This is no longer a "soft" skill

I have taken large chunks of an interview World 50 did with Sally Susman, the former Executive Vice President and Chief Corporate Affairs Officer at Pfizer, in 2023. The original story is on LinkedIn.

Communications is often mistaken as a soft skill

Susman believes that stakeholder activism today, coupled with the ubiquitous nature of digital and social media, means there is no longer a “back room” safe space for companies. Virtually every corporate interaction is public and open to interpretation. Communication skills are no longer a soft skill; they are a “rock hard competency as important to an executive’s success as finance, sales, or accounting expertise,” she says.

Knowing when to speak out is another core competency. To help her CEO and team navigate the nuances of when and how to take a public stand, Susman developed her own framework—a set of five questions to help determine appropriate action.

1. Does it relate to our purpose? If a company speaks out on everything, it loses its agency, Susman believes. Take a stand on issues that are most aligned with your company’s values.
2. How does it impact our most important stakeholders? This can involve both internal and external actions, depending on how personal, or political, the issue is, says Susman. For example, in the June 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade, Pfizer chose to speak directly to colleagues, providing increased health care benefits, coupled with a safe space for colleague conversations. However, in response to the recent debate over the abortion pill ruling in Texas, Pfizer took a public stance, joining 400 of the pharmaceutical industry’s most prominent companies in issuing a statement condemning the ruling as a threat to the critical independence of the FDA.
3. How does the question at hand intersect with our values? For Pfizer, whose values are courage, excellence, equity, and joy, Susman says that an event that incites any of these can stir the company to action.
4. What are my choices here? As public companies, we are often too reactive, Susman believes. An effective way to get ahead of a story is to proactively craft the company’s narrative on a topic and circulate it externally (more on this below).
5. What is the price of silence? Increasingly, “the cost of saying nothing can be too deafening,” says Susman. George Floyd’s murder and the 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, were situations where Pfizer felt compelled to condemn the violence and racism affecting our communities.

Own your own narrative

A mistake many leaders make is allowing a reporter on deadline, or government pressure, to force a rushed, defensive response. Susman’s favorite tool for going on the offensive is to post a letter from the CEO or a top leader on the company website, stating the company’s stand, in its own words, on its own timetable.

Susman used this approach effectively during the 2020 U.S. elections, when the company was receiving political pressure to discover a vaccine. When President Trump used the presidential debates to claim that Pfizer was going to deliver a vaccine by Election Day, Susman and Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla crafted a letter explaining that the company “would move at the speed of science” and not politics. Though Susman initially tried to pitch the letter to traditional media, no one was interested. She ended up posting a letter to employees on Pfizer’s website. It went viral, and all the major media outlets covered it.