Jason Anthoine is the managing founder at Audacity, a consulting firm focused on employee engagement, internal communications, and culture change.
With more than 32 years’ experience, Jason’s career includes leading global communications for GE Energy Management, an $8 billion manufacturer of energy and electrical components with more than 20,000 employees, and Newell Brands, a $16 billion manufacturer of consumer packaged goods with more than 30,000 employees.
His client work includes employee engagement and change management assignments for CIBA Vision, The Coca-Cola Company, Crowne Plaza Hotels & Resorts, Johnson & Johnson, Mars Chocolate North America, and Time Warner Cable.
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.
How Jason got interested in comms
What Audacity does for people
Segment: Storytime
Story behind the name Audacity
How less is more in comms
How ‘Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee’ inspired a comms plan
Segment: Getting Tactical
Jason’s 3 step process for building a comms plan
What not to do when building a comms plan
Segment: Ripped from the Headlines
Segment: Asking for a Friend
Imposter Syndrome: what is it and how to handle it
“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.”