Using Effective Communication to Build Strong Bridges: Sally Susman, Pfizer & Jim Weiss, Real Chemistry

·49 min·3 clips

Albert Bourla aimed for a vaccine in eight months, usually a decade-long process, and Sally matched it with a communications strategy.

Aaron Strout introduces Jim Weiss and Sally Sussman at the top of the episode and sets the scene with her new book, Breaking Through. Jim wants to know why she wrote it, and Sally ties that answer to urgency and the intensity of her work at Pfizer. The conversation moves into the pandemic quickly. She talks about how carefully the company chose its language. The goal was to keep the focus on science. In that framing, the only enemy was the virus. She says the wording was deliberate, including phrases like science will win and making the impossible possible. Sally describes the result as prose and poetry that put the company in a great spot. The episode also spends time on risk. She explains that she embedded Wall Street Journal and Nat Geo documentary crews along the way. That felt scary. At one point she worried she might be filming a debacle. Jim then asks what prepared her for work that intense. Sally points first to her parents. They made her bring a news fact to the dinner table as a kid. They also taught her to look people in the eye, shake hands, and speak up. She says she gets deadly calm when things are utterly on fire. The hotter it gets, the calmer she becomes. She also credits the leaders she watched over the years, including nine CEOs and other communicators who let her see how they worked. The conversation closes by circling back to the book and to leadership under pressure.

As heard by us

A clear look at crisis messaging and calm leadership under strain.

The episode treats communication as a deliberate leadership tool, with Jim Weiss and Sally Sussman laying out why Breaking Through was written and how Pfizer's pandemic-era language was chosen on purpose: science will win, the only enemy was the virus, making the impossible…

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You need a grounded lesson in saying the right thing when the room is on fire.

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