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Hello and welcome to Modern CEO! Im Stephanie Mehta, CEO and chief content officer of Mansueto Ventures. Each week this newsletter explores inclusive approaches to leadership drawn from conversations with executives and entrepreneurs, and from the pages of Inc. and Fast Company. If you received this newsletter from a friend, you can sign up to get it yourself every Monday morning. Being a life sciences CEO is not for the faint of heart. Drug discovery and patent approvals are costly and time-consuming, and even if an executive can steer a company to clinical trials, theres a very small chance the product will be commercialized. One study says that 90% of clinical drug development fails because the treatment didnt have its intended impact, had the wrong formulations, or harmed patients. You have a business challenge, a science challenge, a clinical trial challenge, and a regulatory challenge, says Kevin Conroy, CEO of the colorectal cancer screening company Exact Sciences. Its like solving a complex puzzle, and theres simply no guarantee of success. When companies do solve that puzzle, the rewards can be huge: As Modern CEO went to press, Exact Sciences announced it was selling to Abbott in a deal valued at $21 billion. Still, biotech and health technology companies are now confronting an additional burden: simmering science skepticism. Pew Research Center found that in 2024, 76% of Americans believed that scientists act in the publics best interest, up slightly from 2023 but down 10 points from pre-pandemic levels. A new survey from Pew shows that 24% of parents of school-age children question whether vaccines have undergone enough safety testing. Rebuilding trust in science Some lawmakers are fanning the flames. Health and Human Services secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has called for changes in the ways vaccines are tested. The White House has cut budgets at the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation, and moved to terminate federal funding to universities, all of which participate in the funding of medical and science research. Conroy says the current environment is a call to action to the biosciences industry to help rebuild trust with the public and lawmakers. How can we in this field show success that brings back a stronger belief in science, in data, in clinical studies, in evidence generation? he asks. I think its our responsibility to do that. According to Conroy, Exact Sciences isnt facing any societal or political headwinds. It makes a colon cancer test (if youre a certain age, youve probably been served ads for its Cologuard Kit) that will screen five million people for cancer this year. Science skepticism hasnt touched cancer screening, he says. People on the left and right are touched equally by cancer. Still, Exact Sciences and other science companies have benefited from an ecosystem of government-funded research, rigorous approvals, and endorsements that make the U.S. a biotech innovation powerhouse. Exact Sciences was founded in 1995 by an engineer who wanted to develop an alternative to colonoscopies, but the company struggled for years to develop a test. Conroy joined in 2009 after meeting with David Ahlquist, a Mayo Clinic physician who had spent 20 years researching noninvasive colon cancer detectionresearch funded by the National Institutes of Health, the National Cancer Institute, and the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science. Exact Sciences collaborated with Ahlquist on an approach that tests a patients stool for abnormal DNA or blood cells that might indicate the presence of colon cancer. Cologuard received FDA approval in 2014, after a huge clinical trial involving 10,000 patients; that same year the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said it intended to cover the test, and the American Cancer Society included the test in its colon cancer screening guidelinesa key recommendation that helped build public trust in the at-home kit. Exact Sciences would not be here without federally funded research at the Mayo Clinic, Conroy says. Follow the data Conroy notes that all businesses can gain from a scientific approachrunning experiments, conceding when something doesnt work (even if youve invested time and money in the research), and following the data. At Exact Sciences, such rigor extends beyond the lab. Before the company launched its kits, the team tested two different product designs for sample collectiona scoop and a container. The team thought consumers would favor the scoop, but research showed 85% of users preferred the container. We would have made a big mistake if we had trusted our gut, Conroy says. A lot of times youre so passionate as a CEO, you skip all of those steps and just bulldoze your way toward the answer youd like to see. Im as guilty of that as the next CEO. I asked Conroy how biotech executives can help restore trust in science and rally support for the broader system of grants and research funding now under fire. He notes that he travels to Washington from Exact Sciences headquarters in Madison, Wisconsin, every quarter to meet with lawmakers, largely to advocate for early detection of diseases but also to talk about innovation and discovery. Every CEO in this field should be doing the same thing. Its too important for Americas competitiveness, he says. Deadline extended Were extending the deadline for Modern CEO of the Year nominations by a few days. If you or someone you know has had a standout 2025, please fill out this nomination form by November 28. Well name the Modern CEO of the Year on December 29. Read more: science in focus This Sam Altmanbacked CEO is using AI to get drugs to market faster The most innovative biotech companies of 2025 Why Jennifer Doudna is one of the 10 most innovative people of the last 10 years
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Every good salesperson knows the 7-step process in which you identify and qualify a prospect to understand their needs, then present your offer, overcome objections, close the sale and follow up. Its proven so consistently effective that its concepts have been the standard for training salespeople for decades. Many business leaders come up through sales and marketing, so it shouldnt be surprising that they try to use similar persuasion techniques for large-scale change. They work to understand the needs of their target market, craft a powerful message, overcome any objections and then follow-through on execution. Unfortunately, thats a terrible strategy. The truth is that the urge to persuade is often a red flag. It means you either have the wrong people or the wrong idea. Effective change strategy focuses on collective dynamics. Rather than trying to shape opinions, youre much better off empowering people who are already enthusiastic about the idea and working to shape networks. The power of persuasion Experts have a lot of ideas about persuasion. Some suggest leveraging social proof, to show that people have adopted the idea and had a positive experience. Others emphasize the importance of building trust and using emotional rather than analytical arguments. Still others insist on creating a unified value proposition. For 35 years, psychologist Robert Cialdini researched which types of communication were effective and which were not. He found that influence is based on six key principles: reciprocity, commitment and consistency, social proof, authority, liking, and scarcity. More recently, Wharton Professor Jonah Berger has used data analysis to come up with his SPEACC framework. In recent years, a number of conversation-based practices, such as Deep Canvassing, Street Epistemology, and the Change Conversation Pyramid, have emerged that focus on a method called technique rebuttal. These focus on listening empathetically to build rapport and identifying common ground, then encouraging the target to engage in metacognition to examine how they arrived at their own conclusions. These all are, for the most part, worthwhile and can be effective. However, its also important to remember that the first two steps in the sales process are identifying and qualifying prospects so that when you are presenting your offer, it is to people who are eager, or at least open, to what youre trying to sell. Nobody would recommend wasting time and effort on trying to sell to those who have no interest in buying. Yet with large-scale change, thats not an option. Your environment will include the entire spectrum, from active supporters to active resistors. That means that for a significant portion of people, persuasive techniques will not be effective. The limits of communication We like to think that our minds work like computers, taking in evidence through our five senses and then processing that information in our brains to arrive at conclusions. Persuasion techniques tend to focus on glitches in that machinery in the form of cognitive biases, in order to get us to see things in another light. Yet we are wired to be social creatures. As we engage in collective action with others, we form group identities and seek to build status amongst our own tribe. Part of achieving the status we desire is showing loyalty and adherence to collective principles, so we take steps to signal to others that we remain loyal members in good standing and expect the same of them. Thats why we are greatly shaped by the people around us. Decades of studies indicate that we tend to conform to the opinions and behaviors of those around us and this effect extends out to three degrees of relationships. So not only do our friends friends influence us deeply, but their friends toopeople that we dont even knowaffect what we think. Thats why communication strategies will always be limited. We can carefully craft messages to align with the influence techniques of Cialdini and Berger, listen with empathy and employ the methods of technique rebuttal to successfully persuade someone to come to our way of thinking. But when they go back and get embedded in their social networks once again, theyre very likely to return to their earlier way of thinking. To wit, when David McRaney, while researching his book How Minds Change, sought out people who left cults or turned their backs on conspiracy theories he found that, invariably, the change in their opinion was preceded by a significant change in their social networks. Why incentives backfire Another common persuasion tactic is the use of incentives, based on the belief that changing incentives will automatically change behaviors. However, incentives frequently fall short and can even backfire dramatically. Sometimes this is due to the same identity and dignity issue that make people resistant to influence techniques, but also because people often act in unpredictable ways that arent immediately obvious. Consider what happened in an experiment where daycare centers imposed fines for parents who were late picking up their children. Instead of cutting down on late pickups, they increased. As it turned out, parents saw the fine as a fee for convenience which they were happy to pay. There is also significant evidence that extrinsic incentives crowd out intrinsic and reputational motivations. For example, in an experiment in which subjects were asked to solve a puzzle, those who were paid a flat fee were much more likely to continue to work during free time than those who were paid for each puzzle solved. Yet there is one kind of incentive that does seem to work consistently and it taps into the same forces of group identity that make people resistant to other forms of influence. Its called prosocial behavior. We are more likely to perform when we understand and identify with who our work benefits than when they are given financial incentives or fed some slogan. In a study by Adam Grant, the performance of call center employees more than doubled when they had regular conversations with people who benefited from their work. Lisa Earle McLeod and Elizabeth Lotardo report in an article in Harvard Business Review that similar results have been found in studies of lifeguards, hospital workers, and sales teams. Going to where the energy is Transformation efforts often center on communication, aiming to build awareness, desire, and knowledge about change, while building a sense of urgency and excitement. So leaders craft persuasive messages and broadcast them widely. Yet, after months of happy talk, they often find their efforts not only fell on deaf ears but also provoked deep, intense resistance. The truth is that change isnt about persuasion, but collective dynamics. Decades of research has shown that change spreads through peer networks rather than communication campaigns. Or, as network science pioneer Duncan Watts once put it to me, ideas propagate through easily influenced people influencing other easily influenced people. Thats why you need to be wary about the urge to persuade. You want to go where the energy already is, not try and create and maintain it yourself. Find people who are already enthusiastic, empower them to succeed and they can bring in others, who can bring in others still. As Watts research has found, even a small initial shift can cascade into massive transformation. The evidence is clear: You dont need to win over everyone at once. If you find yourself spending most of your energy trying to convince the skeptical or overpowering resistance, you are either focusing on the wrong people or you have the wrong idea. Instead of trying to push through, you need to regroup, reassess and identify where your efforts can be better placed.
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More children are cashing in their Make-A-Wish requests to meet their favorite content creators, with creator wishes more than doubling in the past decade. Make-A-Wish Foundation has been granting life-changing wishes for children with a critical illness since 1980. Now, alongside A-Listers and sports stars, YouTubers and TikTokers are also flooding requests, Axios reported. Requests to meet content creators make up 32% of the wishes granted within the entertainment industry, per Axios, the second largest source of requests behind the music industry. Several of the creators say they’ve been granting wishes for years and more than 50 creators and influencers became first-time wish-granters in the last year to keep up with demand. As parents and children realize meeting their favorite streamer, TikToker, or YouTuber is an option, its becoming more and more common. In October, Make-A-Wish, Disney, and MrBeast hosted YouTube and some of the worlds top creators, at Disneyland Resort to grant wishes for 40 children. This shift is unsurprising given the growing influence of content creators. It used to be that if you asked a classroom of kids what they want to be when they grow up, youd get answers like pop star and football player. A 2024 survey of 910 U.S. Gen Alpha kids (ages 12 to 15) by social commerce platform Whop found that nearly a third want to be YouTubers, while one in five aspire to become TikTok creators. Given the chance, they also want to meet their heroes. “Digital creators have built strong, loyal communities based on authenticity and common interests, Jared Perry, chief revenue officer at Make-A-Wish America previously shared in a statement. When this connection is used to rally behind a cause like Make-A-Wish, it can generate significant donations and lead to long-term relationships with an entirely new audience.” Content creators also leverage their own platforms to engage followers in charitable causes. MrBeast, for example, is well-known for his philanthropy through his 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, Beast Philanthropy. Through his Beast Philanthropy channel, he has, in just the past year, given away $1 million of toys, donated $1 million worth of brandnew teeth, and funded a gym for adaptive athletes. The organization donates 100% of the revenue from its content and merchandise. Make-A-Wish relies on fundraisers, donors, and partners to make sick childrens wishes come true. “By becoming ambassadors of Make-A-Wish, and featuring our mission regularly in their content, creators can inspire sustained support and make a meaningful difference,” Perry continued.
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