you’ve come to the right place.
For more than 10 years now, we at Deloitte have been using Business Chemistry to help people develop more empathy and a deeper understanding of others. By engaging diverse working styles and perspectives, we’re creating relationships, team environments, and organizational cultures that enrich our experiences at work while elevating individual and collective performance.
As the primary author of the blog, I write from my vantage point as the lead researcher within Deloitte's Greenhouse Experience® team. I'm a social-personality psychologist, which means I study how people's thoughts, behaviors, and preferences are influenced by both who they are and the situations they're in. Like many psychologists, I started down this path with a somewhat vague notion of wanting to help people. Along the way, I became fascinated by questions about why people act the way they do, and, in particular, what makes some people so different from me.
I consider myself spectacularly lucky to have a career focused on exploring the questions that so interest me. What’s even better is the discussions I get to have with others who are interested in these issues too. You can meet some of those people here, as I invite my colleagues to lend their voices to the conversation. Together, I hope we’ll pique your interest in Business Chemistry and what it might do for you!
Get in touch
Suzanne Vickberg (aka Dr. Suz)
Research Lead | Deloitte Greenhouse®
Dr. Suz is a social-personality psychologist and a leading practitioner of Deloitte’s Business Chemistry, which Deloitte uses to guide clients as they explore how their work is shaped by the mix of individuals who make up a team. Previously serving in Deloitte’s Talent organization, since 2014 she’s been coaching leaders and teams in creating cultures that enable each member to thrive and make their best contribution. Along with her Deloitte Greenhouse colleague Kim Christfort, Suzanne co-authored the book Business Chemistry: Practical Magic for Crafting Powerful Work Relationships as well as a Harvard Business Review cover feature on the same topic. She also leads the Deloitte Greenhouse research program focused on Business Chemistry and is the primary author of the Business Chemistry blog. An “unapologetic introvert” and Business Chemistry Guardian-Dreamer, you will never-the-less often find her in front of a room, a camera, or a podcast microphone speaking about Business Chemistry or Suzanne and Kim’s second book, The Breakthrough Manifesto: Ten Principles to Spark Transformative Innovation, which digs deep into methodologies and mindsets to help obliterate barriers to change and ignite a whole new level of creative problem-solving. Suzanne is a University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate with an MBA from New York University’s Stern School of Business and a doctorate in Social-Personality Psychology from the Graduate Center at the City University of New York. She is also a professional coach, certified by the International Coaching Federation. She has lectured at Rutgers Business School and several colleges in the CUNY system, and before joining Deloitte in 2009, she gained experience in the health care and consulting fields. A mom of two teenagers, she maintains her native Minnesota roots and currently resides in New Jersey, where she volunteers for several local organizations with a focus on hunger relief.
