This episode features an interview with Jason Anthoine, Managing Founder (or Head Honcho as Jason puts it) at Audacity. With more than 32 years of experience, Jason’s career includes leading global communications at GE, Newell Brands, and Verint. On this episode, Jason shares his three step process for building a successful Internal Comms plan that’s proven with ROI. He also gets into why he started his own comms consulting company and how he handles Imposter Syndrome.
This episode features an interview with Jason Anthoine, Managing Founder (or Head Honcho as Jason puts it) at Audacity. With more than 32 years of experience, Jason’s career includes leading global communications at GE, Newell Brands, and Verint.
On this episode, Jason shares his three step process for building a successful Internal Comms plan that’s proven with ROI. He also gets into why he started his own comms consulting company and how he handles Imposter Syndrome.
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“It’s so important to have your comms strategy built off your business strategy because as good as an internal comms strategy is, it’s telling you and your team what you’re going to do. It’s also your get out of jail free card for what you are now not going to do. Which is, ‘I’m not going to write your emails for you. I’m going to help you be better at writing them yourself and then you’re going to be responsible for those.’ Otherwise, your whole team is going to be bogged down with those types of requests and that’s when you become an arts and crafts department, which is not a strategic business function.” — Jason Anthoine
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Episode Timestamps:
*(1:41): How Jason got interested in comms
*(4:19): What Audacity does for people
*(5:17): Segment: Storytime
*(5:27): Story behind the name Audacity
*(7:01): How less is more in comms
*(9:55): How ‘Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee’ inspired a comms plan
*(15:11): Segment: Getting Tactical
*(15:27): Jason’s 3 step process for building a comms plan
*(22:38): What not to do when building a comms plan
*(30:06): Segment: Ripped from the Headlines
*(33:37): Segment: Asking for a Friend
*(33:52): Imposter Syndrome: what is it and how to handle it
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Links
Connect with Jason on LinkedIn
Amanda Berry: Jason. Thanks for joining me today. How are you doing?
Jason Anthoine: Oh, I'm doing great. Thanks so much for having me on.
Amanda Berry: Yeah. Thanks for being here. I want to start on to talk a little about what you do at your company. You know, Audacity, you've worked in internal communications and employee experience and helping businesses with culture change. You help companies build relationship with our workforce and drive businesses. How did you get here?
[00:02:00] Jason Anthoine: Wow, that's a great question. Uh, sometimes I ask myself the same question, but you know what, when, uh, when I went to college and University of Georgia at the Grady College of Journalism there, I majored in Public Relations because I thought that Public Relations was just going around and giving speeches. And so that's what I wanted to do was just go around and give speeches. And then of course, once I found out there's a lot more involved than just that, uh, I was even more excited and so majored in PR graduated on a Saturday, moved to Atlanta on a Sunday, and then on Monday started my first job with a bank doing the employee newsletter. Printed employee newsletter. Does anybody remember what those things are?
Amanda Berry: I do I do remember what those are like. Did you make photocopies? Like have to piece them together and photocopy them.
Jason Anthoine: Literally it was copy and paste, which is for all you kids out there where those terms come from, you are literally copying and pasting things down sometimes.
Amanda Berry: You were cutting out clips, [00:03:00] pasting it, making those copies.
Jason Anthoine: Exactly. And so, you know, that was 33 years ago this year, I think. And since that day, all I've done is internal comms, employee experience and culture change. I have been responsible for external comms. In various roles that I've had, but I tend to hire really good external comms people and just let them do that because I have zero interest in any of those things.
My passion is really around internal comms and helping people feel better about where they work because they spend the majority of their time. There. They have.
Amanda Berry: Yeah, absolutely. That's interesting. I started my background, actually, an external and just on a whim got into internal and that's really what I've been focused for for many years.
Jason Anthoine: Oh, oh, I love it. Because you know, on the external side you send out a press release or you post something on social. You don't really know if someone changed their behavior because of that, you know, Hey hammers are on sale at home Depot. You don't know if you sold a hammer or not because of that, but when you do internal comp [00:04:00] stuff, you can see, you can literally see how people are reacting and the things that you do to help them think, feel, say, do things differently.
To me, there's much more of a one-to-one ratio between all of your work and the results that you are having versus maybe some of the other comms. This.
Amanda Berry: Yeah, absolutely. Tell us about Audacity.
Jason Anthoine: So audacity is an internal comms firm and we help folks just like everyone listening to this podcast, find the courage, confidence, and clarity to kickstart workplace culture from tired and bored, to inspired an onboard, which is a fancy marketing sentence or two that we put together.
But the reality is is that we help companies inform, involve and inspire. Their employees. And it doesn't matter what industry you're in or how big your organization is. As soon as you hire employee, number two, you have internal comms challenges and we help you figure out what those things are [00:05:00] and how to address those.
Some of our clients we like to say are the fortune 500 and others are the less fortunate 5,000, but all of them have the same sort of challenges and needs and opportunities. And, you know, it's our pleasure to help all of the. Uh, figure out how to have stronger relationships with our employees.
Amanda Berry: All right.
We're going to move into our first segment called story time.
Is there a story behind the name audacity?
Jason Anthoine: Actually there is. So there's a great book called from good to great. And in that book, um, the author, Jim Collins talks a lot about organizations who really spend a lot of time focusing on big, hairy, audacious goals. And when I spent half my career on the corporate side, I found that organizations were pretty good at the big and the hairy and the goals, [00:06:00] but they weren't all that good at the audacious part.
And so when I thought, you know what, whenever I get a chance to change the world, I'm going to really focus on helping folks, you know, be a little bit more audacious in their approach and to think about things differently. You know, we're always so focused on. What is, why don't we ask? What if, you know, and to me, that's what being audacious is all about.
What if we did it differently? What if we tried something who cares? If it even works, you know, what can we do to re-imagine what it is we're doing and put a little bit more fun and excitement in it. So that's where.
Amanda Berry: Is there a common mistake. So I'm thinking about that. Audacious the audacity. Is there a common mistake that you see when you work with companies, businesses across the account, the country, um, that you're seeing over and over again that you just want to call out and say, Hey, this is fixable and talk to our listeners.
We get a lot of folks with a semester from HR. IC and IT.
Jason Anthoine: Great. Yeah, those are all my best friends. You know, that three of the three of those groups do all the heavy lifting around culture and employee engagement, [00:07:00] employee experience and all those things. And so I think one of the things that I see that seems to be fairly common is this push towards let's.
Put out a ton of channels and a ton of content so that we're reaching everybody wherever it is they are. And telling them things that even though they needed to be told and on one hand, great, we should do more. Most of us, in fact, all of us, probably in different ways, but on the other hand, if you're an employee and all of us are typically think about how much.
Volume. That is how many different channels there are some of the confusion that comes from that. I must supposed to use teams for this or WebEx. And when, when do I use slack and isn't that supposed to be on the internet? Or should I just look at digital signage? It's just now that you can reach everyone all the time.
That doesn't mean that you should. And so I think that's the biggest [00:08:00] challenge is. There's a lot of different ways to reach folks. And I think more importantly than the channels themselves is what do the folks want from you when you finally do reach them, regardless of what that channel is. And so, to me, that's the biggest challenge is that.
There are so many great tools and platforms out there. Not all of them are necessary and needed and certainly not all at once. And so it's, it's really hard to get people to these internal comms and HR and it teams to understand that less can be more, you know, last can be.
Amanda Berry: Yeah. When you, when you were talking about that, it just hearkened back to how many times I've heard.
And when I've been an internal comms leader, I go, well, we want a blog and I go, I go, let's talk about a content calendar. Now you're going to fill said blog.
Jason Anthoine: Yeah. You know, that's a great point because you know, we're guilty of it too, just like everybody else. And when you get that phone call or that email that says, Hey, we want a blog.
Because we're [00:09:00] kind of all in the service business and, you know, we're client focused and all those types of things we want to say. Yes, of course. And so usually the first question is when do you want that instead of why do you think that you want a blog and why do you think anyone else wants you to have a blog?
And so sometimes when you ask. That why question first, instead of when it leads you down a path to hear exactly what it is that the requester is asking for, which may or may not end up being a blog, it could be, you know, a pink elephant parade. It just depends on how the answer, all of those questions, but that's, our job is to help counsel them and not just, you know, take the next order and deliver it.
Amanda Berry: Yeah, I was, I was so nice in that pink elephant for it. I was, as you've been talking, I was thinking, is there something you've implemented, that's note worthy that we could talk about something spectacular, audacious, that came to mind. Isn't but is there something, a particular project or, or an event that you've worked on for [00:10:00] a company that's had a major impact on the company that was something sort of outside the box, creative and different.
Jason Anthoine: Well, there's, there's one thing I did when I worked at a global energy company and, you know, just like every other company, whether you're a global or not, you might be very local and that's fine. Typically there's a huge challenge in getting leaders to be communicators, not just better communicators, but just to be communicators, you know, sometimes it's like pulling teeth to get.
You know, agree to do some things, even if they're really good at it. And so like everyone else had that same challenge. And also when we're all not at work, we do a whole bunch of fun, cool things and consume content and Netflix and Hulu and whatever else. And so my idea was all right, how can we kind of take advantage of that behavior that employees are exhibiting when they're not at work and kind of bring that into the office and into the organization.
In a way that makes sense. And [00:11:00] so at the time it was fairly new this, um, the show with Jerry Seinfeld around comedians, in cars, getting coffee. And so I was like, why don't we take that as a concept? And then we put three little GoPro cameras in our CEO. Car. And then we have rotating guests who come in, sit in the car, they drive up to Starbucks, grab a Starbucks, and then they drive back and then lightly scripted.
Here's some things we'd like you to touch on, but just talk like normal people. And so. So the CEO would be in his car with other leaders in the organization with frontline employees, with customers, with suppliers. So we've mixed up, you know, who all was on that ride with the CEO. And it was fantastic because at first they're like, there's three cameras in this car and they're recording.
Oh my gosh, what if we mess up and say something stupid, but soon as they get over that, they forget [00:12:00] all of those things and they just talk and act like normal humans and they have normal, real conversations that they would have between themselves. And it was just a really nice casual way to share messages in a platform that people are already used to.
And it was a great way to kind of showcase the personalities of the individuals themselves. You know, it's not scripted, you're not sitting in a desk and, you know, I've got to have a bunch of full production values and all those things. It was just, let's try this and see what happens. And it, it worked, it worked, it worked really well.
And so I don't know if you'd call that audacious or not since it was already something that existed, but it's all day it's just to think about all those things that do exist outside of the office and how you can bring those.
Amanda Berry: Well, I think it's interesting that you, you know, that's so bold. I know from my own experience, sometimes it can be hard to get leaders, to do big, bold things and try new, different ways of communicating if there's so I know we do have a lot of IC people, internal comms, people that listen to this.
Is there any piece of [00:13:00] advice that you would give them? If they're happy, if they're struggling getting leaders to do something different, try something new .
Jason Anthoine: I would say one good piece of advice that I got early on in my career was even if you have one in the room, pretend that the teleprompter is broken.
That way. They're not relying on reading a script and it feels, you know, stilted and robotic, you know, they've already studied. They really know this stuff inside and out as it is. They're just nervous because now you've turned to camp. Uh, in a video for example, but just pretend like the is broken, whether it is or not, and just have a conversation, just let them say it, how they would normally say it.
If somebody asked them that question, you know, out on the street at first they'll balk and scream and cry and pitch a fit until they do it. And then they'll see the difference between. The authenticity and how [00:14:00] transparent and normal and casual it feels and how the employees react to that versus normally the way they might do those things.
And so in our business, you kind of have to have a lot of patients while the client comes to your conclusion. And so this is the same. They, they're not going to like it at first, but as soon as they do it and they see the difference, they're not going to want to do it any other way.
Amanda Berry: Just got to get them.
They got to get them to take that first step. I know that's been my experience even, you know, years ago, getting an, a leader to be on video, just the resistance of the uncomfortability. But once, once that leaves. Got comfortable with it. That leader wanted to do it all, like all the time, like wanted to even do videos instead of email.
Jason Anthoine: Of course, I mean, think about it.
There's billions of people on all these social platforms out there, all those people work for all of our companies. And so they're used to consuming that content. A lot of those people make that content. And so they have experience doing that, but hardly ever in this type of an environment or a situation.
And so. [00:15:00] Just take advantage of the fact that, oh, that's what they do when they're not at work. It's the same thing here. Let's just have it feel and the process be the same here. And that takes all the intimidation out of it.
Amanda Berry: Great. Absolutely.
I'm going to move us into the next segment, getting tactical, um,
Speaker: trying to figure out tactics and it'd be prayerful honest, and I didn't have to worry about tactics too much.
Here I am in charge and driving to say, why didn't you sleep some tactics, tactics.
Amanda Berry: I want to talk about return on. It's meant for internal communications. Let me set up a scenario for you, Jason. Let's say I'm the new internal communications director and setting up a new function at a bed, a big company CEO walks in and says, we're looking forward to everything you're going to bring to the table.
We're prepared to give you anything you need to get this started and moving.
Jason Anthoine: What a dream scenario that is, right?
Amanda Berry: Yeah. Oh, right. I'm sorry. I'm sure. I'm sure there are very few people who been in that place. But you [00:16:00] know, what resources, you know, staff tools, information technology, do you, you know, am I going to need to succeed? Clearly, I'm going to need them to show a return on investment for all. I'm going to ask for, let's say, I'm actually doing that.
Where do I start? And what am I, what do I start? What am I first steps? Where do I go?
Jason Anthoine: Step one. Breathe. Cause there's a lot of panic. Right? Right. It's like the dog that chases the car down the road and he finally catches it. Like, what am I going to do with this car now? So now, now you finally got yourself in a situation where the CEO says something like that to you.
And that, you know, that can be a little bit intimidating. And so the second thing after you bring. Is get the CEO to give you a copy of the business plan, the business strategy, the long-term plan, the one that shows it by the quarter, the one that shows it for the year, whatever it is that the CEO and the executive team.
[00:17:00] Um, are using to track progress and how they are looking at KPIs. You get your hands on that thing and learn it inside and out. Because step three then is you're going to build an internal communications plan. That drives all of the business outcomes that the organization is looking for. And when you start thinking about it that way, then you will naturally stumble upon ROI because now.
Easier for you to measure those things, because all of the comms that you're doing are attached to business strategies and business outcomes that matter. So it's an opportunity for you to manage. Anything that you would propose to drive whatever those business outcomes are. And by the way, they're already tracking those business outcomes and dashboards [00:18:00] across the business.
So the hard work of measuring all that stuff is already happening. So you don't have to go out and create a bunch. Different ways to measure the measurements already having. So you can easily take those measurements and then sort of backwards engineer that from all the comms that you did and draw a direct line, not just correlation, but causation between what you're doing and the results that you're helping to achieve.
Amanda Berry: Can you give an example of what that might look like that, that correlation, like, give me, can you help me help walk through this in my brain about what that might look like, where people are still struggling with?
Jason Anthoine: Sure. So an example, I think that's easy for folks to understand, regardless of what kind of industry or business you might be in.
Let's pretend you are in a retail environment and you have, you know, a thousand stores across the United States and they're in four regions in most organizations. The goal is, you know, less increased, same store sales quarter over quarter for this year. So you've [00:19:00] got four regions and they all want to increase same stores.
So in one region only you work with the sales director and the managers of all of those locations and the employees who are on the floor in those locations. And you really focus your communications on, you know, better customer experience and how to ask more probing questions. So you can sell more than just the thing the person came in the door to get those types of things.
And you only do it in that. And at the end of that quarter, if there is a same-store sales increase in that region, you can tell. At least some of the credit for that, especially if in the other three regions where you didn't do that, if they're flat or they decline, then the only thing that is the difference between that region and the other three is all the communication work that you did within that.
Now of course you have to adjust for [00:20:00] snowstorms and sales and who knows, whatever else is going to happen. Pandemics, you know, exactly things that just occur in life. But, you know, if you, if you really are able to show, we did this one thing and only in this one region and we're able to achieve these results.
These are the three regions. We didn't do it and we didn't achieve those results. That's simple math right there. And what you've done is do it in a risk sort of risk-free kind of way. You're not trying to get everybody to do everything and oh my gosh. Well, if it doesn't work, you've contained that risk into one region and then proved it out.
And then that way it's easier to go. All right. Now we can do this times three, if you think, if you think that's good enough.
Amanda Berry: What about when you're working? Know you talked about breathe strategy. Internal communications plan. I'm thinking about, you know, you mentioned earlier about the partners, the HRs, the ITs, how can they, you know, what, how do you, are they, are they a part of this and how do you partner with them if they are.
Jason Anthoine: Oh a hundred percent, a hundred, but I mean, we couldn't do what we do [00:21:00] without those partners and, and vice versa. They couldn't do what they do without us as well. And so collectively, you know, we ended up being responsible for culture and employee engagement and experience and all the things, you know, sort of on the human side of the organization.
Are all being tracked by all three of our functions. And so that partnership with, with those two, um, other functions is incredibly important because HR has their own goals that they're trying to accomplish within that business plan. And so, so does it. And so rather than us always go into them and saying, we need, we need, we need, we need, what can we do to say, Hey, HR, or IT we know you have a goal to do this.
Let's talk about what we can do from a comms perspective to help drive that goal and make it better. So it might be turnover rate. It might be employee satisfaction. It might be, you know, from an it perspective, higher scores on their customer service. [00:22:00] Instruments that they're using to measure their effectiveness.
It could be any of those things. And so once they see you as a partner and that they can also get the good results from what you do within their own function, they're going to be much more eager, I think, to truly see that as a partnership so that they can help you also do those same things more broadly and vice versa.
You can help. And so at that, there's nothing more important than those, then those two relationships and the, and those three functions really working together in lock step, because ultimately they're responsible for driving that employee experience.
Amanda Berry: Absolutely. So a lot of here are things, things you can do.
What about the things not to do while you're working in a night where you're building an IC plan?
Jason Anthoine: Well, we touched on the fact that however many channels you have now, whether you think there are right or wrong, it's probably too many. Secondly, I think one other thing not to do is to just have it be about what we call the cap.
IC. [00:23:00] So internal communications, the thing that we do sort of at the 30,000 foot level, incredibly important. But if you look in most organizations, the capital IC stuff is probably 10%. Maybe 15 of all the communications that are going on in an organization at any given time. So all of that other stuff is what we call the lowercase IC, which is intentional conversations.
And so most organizations, because. Internal cost. People are very service oriented and we have really great ideas. We think we need to own all the comms all the time everywhere. No you're going to need 20,000 people on your team to be able to do that. And I don't care how good you are. They never going to give you that many people.
So you need to be focused on very tight in strategic capital. IC, but then doing everything you can to make sure that the lowercase ic stuff is going on as often as possible and as [00:24:00] well as possible. So that might mean training. That might mean giving them different tools and platforms. It might mean, you know, helping employees understand.
The importance of that relationship and why they also need to reach out to their own managers and leaders so that they're having more of these conversations around the business. And so typically the default is less food, everything all the time. Nope. Let's do a few really good capital IC things. And then let's make sure the lowercase ic stuff is, is as good as it can be because that's really where the experience is for employees.
Amanda Berry: Yeah. That's a huge shift in priorities, going from that capital to lowercase, lowercase, to capital, I know roles that I've had in the past. Helping leaders write their emails to their functional areas. And now, thankfully, that's switching to prioritization around, you know, the, the function of IC and what it's actually supposed to do.
Jason Anthoine: Yeah. Yeah. And that's why, you know, it's so important to have your comm strategy built off of your business strategy because as good as an internal comm [00:25:00] strategy is, is telling you and your team what you're going to do, it's also your sort of get out of jail free card for what you are now not going to do.
Which is, I'm not going to write your emails for you. I'm going to help you be better at writing them yourself, and then you're going to be responsible for those. Otherwise, your whole team is going to be bogged down with those types of requests. And that's when you become an arts and crafts department, which is not a strategic business function
Amanda Berry: I'm going to switch here and, and, and move on from that.
I really appreciate that. I actually took some notes to that's such a great, great topic, especially in it's very, very timely as this function is changed. The new way of doing things the pandemic has brought on remote hybrid workforce and how that changes, how internal communications engages employees.
And I've I think about even, you know, when I'm doing internal communications, that I'm meeting people where they are in their homes, they could be dealing with a plumbing issue. They could be teaching their children because they can't go to school. Cause they're in quarantine. There's, [00:26:00] they're going to have sick family member from the pandemic.
There's so many things that could be going on right now. Um, what are, what should companies be doing when you think about culture internal communications, that space to help employees be more successful or be engaged?
Jason Anthoine: Yeah. I saw a fantastic survey. What is today? Wednesday, Monday, this week that said that the majority of employees are more interested in work flexibility than they are.
The freedom to work from home. And I think, you know, throughout the pandemic, there's been a lot of focus on work from home and what can we do to make sure that that's easy and, and, and people can get the most out of it no matter where they might be. And, but it was interesting to be able to read that research that says more important than working from home is whether I'm working from home or from the office or I'm on the road or I'm in a manufacturing environment or a retail environment or healthcare environment.[00:27:00]
What I would appreciate more is a lot more flexibility about how I do that work. Not so much where I do it, which obviously I appreciate that, but it's more about when I do that and how I do that. And so I think that's a call to action for, you know, not just internal comms, but HR as well to help sort of really look at what is, what does work even mean anymore.
And if it's not tied to place than it is tied to. You know, productivity and people can be all kinds of productive in many different ways, not necessarily eight, 10 or 12 hours in a row in a given day. So what are we doing to really sort of focus in on that and help kind of re-imagine what it means to be productive and to get those things done.
There's a lot of focus on location, but. According to that survey is not necessarily location that matters the most to employees. It's more flexibility around [00:28:00] how and when they get that work done.
Amanda Berry: Yeah. There couldn't be a more important time for HR. Internal communications and IT, I mean, IT even plays a big role in this because how we work now is through technology and, and having the best resources and the best user interfaces.
Um, so I, I think that that's a really great call-out.
Jason Anthoine: Yeah. And I think too, just one more point on that, you know, that all of those things you just said are absolutely true. And, but then you think about all the organizations who have employees who don't have the option to work. You know, what are we doing to help them?
They're working shifts. They're eight, 10 hours. They've got two or three breaks in there. Maybe, you know, they've got the same challenges when they're at home that we all do. And so what are we doing to help, you know, that side of the coin for most of the workforces in, in this, in this country? For sure, because it's not, you know, it's not just about working from home.
It's about what can we do to make work wherever it is. You're doing it more valuable and more meaningful. And less [00:29:00] onerous.
Amanda Berry: Yeah, I know as I'm, as you say that I've, I'm living in working in the upper Midwest, it is literally negative 10 degrees outside. Um, I would love to be workings from somewhere else, you know, whatever.
Jason Anthoine: I never understood why the thermometer goes down that low. Like once it's like 20 degrees, what is the difference between 10 degrees or negative? I mean, cold is just cold. Right?
Amanda Berry: When I got up this morning, it was negative 6. But then there's a new, there's a new way of beginning temperatures. This negative six feels like negative 17.
And I said, well, then isn't it just negative, but then I'm this. So I'm like, once you get a certain point, it just gets cold.
Jason Anthoine: That's right. It's just shocking. You know what I mean, Atlanta? And we've had some quote, cold weather. 27 or something, you know, and outside right now it's sunny and about 60 degrees or so, so, you know, I guess cold is relative, but it's just, that's an interesting concept to me, but what it feels like versus what it is, it's all it matters is what it feels like.
Amanda Berry: Yeah. Well, and I [00:30:00] know 20 years ago that wasn't, I don't think, have we talked about the temperature? It was, it is 10 or it is negative two. Hi, I'm going to move us into our new sec. Next segment called rip from the headlines, extra, extra, read all about it, or stories ripped from the headlines. This is going back to the idea of maybe a flexibility in what employees want and meeting them where they are.
Millions of Americans have quit their jobs, and this is what we're calling the great resignation. And I know that. You know, an internal comms, HR leaders, they're thinking about how to, how to, how to help in that situation, how to maybe prevent it. I don't know if that's the right word word, we talked about that flexibility, but I want to specifically focus on internal communications and the role that they might play in helping with, you know, with preventing the grade resignation.
I don't know if that's even the right way to put it. Um, I'm just sort of curious what you think about that.
Jason Anthoine: Yeah, that's, that's an important point. And, you know, I remember before the pandemic, I was reading [00:31:00] some research that said for most industries, you know, if they wanted to go to sort of a work from home model, it would probably take two to three years to make that transition.
And then the pandemic showed up and it took, you know, two to three months for all every industry globally to figure out what they can do as fast as they could do it. And as part of that, like we talked about earlier, people have thrown all kinds of platforms at employees, you know, Teams and Zoom and Slack and whatever it is so that they're.
Doing the best job that they possibly can, wherever it is, these folks might be to connect to them. And so now you can reach me all kinds of different ways, but there's a difference between connecting to folks and connecting with folks and. From the research and studies that I've looked at around the great resignation and why people are leaving.
You know, I don't know that the [00:32:00] reasons people are leaving are vastly different than what they were before. All of this, but now the volume is turned way up and somebody broke the knob off. And so. To me, those are all, that's all symptoms of this kind of great resignation being caused by. I think. Years, maybe decades of great indignation around this employee, employer kind of relationship.
And so when we talk about connecting to versus with, it feels like the opportunity is for us to help our leaders, especially, but also, you know, other team members as well. To be really good at connecting with people to use all these platforms that we've got to connect to people, to have stronger relationships, to be more empathetic, to, you know, check in with people and see how they're doing, not necessarily what they're doing.
And so. [00:33:00] All those surveys, all point the same thing, I don't feel appreciated, or I don't have a strong relationship with my manager, or I don't really know what's going on and whether what I'm doing even makes a difference. Oh, that was true long before the pandemic. So it's still true. Now, what can we do now that we know those things?
What can we do to really pinpoint and focus on that so that there are stronger connections so that people aren't lured away by. $2 an hour, more down the street. You know, that type of thing, people would much rather stay where they are as long as they're being treated the right way and feel like there are of value and added value.
That's always been true. I think
Amanda Berry: I'm gonna move us into our last segment called asking for a friend. I'm going to ask your advice on some stuff.
Speaker: Hey, asking for a friend,
Amanda Berry: you've spoken a lot about Imposter Syndrome. Can you explain what it is? I think I'm always surprised by [00:34:00] how common this is. I bring this up to people and when I, when I've, you know, I'm on panels or even doing this podcast, help our listeners who maybe experienced it and don't know what it is, what is it?
And how do you get past it? And I'm going to be taking notes.
Jason Anthoine: Well, I don't, I don't know about you, but I suspect you probably feel the same way I feel right this very second, which is, I feel like an imposter, right? This second, I feel like I'm just some guy from small town, middle Georgia, who has had certain kinds of experiences over my career that hopefully might be helpful to somebody.
Why anybody would ever listen to me or tune into this podcast or, you know, call us up to get us to help. I don't know, but that's the imposter syndrome thing. I think kind of bubbling raising its head up there. And it's not a lot of times people are like, it's about confidence or it's about understanding your worth or your value.
And I'm sure it's a [00:35:00] combination of all those things. Um, but it's not one of those things. And for each person it's like a Rubik's cube. It's a little bit different. Yeah. Diagram for each person then. So there's not like a standard thing, but I think for me, at least it is understanding who you are and the value that you bring to the table and being confident in that.
And at the same time, Also not being frustrated by people who don't have the same skills you do. So for example, we talked earlier about leaders and I've done it, and I know all of you on this podcast have done it too. You're like, I don't understand how on earth did this person get to be the CEO. And they do not know how to do a town hall.
Why do I have to script this thing out and tell this person what to say? And it's easy to get frustrated about that stuff, but the truth is, is that they aren't good at that. You are, you've done this your whole career. I don't care if [00:36:00] you started the internal comms two weeks ago, you've been doing internal comms longer than most CEOs have.
They are really good at doing CEO stuff, whatever that definition of that is in your world, but we are really good at something else. And so to kind of combat that imposter syndrome where you think I've got to go tell the CEO what to do in a town hall shit, and they know how to do that themselves. No, they shouldn't.
And thank goodness because that's an opportunity for us to be in a coach and advisor and, you know, mentors and everything else. They need us to be because. They don't know how to do that. And if we approach that relationship with confidence and empathy and, you know, from a point of view that we can help them be better leaders that overcomes any imposter syndrome.
I think certainly for me, that you have to deal with because wow, what a, what a great opportunity, regardless of the fact that I'm some middle Georgia redneck from a small town, somebody finds what I have a value and it is a gift to be able [00:37:00] to share that. That's what overcomes Imposter Syndrome to me.
Amanda Berry: That's great. You know, the first time I heard about this, um, I've listened to NPR every morning. I was getting ready for work. I'd felt this a million times and they had Tom Hanks on and this, this, I mean, this wasn't that long ago, this wasn't, but it was long, you know? And he was, you know, he was already quite famous.
I mean, this was after Castaway
Jason Anthoine: when he was on Bosom Buddies. Remember
Amanda Berry: this was after Castaway and I . Think after Forrest Gump and he says he struggles with this every time, like a lot of the time there. And I was just, it stopped me then my attracts and I was thinking. He feels something that I have felt, but it's, but it's Tom Hanks, right?
Jason Anthoine: Your thing. Why would somebody like that feel like an imposter, but they do, we all do. I think, you know,
Amanda Berry: yeah. That's just an incredible takeaway for our listeners that if you're feeling like you don't know how you got here, whether it be from small town, Georgia, small town, Midwest, uh, you know, Just as something to really be thinking about.
I really appreciate your [00:38:00] explanation about that. The CEO, you know, how does he not know how to run it?
Jason Anthoine: I know. I mean, I've seen it before, you know, you're standing backstage and you're like, okay, she's about to go on and deliver this thing. And while she's standing backstage, she's as nervous as you are, you know?
Yeah. She's a CEO. Yeah. She makes millions of dollars and has a ton of influence and all the trappings that come with that for some of those folks. But at the end of the day, they're just human. And they're getting up there and trying to do their best. And if we can help them be better at that, then we are adding value and they want us to, they need us to where they, even, whether they say it out loud or not,
Amanda Berry: if you had the chance to, to look, to talk to someone who just got into an internal communications and they're sitting right in front of you and you want to give them one piece of advice for their career ahead to help them be successful, what would you say?
Jason Anthoine: Wow, that feels like it's a weighty question. Um, I think. To me, it's a combination of, of two things. Obviously, table stakes are gotta be good at [00:39:00] communications. You've got to understand the industry and the platforms and the technology. Certain degree, psychology and demographics and all the things that go into making you a good internal communicator.
But what makes you a better coach and counselor and advisor on top of that is two things. One curiosity. Just constantly wanting to know more about the business. You work for, the people who work there, the customers who buy your products and services, just constantly curious about everything that goes on so that you can use your unique insights to look at those things a little bit differently than maybe someone sitting next to you can.
And then the second thing is, is, is courage. It's hard to have courage, particularly when you're sort of younger in your career. And earlier in your career, but that's also the time where it's a muscle, the F start exercising because later on in your career, it's going to be incredibly important because you have to be able to say the thing that [00:40:00] needs to be said, and to give the advice that needs to be given regardless of how someone's going to react as a result.
And that is hard to do, especially when you are new in your career. Oh my gosh. I can't say that. They'll chop my head off there. Nobody's going to chop your head off. But if it needs to be said, and you have a unique perspective, then say it, provide that counsel, provide that advice. It's up to that person to take it or not always, but whether they do or don't, it's your job to say it.
And so that takes a lot of courage and courage is something just like leadership and several other big, important skills that is learned over time. And the more you practice that the more you flex that muscle, the stronger that muscle will get. And the more. Exactly you are and how you wheel that thing.
And so I think it's those two curiosity and encourage, and I would love it if people would. Email or comment or wherever. This is going to show to S to say what they think are the two things that they would give [00:41:00] advice about, you know, for me, it's those two for it. I'm sure there's plenty of others that are just as good.
Amanda Berry: Yeah. I think for me, Jason, that confidence one is when you said it, it's funny because that is something that I know from my experience, I've had to learn, you know, how do you, how do you say something you don't want to say. But the end and then say it in the right way. And I, and I actually find myself, I, I do it.
So not so much at work, like that needs to happen so much, but I've trained myself so well to like, say this, but do you want to say it in a way that, you know, people understand?
Jason Anthoine: Yeah. It's not, it's not being cocky and it's not being sort of a know it all and it's not being, I told you. So it's none of those things, it's, it comes from, it comes from the heart because you want them to be.
Not because you want it to be better. You want them to be better. And that is feedback that I think is always well received.
Amanda Berry: Yeah. But I now do that even in my personal life. I think my husband would say he knows where it comes from.
Jason Anthoine: That's right. Marriages are just opportunities for ongoing [00:42:00] performance management reviews and it's perfectly acceptable to approach them that way.
Amanda Berry: All right. What do you think? Is it like, just looking ahead, what do you think is the biggest challenge that internal communications professionals are going to face over the next five to 10 years?
Jason Anthoine: Well, obviously technology. I mean, it changes every 30 seconds. So while we've been on this thing, surely eight new things have been introduced.
Um, that doesn't mean they're the right things, but you know, you should look at every shiny object and make a decision, um, because there's a lot of really good stuff out there. So technology, I think, is going to continue to be a big challenge, particularly if you start to think about, you know, AI and VR and metaverse and all of these different, you know, flavors of how we use digital platforms to engage or disengage for that matter.
Whatever's going on in the consumer market usually finds its way into the corporate market. And so understanding those [00:43:00] things way out ahead of that, I think, um, is important. So obviously technology. The one thing to me, that's going to always be important. And the reason why folks like us are never going to be replaced by robots from Saturn is because it's about human connection.
That is the only business we are in. We do communications and we're really good at platforms and giving counsel and advice. But at the end of the day, all we are doing is establishing and building and maintaining. Human connections across organizations in an attempt to have them feel more human themselves.
And so all the great technology and, you know, we're all wearing the same kind of outfits and clothes with Velcro things. And just like, it looks like on Syfy on television and movies. Who cares. What really matters is, is the connection that you are creating between yourself and your employees, employees, and their managers, and all of you back and [00:44:00] forth with your company and its leaders and all of your customers.
That's not going away. 20,000 years from now, we're still going to be talking about that. Probably not on a podcast who knows what that will be, but that, that will continue to be the most important thing that we will, we will do as humans.
Amanda Berry: Well, Jason, this has been an incredible amount of fun. I've really enjoyed talking to you.
I love talking to people and internal comms. Who've had all this, like the same experience as getting advice, hearing your stories, taking your experts. Learning from it. I, I really appreciate it.
Jason Anthoine: Oh, thank you. I appreciate it too. I love it.
Amanda Berry: Yeah. Before I let you go, is there anything else you want to add that maybe what you wanted to cover that we didn't get to talk about today?
Jason Anthoine: Just one thing we think about brands as sort of brands. Equals experience squared. And so early on when we talked about step one is breathe and step two is get your hands on the business plan. Step three is create your own internal comms plan. In my mind, [00:45:00] a really good starting port is that concept around brand equals experience squared.
And it's the combination of the customer experience and the employee experience and organizations have gotten really good at customer experience. They already know what that means, how that works. The dials to turn, to make that even better. That is the exact same process that we have to do for employee experience.
So a lot of times organizations like, oh, well, no, we don't really know what that even means. Yes, you do. You're already doing it down the hall with marketing and sales and everything that goes into customer experience, employee experience, no different. We're going to follow the same thing marketing has been doing for 20 years, and we're going to be able to have the same kinds of results and the same kind of impact, uh, because it's approved.
And so that's always, I think, a good, a good starting place. You don't have to over-complicate it and make it difficult.
Amanda Berry: Thanks, Jason. Hey, will you tell our listeners where they can find you?
Jason Anthoine: Yeah, so, um, we have a shiny new website is still has that new website smell. So you can go [00:46:00] to think audacity dot com and there's all kinds of information on there and helpful tips and things.
And you can obviously find me on LinkedIn, Twitter as well and Instagram, so share different points of view, and sometimes they're disruptive and sometimes they're not, but you get to decide which ones are aren't. But anytime you see any of that stuff, you want to have a conversation, just reach out. Yeah.
Phone calls are free. I'm glad to talk to anybody about any of this stuff around internal comms. It's it's, it's what I'm passionate about.
Amanda Berry: Well, I might take you up on that. I have a lot of passion for it too, and I love to even chat more about that another time, but thank you again for joining me today, Jason, this has been great.
Jason Anthoine: Thank you, man. I appreciate that.
Speaker: Thank you again for listening to this episode of the Cohesion podcast brought to you by Simpplr the modern internet software that simplifies the employee experience. Learn more about how Simpplr can help you build the future of your employee experience at Simpplr [00:47:00] dot com.
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