The Innovation Show
Sally Susman - Breaking Through
The Power of Communication: Insights from Sally Susman, Author of 'Breaking Through' In this episode, Aiden welcomes Sally Susman, author of 'Breaking Through: Communicating to Open Minds, Move Hearts, and Change the World' to discuss the vital role of communication in professional and personal settings. Sally shares insights from her extensive career, including her experiences working with top leaders at Pfizer, Estee Lauder, and American Express. The discussion explores the misconception of communication as a soft skill, the importance of authentic outreach, the power of gratitude, and Susman's innovative approaches during the COVID-19 pandemic. Sally also emphasises curiosity, creativity, and intentionality as key components for effective communication. Throughout the episode, real-life anecdotes and practical advice offer listeners valuable lessons on leadership and connection. 00:00 Introduction and Guest Welcome 00:39 The Importance of Communication 03:24 Lessons from Estee Lauder 06:09 Personal Background and Family Influence 08:51 The Power of Gratitude 13:15 Perfecting Your Pitch 23:02 Humour in the Workplace 29:36 Challenges at Pfizer 32:03 Facing the Biopharma Reputation Challenge 33:37 The Pandemic's Impact and New Leadership 35:02 Albert Bourla's Bold Vision 36:30 Revolutionising Vaccine Development 37:25 The Media's Role in the Journey 38:55 Pfizer's Transformation and Recognition 40:46 Innovative Leadership and Personal Growth 49:30 Curiosity and Creativity in Action 56:47 The Power of Intentionality 58:46 Concluding Thoughts and Inspirations
- Duration:
- 1h 0m
- Broadcast on:
- 12 Jul 2024
- Audio Format:
- mp3
It's a pleasure to welcome the author of Breaking Through, Communicating to Open Minds, Move Hearts, and Change the World. Sally Sussman, welcome to the show. - Thanks, Aidan. It's great to be here with you. - It's great to have you with us, Sally. I was telling you an offer that I had the great pleasure to read your book during my downtime, during my holidays, which is just great because I get to absorb the book in a different way. It doesn't feel as pressurized 'cause I don't have to balance work and reading the book as well. Prince, I learned so much, you weave in your own personal story, you weave in the story of Pfizer battling against the pandemic to bring us the vaccine and so much more. Most particularly, I want to tell our audience, Sally imparts so much wisdom about not only how to be the top of your game as a communications professional, but also how to communicate in general. And I thought we'd start with the importance of communication. I pulled a little excerpt here, Sally, that I'd love you to riff on. You say, because of the increased scrutiny and elevated stakes, communication can no longer be considered a soft skill. The ability to lead and drive public conversation is a rock heart competency. It tests one's abilities as much as any professional discipline, maybe more so in a time when public trust in business, government and media is at an all time low. I'd love you to tell us about the importance of communication, not just in your role, but for any professional, any level of the organization. - Oh, thank you so much. And I really have to thank you for taking time out of your holiday to read my book. I'm very grateful for that. You've landed on probably the most important sentence in the entire book to get us started. The fact that I believe communications is mistaken as a soft skill and really is a rock heart competency is something I learned from supporting nine CEOs over three companies, over more than three decades, working with elected leaders, government officials and cabinet secretaries. And what I saw, Aiden, was really that all of those individuals are highly competent people. I mean, because you talk to people at the top of business, you don't stumble into the corner office. People get there because they've worked hard and they have competencies. But the ones that are the game changers that really can shift the paradigm in their field, whether that's Leonard Lauder at the Estee Lauder companies or my current CEO, Albert Borla, Pfizer, the ones that are the game changers are the one who put as much effort into how they communicate, into practicing those skills of connection, thinking deeply about what they want to express. And so I wrote this book to share those insights and to encourage people in leadership positions to really understand the importance. And I have to say it brings me great pride that the Harvard Business Review Press took on this first time author because I wanted it to really be a book as much about leadership as about communications. I think the guiding hand of HBR helped me to do that. - I'm gonna jump around my notes a little bit here because there's so much in it and particularly you share so much of your own experience. And I have to say, hats off to you for giving awards and all experience of your life and indeed your experience of being a communications professional. But there was a piece I wanted to tune into. You mentioned there Leonard Lawday and the humility and the attention to detail of these leaders. You're writing the book after time with the American Express Company, you joined Estee Lawday companies where you worked with the Lawday family directly. And you tell us here Estee Lawday was a master communicator. And I'd love you to share the communication story from this little piece, telephone, telegraph, tell a woman where Estee Lawday claimed this was a key element to her huge success. - Right, I mean, she's the poster girl, poster woman for some of the central ideas in my book. She knew instinctively that she had to touch and reach the consumer in very innovative ways. She was the founder of this company and she legend is that she started it pretty much in the backtub, in her apartment in Queens, making the products and then hand packaging them and delivering them. And she had no money for advertising. So she had to do the very personal skills of telegraph, telephone, tell a woman. This was her mantra. And I always thought maybe she was the first person to go viral before we knew viral was a thing. And also to the point that often authentic outreaches are more meaningful than just broad-scale advertising. And that was a lesson that Estee learned by necessity, but one that I think we see very much today in all kinds of areas, including certainly in their bio-pharmaceutical field that influencer voices come from everywhere, not just from big flashy advertising campaigns. But I have to say I love my time at that company because they're so innovative and so creative and so committed to their customers and to their employees. - And I'm gonna come back to the Lorde family and indeed some of the tactics or skills that you honed from working there, including just the very basic thing of saying thank you. And we'll come back to that because in the book, Sally gives us guidelines of how to be a master communicator in any field. But I want to come back to something yourself. So you mentioned there, Leonard Lorde, one of Estee's spawn and how he gathered some skills that are inherent in the company today. So they carry through to the company and you too, as a mother pass on skills in your family, but your own background and your own family had a massive impact on your own mindset. And what's interesting here is when you see somebody as successful as you were such an illustrious career with such great brands of companies, et cetera, people go, oh, it's well for them, et cetera, et cetera. But what I loved about your story was that you reckon your teachers and probably many of your co-students would have voted you least likely to succeed. Yes, you succeeded nonetheless, including so much of the lessons that were passed on by your parents. - Yeah. Well, you did mention the fact that the book is warts and all, okay? And before I turned it in to HBR Press, I shared it with just a very few trusted family and friends. I mean, as a fellow author, and I'm sure you do that you have a reading circle of people you trust to help you with your work. And I remember my mom saying to me, Sally, this is terrible. You talk about all your most embarrassing mistakes in this book. And I do, when I try to tell them unflinchingly because I think it is through the shared experience of making mistakes and stumbling at times that people can learn. So thank you for saying that I'm proud to show my warts. I'm also very fortunate and proud to have grown up in the family where I did. My parents were interested in the world. They had a passion for civic issues. And they taught my brother and I many things. We had to bring a news fact to the table every night at dinner and discuss it. And this couldn't be a sports score or a weather forecast. It had to be something of the world and we had to talk about it. My brother and I thought this was inhumane, cruel, unfair, but it was actually a great gift, Aiden, because we learned how to observe the world and how to process information and how to articulate things. The other gift that my parents gave me was a practice of writing thank you notes. And mom was very strict about that. Nothing, no gift could be enjoyed until the thank you note had been written. I was surprised many years later to have a conversation with Leonard Lauder about pretty much the same thing. And when I joined the company, I was new to the industry. As you mentioned, I came from financial services into personal care. And Leonard was kind enough to take me by the hand and introduce me to the top editors across the industry. And I remember very specifically one day, and I tell the story in the book as well, where we went to meet an editor who was less than gracious. She kept us waiting, which more importantly was keeping him waiting 'cause Leonard Lauder is an icon in the industry. She didn't give us a tremendous amount of time. She was rude, she sat behind her desk with her eyes down and then dismissed us shortly thereafter. And as Leonard and I were leaving, he said to me, "Now, don't forget to write her a thank you note." And I was, "What?" She was so rude and he said, "Nope, that's how we roll." And I realized that writing thank you notes was not a casual affair at the company. Leonard himself wrote many. He had blue stationery with one of the colors of the brand and everyone at the company calls it a blue note. Did you get a blue note to say thank you for this or that? And I realized that again, before they had money for advertising, before they could spend a lot on splashy incentives, they took the time to thank the women who worked behind the counter, their best customers. And so now I try most mornings to take a moment before I start my day and write one or two thank you notes looking at my calendar for the day before. And it's a tremendous practice because it gives you a sense of gratitude, of the good fortune that you have for the people that you know. And people are very touched by it, especially in the age of texting and tweeting and to receive a note through the post with a thank you is still very meaningful and something I take quite seriously. So that's why it's almost a whole chapter dedicated to how to write a thank you note, remembering that specific is important to not to say thanks for having me for dinner, but thanks for hosting me in your home and the vegetables from your garden were so delicious. And my seatmate was a lovely choice. The more specific, the better. - We're one of time to cover all the communication tenets from the book, but that one about thanks, as you said, is a huge one. And indeed, I learned so much from that. I pass that on, this is where I say it's so useful to read a book when I'm on holidays. I'll give an example. So I read that story about you and this less than gracious person. And one of the beautiful things about doing the show is lots of the content mixes and becomes this marination of a mindset over a period of time. And one of the things that you get from doing the show is huge empathy. So empathy for that person who's lasting gracious, not knowing what's going on their lives. And then I try and pass that onto my kids. So something similar happened where there was somebody when we were checking in into security for the airport. And she wasn't very nice at all. And I smiled and my son said, "Why were you smiling?" At her, I said, "Well," I said, "You know what? "I just read it in this book that when you smile, "the other person has mirror neurons, "they can't but not smile back. "It's really, really hard for them." And you can unlock them. And you never know what's going on in that person's life as well. So maybe we'll say, seeing as I'm on that one, that element of how you show up to the other person being such a key tenant and key team that's throughout the book as well. - Absolutely. I bet that lady smiled back at you too from the security groups. - I mean, son was surprised. I was like, "See?" So yeah, it's great to show them and pass on the lessons. Sorry to interrupt you. - No, not at all. I have a specific chapter in the book that I refer to as perfecting your pitch. And I want to be clear to all your listeners and viewers that I'm not talking about the dreaded elevator pitch or a cold call where you're pitching an idea, maybe to a cynical journalist, but a quality, a quality of being in the world. So I tell the story, this one from American Express, and it followed 9/11, which here in New York and throughout the United States was an unforgettable, horrible day. And the American Express headquarters are right down at the World Trade Center where the terrorist action happened and the Twin Towers came down. Ken Chenault was a new CEO, had just been a CEO for a couple of months, who was actually out on the west coast of the United States, a meeting with some people in one of the call centers when the tragedy struck and he knew he needed to get back to the headquarters in New York, had to drive across the country because there were no planes flying for days. And Ken had a leader's instinct that he needed to get people together in one place. So they rented out Madison Square Garden, which is huge, and invited all the employees from the tri-state area, so New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, to come together. And of course, Ken's staff prepared a speech for him to give, which he didn't give that speech. He spoke from the heart. He waded into the audience to touch the people whose lives had been impacted. He learned the names of the employees who had perished in the tragedy. And most importantly, he set a tone and the tone was that American Express's best days, that New York City's best days would be ahead of it. And I write about that and it goes right back to your story and your education with your son that how we choose to show up is so important at really important moments, and also at everyday moment, greeting people by their name, saying hello. Just these simple things make such a huge difference. And if I turn up in some places very aggressive, like maybe a pressurizing journalist or a committee hearing in front of a tough committee, if you start by a smile, kindness in your voice, thank them for having you, it can just take that edge out. And I think that's so important. - That chapter on Pitch, you beat me too because I thought it was such an important chapter in every aspect. So whether it's for a regular listener to this show who's working in innovation, pitching an idea, or actually calling something out like you mentioned before you've had Amy Edmondson in with your company to talk about psychological safety 'cause you want people to have the psychological safety to call things out. But one of the things you call out was the unfortunate example of Hillary Clinton's failed candidacy and how she got the pitch wrong. And this is one of the things you detected from your experience. And I thought we just juxtapose the American Express experience with the Hillary Clinton's experience and just how subtle the difference is but what a dramatic impact that it can have. - Absolutely. And I first must say that I am an admirer of Hillary Clinton. I think she was a great secretary of state, a wonderful senator. I believe she would have been a very good president. But unfortunately, her campaign did not go well. And I thought a lot about it, Aidan, and I believe it's because she did not have pitch, that the kind of pitch we're talking about. I think she was well prepared. I believe she worked hard. But it often felt like she sounded that she was going low as opposed to going high in her ideals and her tone. Or she seemed frustrated and angry on the defense all the time. And it was heartbreaking to me really because I do admire her, but she couldn't lift herself up. And of course, she famously called people or infamously called people a basket of deplorables. And that doesn't reach across the divide the way Ken brought people together in a tough moment. It seemed that unintentionally, but nonetheless, actually, that Hillary was seen as divisive. The thing that was also a great irony, 'cause I love politics, I follow politics very closely, is at her concession speech, she did have pitch. And I don't know if any of your reviewers and listeners remember that concession speech, but she was actually wearing purple. And purple is a symbol to me because we call our political parties here in the United States, red and blue. So one side wears blue, the other side wears red and purple is the coming together of both sides. She talked very graciously about accepting this outcome, not challenging the outcome, but in the spirit of advancing democracy, accepting this outcome. And lastly, she spoke to little girls across the country and said, don't let this hold you back. You can be anything you want. And I remember watching it with my daughter who was, at the time, right in the age group, to hear such a message. And I wished so much she had that pitch throughout the campaign, and it was a bit of a heartbreaking thing to me. I wanna say one other thing about pitch, if I may, and that is that in companies today that are struggling with quality controls, I think it is because people on the shop floor, people in the middle ranks of the company, are often afraid to raise bad news and problems up. And I don't know the details of what's happening at Boeing today, for example. But I do know that the CEO has lost his position and that is largely seen as a result of the failure to deal with the quality issues at the company. And having really studied companies that have had crisis from British petroleum, to Disney, to Boeing, one of the key things is really having a clear line of communication from the junior levels to the senior levels. And you can't have that if people feel they're gonna get shouted down or bullied, or we were, as you say, speaking about Amy Evans' psychological safety. Psychological safety and pitch go right together in my mind. - Beautifully said and so important. I was reading about the case study of Nokia and people say it was strategic failure, et cetera, et cetera. But this is the mobile phone division and what they, NCAD, created this post-mortem and they said it was dominated by an atmosphere of frightened middle managers afraid of telling the truth. So there was no bad news raising up. So people making the decisions couldn't make those decisions. So you're absolutely nailed a huge element of why so many organizations fail ultimately, but they blame it on strategy when so much so. It's the softer skills and one of the reasons why I think your book is so important. I just wanna say to our audience, in the book, Sally gives loads and loads of advice, loads and loads of golden rules and I won't have time to cover it. I highly recommend it, particularly if you're working in communications. You have a guru of communications here and I have a copy up for grabs, just sign up to our sub stack where I'll give away a copy of Sally's great book, Breaking Through. But in the book, you give eight golden rules on pitch itself. Now, we're not gonna cover all eight, but I'd love you to share perhaps one of your top tips on pitch. - Well, first of all, thank you for sharing the book and for again, for giving me this opportunity. I really think one of the first things that's most important about pitch is really to enter a conversation with an open mind and an open heart to the possibility that this will be pleasant, that it will be something where I will learn. But I was excited to speak with you today, knowing of your past and I really think the mindset that one brings to each and every encounter. I referenced it a little bit, but I've been in hostile environments. I've been places where people don't like the big, bad pharma industry or people have a negative impression just of someone from a large corporation. And I think if you can really start with the human elements, share a little bit about yourself, ask a question. These kinds of very humanizing behaviors are really essential to getting on that good pitch at the very beginning of a conversation. You couldn't have teed us better for the next one 'cause I've jumped around and I haven't sent a script to Sally or anything like that, but you teed me up beautifully 'cause you devote a whole chapter to humor. And humor for me was a difficult one when I worked in organizations 'cause I was always, it's in me to be trying to bring a bit of humor to a situation, particularly when it's tense. But sometimes that can be perceived as you're a joker or you're the clown, you're the class clown type character, when that's not the intent at all. And you share a brilliant story here. I'd love you to tell us a little bit about humor, but also the great story. And to intrigue our audience, I'll say, "I'll give you two cows for her." - Humor is hard. Just what you, I wanna double click on what you just said about humor can be hard in the workplace today. And it was the hardest chapter of the tend to write. And more than once, I said, I ripped it up and walked away and said, "I can't write about humor in this environment "of austere political correctivity "and of people getting canceled for saying the wrong thing." And as you say, nobody wants to be the joker. And I especially, I'm very passionate about corporate communications and wanting to elevate the field. And it's a terrible thing if the communications person is seen as sort of the court jester in the office, that that's no good. But I stuck with this because I don't wanna live in a world that's joyless. And I want to be able to have a light and happy atmosphere in the work environment. We spend so much time in the office that it needs to have a levity and a humanity to it. So I opened the chapter with a story that took place in Ethiopia. I was traveling along with some Pfizer colleagues, Albert Borla, who's now my boss, was then a colleague and fellow traveling companion on this trip, which was part of the Pfizer Foundation work reviewing what we do to help gender healthcare among those who don't have good access. We were, it was the end of a long day. We had some jet lag. It was very hot. We'd been in a maternal clinic. And we were just resting for a moment under a tree, getting ready to get back in our van and carry on. When we saw a group from the village coming toward us, to seem friendly to greet us. And the gentleman who appeared to be the leader came up to me. I was our trip leader. I had been guiding and communicating. And he said to me that he wanted to trade me for two cows. And I just lost it. And I did, I pride myself on speaking. And I didn't know what to say. I was sputtering. I am a feminist. I'm a woman leader. I mean, this is ridiculous. And I was, when Albert, who's very funny, came up from behind and said, sir, to the gentleman. This woman is one of the most senior leaders at a fortune 50 company. And she will not be traded for less than six cows. And so with that, we all laughed, mostly me, because I realized he was joking me. And of course, we're not going to be traded for cows, but in a faraway place, at a tired moment, I had lost my sense of humor. And I was grateful to Albert for restoring it. And it ended up being a lovely visit with lots of photos and handshakes. And Albert is very good at that. He can diffuse tense circumstances with humor. And while I can't tell a joke to save my life, I probably just proved it with that story, but I do like to have a light-hearted atmosphere. And so one ritual I have created in my own department is every summer, we have open mic night. And what that is, is we do it at the end of the day, we have some refreshment, and we have a microphone set up, trying to make it look like a comedy club. And people get up, I usually start, and they share a recent mistake that they made. And people tell it these stories with flourish, but I've heard it all at this point. Top secret documents left on the subway, all kinds of embarrassing mistakes made. But once we share our stories and we laugh together, the shame is eradicated and the humanity fills the space, and we're all better off and we learn from doing it together. So I think we stick with humor, we never laugh at the expense of others. I should also mention that here at Pfizer, we have four corporate values, one of which is joy. And I think joy is very uncommon for a value of a big pharma company, but we thought about that, and we thought it was important to be joyful, and we even got into the substrate of what does it mean to have joy as a corporate value? And it means that we take our jobs seriously, but not ourselves, and that we recognize laughter is good medicine too. So a joyful company, humor and lightheartedness as my personal goal made its way into that chapter. - It's such a great ritual, I love that, because it's the intersection of humor, but also the seriousness of psychological safety, where it's a safe environment to share your mistakes. And also, when somebody sees somebody else who's a professional, who's succeeded in life, admitting, "Hey, I make mistakes," too, it opens up innovation as well. It's such a key part of innovation to share that. I loved that ritual, and if there's anything for our audience to take away, that one is a beautiful one. You mentioned something though, Sally, which was the Albert Brilla, and indeed, throughout the book, you start with the story of the pandemic. And I've had such empathy for you during that period, because you'd come from Amex, you'd come from Estee, and you'd come to Pfizer at a period where it wasn't the most trusted organization. Then we had these horrific documentaries, for example, about Purdue Pharma, et cetera, which doesn't help your job, 'cause you're trying to change how people view the company, and you mentioned how you joined Pfizer in 2007, but in the early days, you almost quit on multiple occasions because of the hostility that the company faced, and you felt very, very viscerally yourself. I thought we'd share that because you're a human being. I think people forget that. There's human beings working in all these organizations, and when you're trying to change some blip that the organization has had or the industry, it can be so visceral on you as a human being. It can be so damning. It can be so emotionally draining as well, and I'd love you to share that part that you share in the book, because it shows how human you and your colleagues are. - You bet, and thank you for asking me about it. The first two companies I worked for, American Express and Estee Lauder, had a lot of reputational wind at their back. People like these companies. They're fun. American Express had museum quality advertising and marketing. Their photography was done by Annie Leibowitz. They were about travel and lifestyle, and people just love this company. Same is true for Estee Lauder. As you've mentioned, founded by a great family with deep roots in New York, and they have products that delight women around the world, and mostly wherever this family goes, their red carpet is rolled down because they're generous and they're kind. But when I got a call about coming to Pfizer from a recruiter, I thought, "Wow." These companies make life-saving medicine, and yet they're pretty much reviled. The reputational data showed big pharma companies down with oil and gas, and even with tobacco. And I guess I was naive or perhaps overly self-confident, 'cause I thought, "That's crazy. I'm gonna fix that. "This is a great challenge for me. "I'm gonna go over to the bio-pharma sector "and fix this reputation problem." And as I'd also like to just a slight side note to say, switching sectors is really fun, because you just are drinking from the firehose and you're learning all the time. But for me, I felt like I ran headlong into a brick wall. I had underestimated the cynicism towards the industry. I started to hear from family and friends saying, "Why did you go there? "These are bad places." I sat in on focus groups where I heard people say, "These companies have a cure for diabetes, "but they won't put it forward "because insulin is so profitable." And while Pfizer's not an insulin company, it wasn't personal to Pfizer or to me, it was indicative of the level of cynicism and negativity towards the industry. So for my first 10-plus years, I was banging my head against that brick wall. I was trying all sorts of things and I like to think I was perhaps having incremental progress, but not mine. - So this was the environment into which you joined Pfizer in 2007. Fast forward to the pandemic and you really had a lot on your place. And what I loved here was, this is where you derived all your experience, the insights that you'd learned from your parents, from working in the older organizations, but you didn't just go to crisis communications one-on-one, like many organizations would have done because that's the safe bet. You tore up everything you knew and you leaned into your heart, you leaned into the power of your colleagues as well, you listened to them. Just like you said earlier on about who has ideas from lower in the echelons in the organization that they can share. And that became the epiphany of the book, including how Albert's Burla showed up in the crisis as well. I'd love you to share that 'cause this is the genesis of the book, but it also was the genesis of your new communications approach when it mattered most. - Right. And as I was mentioning, I was struggling before the pandemic and I thought I might've been running out of gas for this challenge. And then it was just about four years ago today, four years ago from now when we're talking, you and I, that the world started to hear about this thing called the coronavirus and the COVID epidemic. And Albert Burla had gone to Greece to give a speech at a conference. And by the time his flight landed, the conference had shut down. And we all recall that closing of doors across society as people were starting to hunker down in anticipation of the pandemic. So Albert had to just turn around, came back to New York. And on his flight, he wrote on a little piece of paper that we still have at the company today that he had to do three things. First, take care of our 85,000 employees across the globe because employee wellness became a top priority. Secondly, to ensure the steady stream of medicine around the world because horrible illnesses like cancer and Alzheimer's, they didn't go on break during the pandemic. And third, that we would make a vaccine by the end of the year. And this is where I thought, oh no, it's a global pandemic and my boss has lost his mind because he was expressing something that felt impossible, typically it would take 10 to 12 years to make a vaccine. Albert then did something I've never seen any of the other nine CEOs do. And that is he appointed a project manager, looked around the room and appointed himself. And that's when I thought, well, maybe just maybe this is gonna happen. And from that moment forward, the company went about doing things very differently, put $2 billion at risk, did not accept government money so that we would be liberated from any strings attached, took a big bet on mRNA technology, just put all chips on the table. And when I saw this, Aidan, I thought, this is my moment. I didn't know in 2007, it would take until 2020 to have my moment, but here it was. And I wanted to be very intentional about changing the reputation of this company. And so I too did things very differently. I took some of our treasured intellectual property, like a clinical trial protocol and put it right up on the website because we didn't have three years to fill this trial. We didn't have three months, we had like three weeks. And I embedded media along for the journey. I had two senior recorders from the Wall Street Journal and a documentary film crew from Nat Geo. It was a big risk. There were many nights I couldn't sleep worrying that I was filming the greatest debacle in corporate history. But I also knew that if we were successful, this would be the narrative that the world would need to know and that I couldn't go back and recreate it. As you know, because it's now history, Pfizer was the first company to find a successful mRNA COVID vaccine. And when we found out the vaccine worked the very next day, the Wall Street Journal dropped four full pages, every detail under a wonderful headline, the Pfizer vaccine, crazy deadlines and a pushy CEO. And while that's funny, it's also true. It was the audacity of the charge and the tenacity of the leader that made it happen. The film called Mission Possible is still available on YouTube and it's 46 minutes of pure heaven for me to watch it. And for the 85,000 people who work here, it's a chronicle, a testimony of what we did. Today, Pfizer's a top 10 global brand, according to Fortune Magazine and other reputable reputation tracking sources. And we were able to really achieve both a scientific transformation, but also a trust and reputation transformation at the same time. It's such a powerful story and, you know, I wanted to lean into a couple of the things there. So one Albert Borla got his hands dirty, literally got involved. Like, this is something that's so lacking with so much innovation. Often innovation is bringing the consultants, delegated somewhere in the organization. I'll focus on messaging to the outside world or to our shareholders, our stakeholders. And I thought that was such an important element. But then also, you had a different approach as an innovator because one of the things I saw here was a pattern that you had experienced a documentary before gone the wrong way when it didn't go. So you'd seen this firsthand, you'd seen the documentary. Maybe you'll share that because you had been stolen in the past, but yet you had the bravery to innovate and go, "You know what, this is the way forward." And hopefully it will drive us and hopefully we'll get a result at the end of this. I'd love you to share that because that to me was a key part that I don't know even if you knew how brave that was because so many times people will have failed like that or seen failure firsthand and then not risk it once again because the safe bet is where innovation doesn't happen, but you actually went with something really brave and it paid off locally. - Well, thank you for saying that. I'm not sure if it's bravery or foolishness entirely. - It depends on the results. - It depends on the results. - Exactly. As I mentioned earlier, I love politics and I follow an engaging politics very closely and you're referring to a situation here in New York City where I was supporting a woman, Christine Quinn, who had been the speaker of our city council and was running for mayor and was the odds on favorite to win. She was seen as the front runner and the leader and the campaign agreed with the New York Times to embed a documentary film crew with Chris along the way of her campaign. There was a belief it was gonna be a historic win, first female mayor to possibly lead the city. And this film crew is following her around and over the course of the campaign for reasons that we don't have time to get into today, but her lead started to evaporate and suddenly she wasn't necessarily gonna win. And in fact, had several stumbles along the campaign trail that were vividly videographed by this company. And in the end, she didn't win. She did not win the primary. She was exited early from the race and that film is quite painful to watch and to see the sinking hoax of a great public servant. And it did caution me about don't embed a film crew lightly, but there is, it's hard to say this, Aiden, but there was a gift of this crisis in that all bets were off. And if Pfizer had failed, I think the trauma of that would have been much bigger than a bad news cycle for the company or the video that probably nobody would have watched. The stakes were so high and Albert's leadership was really pro-risk. Albert is himself Greek, proudly Greek, and he likes to quote Greek philosophers to us here at the company. And one of my favorites of his quotes is from Aristotle where he says, "Our problem is not that we aim high and miss. "Our problem is when we aim low and hit." And this was a moment where we were all aiming so high, the scientists, the people in manufacturing, before the pandemic on our best year, we produced 200 million vaccines. During the pandemic, we jumped up to four and five billion production. So the whole place was running with this energy and with this sense of purpose that is so critical to getting things done, to innovating. I mean, I'm sure you see this throughout your work. The higher the stakes, in many ways, the better. - Absolutely. And this is something you did, again, with your team. And one of the things that we see in innovation is that if you have a vision or a mission or values, that yes, the company should have them, but each individual team or sector within the organization must also have them because they're not always the same, but you can also embed yourself below the organizations. - And one of the things I loved that you did is that you called your team together and you said, forget the old rules of how we operate. Imagine we are founders of a startup, not at 171-year-old company, now 173, perhaps. I'm no longer in-- - 75. - 55, there you go. I'm no longer interested in playing defense or dodging the broad sides against our industry. This is the moment to strike out and break through to people. And you said to your team, what do you think? And what I loved here was that there were spawns. They were allowing for this something that was bigger than themselves. And I think this is one of the core messages of the book. - Thank you. Thank you so much. I do remember this moment because I was at home. Most of us were working from home because of our fears of the pandemic and I have an infrequent yoga practice. I'm not very good at it, but I occasionally do a little yoga and appreciate the quiet that it brings. And there's a ritual in the beginning of most yoga classes where you set an intention. The teacher asks you to set an intention. And it can be something, usually something for a loved one, a family member or maybe resolution of a problem. And so that morning I was doing a little yoga and I decided to set this intention to make the most of this moment, not knowing how it would turn out. And as you say, I grabbed my team and we jumped on a video call and I started talking to them about this. And rather than sensing their feeling tired or overwrought or worn down by this, I literally saw them rise, their eyes lit up, their posture got better because this is what people want to do. And as I mentioned, I had gotten a bit ground down over the decade and I am not proud to say that I didn't always take the harder road. I might not tell people what I did in my profession 'cause I didn't wanna get into an argument. But in this moment, lives were at stake. Literally, we would think about every day, how many people died. We'd hear it on the news. The need for the vaccine was urgent. And I suddenly felt more confident. And I opened the aperture on the stakeholders that we would engage with. We always, of course, it would engage with patient groups and regulators and those stakeholders close to home in the bio-pharmaceutical industry. But during the pandemic, I was invited to speak to the Restaurant Workers Association because they wanted to know, how do we try to get our restaurants open in this environment? When will we have vaccines and how will they protect us? Same that I went and engaged with the teachers union, someone I'd never talked to. And importantly, for me personally, I came out from behind the scenes. During my whole career, more than 30 years, my job had been to help others to know what to say or where to go and how to build bridges to stakeholders. And because we were all running flat out, some of those opportunities turned to me. I went on television. I did more podcasts. I gave speeches, things I hadn't done before, and I wrote a book, which had been a lifelong ambition never before achieved until in this moment because I was just driven by this intentionality. And it opened up new lines of thought for me about yes, communications, but also leadership and connection. So now that the pandemic is behind us, Aiden, I try to maintain a firm focus on intentionality. So this morning, for example, before sitting down with you, I said, this guy talks to all the big shots in innovation. My goal will be to add something new to the conversation, to try to bring my own perspective and hopefully to make it interesting. But when I'm talking to my parents, my daughter, my colleagues, my boss, I try to say ahead of the engagement, take 30 seconds and claim an intention. It's really very powerful. - Beautiful. And I don't know if you know what Ellen Langer, she's like the mother of mindfulness, the mother of positive psychology, brilliant Harvard professor. And one of the things she talks about being mindful is very similar to the idea of intentionality. It's actually just being present in whatever you're doing. And this is a nice link to the next one where about being curious. And here you can use the word breakthrough communicator synonymously with an innovator. You say here, breakthrough communicators are relentlessly curious. They are interested in things outside themselves. They are virtuoso listeners and they ask probing questions and listen mindfully to the answers. So this is actually truly being present, truly listening, et cetera. But I wanted to share this and perhaps this is the last tenant we'll share as well. I absolutely loved how your own curiosity and leaning into it. And your practice of journaling as well that you haven't really mentioned. You mentioned about thank you notes, but you also journal very, very regularly the things you're grateful for, et cetera, but also things you're curious about. And this led to your dream intern. And one of the things I talk about in my work is reverse onboarding. So when you have somebody who comes in as an intern in the organization or a newcomer, rather than program them in the way things are done around here, ask them to report back to you, what's and all, what they see that you're doing wrong with their fresh eyes 'cause you've become used to it. But I loved how your creativity flipped that on its head and brought in this dream intern. And this is something that any organization can do and approve to be a masterstroke for you. - Thank you. I also made a note of your comment about reverse onboarding because it won't be long before the summer interns or my viewer advisor, and I appreciate that thought. So thanks for this, Aiden, because I think there's a really interesting marriage between curiosity and creativity. And often in big companies, especially those that are strong marketing companies, there's this idea that the creatives are these other people. They wear funky clothes and they have divine powers of creativity and the rest of us don't have that. I strongly reject that notion. And I believe all of us, each one of us, have the power to be curious and that will lead to some incredible creativity. I learned a bit about this from the dancer and choreographer Twyla Twarp. And she has a concept she calls scratching. And scratching is simple. It means that you just scratch the surface of all the things that are happening around us on a daily basis. It can be as simple as taking a different street when I walk home to see different things or picking up a book that's not the typical genre that I usually read or going to a restaurant with a cuisine that I've never had before and that this kind of simple scratching gives you big ideas. So I had such a moment. I was flying home from a business trip and I was tired, too tired to work or even to read. And so I decided to scratch a little bit and I looked at the movies that they were showing on the plane and there was one called The Intern. And if anyone is not familiar with that movie, it stars Robert De Niro, who plays a retired man who didn't like his retirement, felt very much on the margins and joined a firm as their summer intern. The other main character is Anne Hathaway, who plays the business boss lady, who's lonely in the job and struggling. It doesn't really have anyone in the company that she can talk to 'cause she's the boss. She and he form a close relationship and become great friends and, of course, solve all their mutual problems. Happy ending. As I'm watching this on the plane, I start to tear up because I'm deeply moved by this. And the very next morning, I marched myself into the head of HR advisor and I said, "This summer, I'm gonna have a senior intern." I then asked him if he would be my summer intern. And literally, he tapped his ear, Aiden, 'cause I think he didn't think he heard me correctly. And I explained the concept and he told me he had to think about it overnight, which I knew meant he had to ask his wife if she agreed and she did. And we're all, we're friends. And he came back to me the next day and said, "Yes, he would be my intern." And I said, "Well, please let me offer you a consulting contract because you're so senior." He said, "What do the other interns make?" $18 an hour. He said, "I'll take it." And I said, "But please let me give you an office so you have some privacy. Where do the other interns sit?" He asked. I said, "Over here in the bullpen." He sat in the bullpen. And he became this much beloved figure. And he helped me as well with things that were marinating in my mind. But what was most incredible is that people heard about this thing we were doing. It went a little viral. Fast Company Magazine asked us about it and covered it and put us on the cover of Fast Company Magazine. For a decade plus, I'd been trying to get Pfizer on the cover of Fast Company with no success. But this kind of quirky, very human, simple intergenerational experiment put a shine on the company. It's a company willing to do things out of the box. We were also invited to go into the main stage at South by Southwest and tell our story. So I love telling this story because its roots were so simple. I watched a movie that sparked an idea. And I believe as long as you give full credit to from wherever or whomever you're scratching, it can lead to really wonderful opportunities, rooted in curiosity, but living in the freedom to be creative. - Beautiful, absolutely beautiful. I have to say, when I read that, I was smiling to myself. I had a similar experience with the movie and it's how I reached out to Dee Hock, who is one of the greatest mentors I've ever had. I had him on the show, he's the founder of Visa and he wrote the forward to my book. But it all started from watching that movie and I was like, there's bound to be people out there who are brilliant and nobody's no longer going to them because they're not just on the circuit or whatever, et cetera, et cetera. And it's just, I think those kind of outside the box, thinking driven by creativity, if you lean into them and don't worry about how it's gonna pan out, it will always work out. You'll never regret those things. So I absolutely love that story. Now, I'm gonna land the ship on something that you mentioned earlier on the book, but I thought it'd be a lovely way to finish this book. Firstly, congratulations to you on the Matrix Awards and for people that don't know what that is, it is the highest honor that can be bestowed upon somebody in Sally's professional and communications. And I loved your intentionality here. So you mentioned that you brought that and talentality that you have in yoga to your speech and you were very nervous about this speech, but you posed a question to the audience at the end from your favorite poet. I'd love you to maybe land today's ship and land today's episode with how you did that because this is so valuable to anybody. - Nothing would make me happier. Thank you for the opportunity and you're right. Winning a Matrix was a very big deal to me. It was something that for many years, I wanted to achieve and they'd come out every year with the list of winners and it wasn't on it. And I thought, oh well, it's not gonna happen for me. And then it did come when I was here at Pfizer, I was given the Matrix Award for Communications. And all of a sudden, Aiden, after all these years of like dying to get this award, I panicked over what I would say in my speech because I guess it just meant so much to me. And it was a very important opportunity in my life. And I did several drafts, sort of cliche after cliche after cliche when I finally hunkered down and tried to get to the heart of it. And the purpose of this organization, the Matrix and Women in Communication that lead it here in New York, is not really to honor those of us who've done it for a long time, but to provide scholarships to those rising in the profession. So I decided the most meaningful thing I could do and what became my intention was to speak directly to those young people in this field that I care so much about. And I was reminded of a line by one of my favorite poets, Mary Oliver. And her poem titled "The Summer Day" ends with quite an evocative question. And Mary says, "Tell me, what is it you will do with your one wild and precious life?" And I just let that question hang in the air because the phrase "tell me" is full of good pitch, right? It means I wanna know, I'm listening. And what is it you want, not what other people want? And each life is truly in my mind wild and precious. So it was a very powerful moment for me. And I hope one in which inspired the young women in the field, helping young people in the field is extremely important to me. Corporate affairs and communications isn't singular in how people credential themselves for this work. If you're the general counsel of a company, you better have a legal degree. If you're our head of R&D, you likely have at least one PhD in science. But in my field, people come from all different backgrounds. There are journalists, politicians, poets, philosophers. And we learn our trade and our craft by watching others do it. And this book, "Breaking Through" is my apprenticeship for people who want to be in this field and want to know the lived experience for doing the work. And so I'm just again super grateful to you for allowing me this opportunity and the time for answers to breathe. And really, thank you so much for your interest in the book. - Well, I don't have a blue note to write this on, but author of "Breaking Through" communicating to open minds, move hearts and change the world. Sally Sosman, thank you. Aiden, thank you.