Before Covid, Pfizer produced almost 200 million doses of the vaccine every year. At the height of the pandemic, production should increase to roughly 3 billion doses per year. Scaling to perform at that level, at Bourla’s perspectiveit’s just as scary as making a vaccine in short order—if not more so. While public attention is focused on scientific leaps forward, operational challenges require an equally radical change in thinking.

“When you ask people to do things they see as difficult or impossible, the first thing they do is use all their brain power to develop arguments as to why it can’t be done,” Bourla said. luck editor-in-chief Alyson Shontell. Instead of debating the possibility, he reframed the challenge in moral terms. Speed ​​is not a business metric. It is a matter of life and death.

Bourla lined Pfizer’s offices with signs that read, “Time is life,” a constant reminder that delays carry real human consequences. When the leaders were warned that a process would take three weeks longer than planned, he asked them to calculate the number of lives lost during that time. He describes the tactic, bluntly, as requiring “emotional blackmail,” uncomfortable but effective in forcing teams to stop defending constraints and start focusing on solutions.

The shift opens up a unique effort across the organization. More than that lab breakthroughs, Bourla points to the work being done in Pfizer’s manufacturing facilities, where scientists, engineers, and plant workers are working “miracles” to produce doses on an unprecedented scale. When people understand that leadership is serious and that the mission is important beyond the company, they give more than they thought possible.

That intensity also created a shared sense of purpose. Employees don’t just meet aggressive targets or hit production milestones. They understand that they are helping to save lives, strengthen economies, and reopen society, a responsibility that changes how they see their work and themselves.

The broader lesson, Bourla argues, is not that leaders should rely on guilt or crisis to motivate people. It’s that teams can do more than they initially believed when the mission is clear, the stakes are real, and the excuses are no longer rewarded.

Watch the full interview here.

Ruth Umoh
[email protected]

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