Amy Pisani has spent 30 years building trust in one of the hardest arenas for it: vaccines. As CEO of Vaccinate Your Family, she leads an organization founded by former First Lady Rosalynn Carter and former Arkansas First Lady Betty Bumpers, and she has watched the country's information landscape shift from a lack of information to outright disinformation. Her career offers a master class in a kind of influence most leaders never have to attempt: persuading people who are afraid, without judging them, while the loudest voices in the room profit from fear. Amy and Anthony explore how listening builds trust before you ever need it, how to pair science with the right messengers, and why leading with story before data might be the most underrated move in influence.
Takeaways:
- Build coalitions before you need them. Betty Bumpers raised Arkansas vaccination rates from the 20th to the 70th percentile in two years by bringing together everyone who touched children's lives, not by waiting for systems to change.
- Meet people with empathy before information. Rosalynn Carter's posters said "Please immunize your child by age two." The word "please" reflected a philosophy: persuade through care, not commands.
- Lead with story, then bring the data. When Amy brought a mother from rural Virginia to Capitol Hill, the story of distance and barriers opened minds, and the data that followed made it credible.
- Find the movable middle. You cannot reach everyone. Focus on people with real questions and shared values, and answer them honestly without forcing a decision.
- Give your team permission to experiment. Vaccinate Your Family was early on Facebook and is now on TikTok because leaders gave younger communicators freedom to try new channels, and because Amy's founders once gave a 26-year-old the same freedom.
- Influence works better as a pull than a push. Amy defines their approach as removing barriers and answering questions, not selling. As she puts it, "It's just about getting to the heart of the matter, and it's keeping somebody from dying."
Quote of the Show:
- “We lead with empathy. We’re all the same, right? It’s about finding that conversational piece where you can find yourself in the conversation, and then communicating clearly about the science.”
Links:
- LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/amy-pisani-385a4514
- Website: https://vaccinateyourfamily.org/