By Gretchen Webster

WESTPORT — Sally Susman, the chief corporate affairs officer at Pfizer pharmaceutical company, is successful by most any measure. A leader in the effort to produce a COVID vaccine quickly, she has worked as an executive at several large companies and is the author of a best-selling book. 

But Monday, her advice to an audience at the Westport Library on how to live in an increasingly divisive society was simple and basic:

• Find common ground with others.
• Be mindful of language, avoiding coarse speech.
• Fight the viral disinformation that’s rampant in society.
• Seek hopefulness.

The program was sponsored by the library’s “Common Ground Initiative,” a group established to promote civil discussion of topical, often controversial, issues in an era of polarization.

Using Susman’s book, “Breaking Through: Communicating to Open Minds, Move Hearts, and Change the World” as a basis for a conversation, moderator Steve Parrish and Susman explored some of her beliefs about how to get along with others in polarized times — a kind of deeper look at the Golden Rule.

Taking her book chapter by chapter, Parrish — a consultant in the fields of crisis management and corporate communications — asked Susman to explain her thoughts and purpose behind the catchy chapter titles. For instance, “Do Manners Matter Anymore?” focuses on the value of being gracious to one another, and another chapter is about candor, giving the example of being open that she is gay, even in difficult times years ago, “before gay marriage and before Ellen DeGeneres.”

Discussing a chapter on Cancel Culture, she advised the audience of about 80 people “to reach out to those who are canceled” … “forgive yourself,” if you make a wrong move and “practice kind communication.”

She also described the stress, the triumphs and mistakes at Pfizer while the company was working to produce a life-saving COVID vaccine in a period of only a few months during the pandemic. Once the vaccine was available, it was Susman’s job to change the minds of people who rejected science and believed conspiracy theories about the vaccine’s dangers. But those methods weren’t working, she said.

“I thought I could win them over with my facts and my trials. I had the facts and the experts. … It didn’t change anyone’s minds,” she said.

“The science was A+, the communication C-.”

What did work in the vaccination campaign to win over the general population was “storytelling,” Susman said. “It was the grandmother telling her friend that now she could see her grandchildren … the teenager able to go back on to their college campus.”

Susman concluded the program by advising the audience to “focus on what we can agree on, and then build on it,” and to fight identity politics, which promote social stratification and devision in society, not community.

Social media, she said, pours “gas on the fire” of societal divisiveness. “Spend less time behind the screen,” she advised.

The next program planned by the library’s Common Ground Initiative will be on the topic, “Civil Discourse to Resolve Complex Disputes: A Common Ground Conversation,” with conflict resolution expert Ken Feinberg, special master of the September 11 Victims Compensation Fund. The program is set for 7 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 15, at the library.

Freelance writer Gretchen Webster, a Fairfield County journalist for many years, was editor of the Fairfield Minuteman and has taught journalism at New York and Southern Connecticut State universities.