Corporate Affairs In An Everything, Everywhere. All At Once World

“Policy is shaping the environment. Trust is determining how organizations perform in it.” “I think we learned quickly that we could not respond to every little thing. We had to get good at ignoring the noise and focusing on the decisions we might be able to influence.” Companies need to“be really careful about staying true to the core of your message and not allowing the fragmentation to pull you in too many different directions.” In the past,“not everybody was comfortable, but I don't think people who were uncomfortable necessarily had a platform to express their discomfort.” in addition to the scientific evidence,“there is a personal truth that we have to be addressing in our communications or we will fail.” “If you show up with the insight and understanding around the business, you're going to be able to facilitate that alignment, which is exactly what companies need.”

Corporate affairs professionals in the healthcare sector are being forced to deal with““everything everywhere, all at once,” according to a discussion on“Speed, Trust and the Art of Corporate Affairs” at PRovoke Media's North American Summit, hosted by Sherry Pudloski, who leads corporate affairs at Real Chemistry, and who suggested that the challenges being faced by healthcare communicators provided lessons for their peers in other industries.

“Policy is shaping the environment,” Pudloski told the audience.“Trust is determining how organizations perform in it. And healthcare companies are operating in probably one of the most hostile trust environments in history.” She cited the polarized political realm, individuals skeptical of the industry in positions of influence, and the public“still in a Covid malaise, a lot of distrust.”

The current environment is“everything everywhere, all at once,” added Kirsten Axelson, an economist and senior policy advisor with law firm DLA Piper. In that environment, it's no longer enough to understand the specifics of Medicare, for example.“You also have to be a person who understands tariffs and geopolitics.”

She pointed to new Trump administration tariffs on pharmaceuticals and the pressure on companies that have historically charged higher prices for their drugs in the US.“One answer is, go to other developed countries and tell them they have to pay more. But there other problems right now, and if you go to a government right now and say, what you need to do is pay more for your drugs. It's not going to work.”

Since this policy is coming from Republicans, who have historically been more favorable to the free-market pricing,“I think executives are just having a bit of whiplash.”

Sandy White, a veteran of corporate affairs positions at companies including Johnson&Johnson, CVS Health, Guardian Life and Novartis, said that the last 12 months have also been characterized by uncertainty.“Executives, at least in the companies where I sat, were kind of jumping right every time something was reported, or every time someone said that there would be something announced.

“There was a lot of anxiety around it and a lot of trying to figure out what that might mean. And I think we learned quickly that we could not respond to every little thing. We had to get good at ignoring the noise and focusing on the decisions we might be able to influence.”

That also meant learning to balance the competing interests of patients, payers, providers, and policymakers.“I think as a corporate affairs executive, you have to learn how to manage the tension, because it's not going away. The key is staying laser focused on where the company is heading and not get distracted. It's just kind of the way we work today.”

Asked by Pudloski about the increasing fragmentation of audiences, White acknowledged the problem but said:“Yes, we need to speak to different audiences, but I do think we need to be smart about when we do that, because companies need to have real clarity on what they stand for, what they say. I think we can get distracted, we can try to speak differently to too many different stakeholders in ways that start to break down the message.”

So companies need to understand the fragmentation, but“be really careful about staying true to the core of your message and not allowing the fragmentation to pull you in too many different directions.”

The fragmentation might not be new, Axelson added. But what is different is that some of the fragments companies are dealing with today may not have had a voice until recently. In the past, the biopharma industry“would put out scientific evidence, and we would say, you should be comfortable with that, and not everybody was comfortable, but I don't think people who were uncomfortable necessarily had a platform to express their discomfort and bring other people along with them.”

Today, she said:“We have to figure out how to bring other people along.” That means understanding that in addition to the scientific evidence,“there is a personal truth that we have to be addressing in our communications or we will fail.”

The companies managing ese issues well, White said,“look at it less as a communications problem to solve, and more as a business discipline, as part of business planning, scenario planning, issues management. So it isn't just in the hands of communications to message through and figure out. It's going to be a topic that we talk about it as a C suite, as an executive team, and everyone owns it.”

As a result, Pudloski said,“It's now the role of the corporate affairs leader to be a business leader as well. If you show up with the insight and understanding around the business, you're going to be able to facilitate that alignment, which is exactly what companies need.”

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