Jo Ann Endo
Principal & Founder at Improvement Catalyst Coaching, LLC
Nonprofits
Education: Smith College - Simmons College School of Social Work
Boston, MA, USA
Biography
Jo Ann Endo, MSW, is a speaker and founder of Improvement Catalyst Coaching, LLC. She has helped mission-driven audiences use communications strategies to support, accelerate, and spread change.
Jo Ann has been described as an engaging and thoughtful speaker. She is known for offering practical guidance to leaders at all levels to use the power of storytelling to center equity, build relationships, encourage empathy, spread learning, and motivate people to act. She has spoken at major international conferences, provided workshops for audiences both large and small, and interviewed internationally known thought leaders and innovators.
Jo Ann draws upon her unique blend of experience in health care, communications, health justice, quality improvement, and social work to support individuals and organizations. This has included teams from New York City Health + Hospitals, UMass Memorial Health, In Our Own Voice: National Black Women's Reproductive Justice Agenda, United Vision for Idaho, and others.
Jo Ann was the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) Director of Dissemination & Digital Content and also served as senior managing editor of the IHI blog. Before joining IHI, Jo Ann was a clinical social worker. She is a graduate of Smith College and the Simmons College School of Social Work.
Passion
I love helping people without communications backgrounds use communications strategies to address problems and accelerate improvement. With so many in the nonprofit world facing chaos and uncertainty, I help organizations and individuals stay true to their values and connect in ways that build trust, strengthen relationships, and enhance sustainability.
I am also passionate about teaching people to tell their personal stories to bridge differences and make positive and lasting change. I envision a world in which teams advance justice, increase the impact of scarce resources, partner with communities, and take more satisfaction in their work by using strategic communications methods.
Best Story
”The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” This quote, attributed to George Bernard Shaw, sums up one of the challenges we often face when we are responsible for change initiatives. We typically think because we have repeated a message multiple times, or said it in a way that is clear to us, that we have done our best to communicate. The reality, however, is that we often spend too little time thinking about our audiences, what matters most to them, who they are most likely to listen to, and what messages will resonate most with them.
A team leading a large-scale improvement effort for a major healthcare system once came to Jo Ann because they wondered if using internal communications strategies might help them advance their efforts. She encouraged the team to shift their mindset about how they were communicating with their key partners and participants.
Instead of repeating the same messages over and over, she helped them customize messages for the multiple audiences they needed to engage and worked with them to identify the right messengers. Within a few months, they reported that these strategies helped them convince their leaders to elevate their project to a system-level priority. They also got the resources to hire three more staff members, and they recruited new practices as project participants.
Origin Story
Before focusing on communications, Jo Ann Endo was a clinical social worker. She saw up close how much dedicated workers do for the populations they serve. She also saw how overburdened systems can undermine those efforts and challenge the energy, intentions, and well-being of caring professionals.
Most people enter the helping professions because they want to make a difference. Sadly, understaffing, burnout, lack of resources, and other factors often hinder their original aspirations.
While working for one of the world’s leading healthcare improvement organizations, Jo Ann realized that storytelling and other communications strategies were essential to reconnecting helping professionals to their why and to making their change initiatives more effective and sustainable. She saw that both internal and external communications planning are too often forgotten or left to the end of a project. When communications strategies are embedded in an initiative from the beginning, however, Jo Ann has seen change accelerate, spread, and have a more lasting impact.
Example talks
Finding Our Voice Amid Uncertainty: Storytelling to Make a Difference
This interactive workshop focuses on building confidence, deepening human connections, and strengthening adaptable, values-based storytelling skills for a variety of audiences. Developing the discipline of centering values — our own and those of others — in our storytelling helps us stay true to ourselves when facing pressure or pushback while broadening our reach and building real relationships.
Takeaways:
> Build storytelling confidence.
> Strengthen values-based message adaptation skills.
> Deepen human connections.
Team-Building for Chaotic Times
Nonprofit organizations are under more pressure than ever. They need ways to do their crucial mission-driven work more efficiently with fewer resources. Amid so much uncertainty, this can't be done without strong teamwork and effective communication. In this interactive workshop, teams learn to communicate more strategically to accelerate their progress toward outcomes that matter.
Takeaways:
> Practice storytelling techniques to develop listening and communications skills.
> Learn how developing psychological safety is essential for building effective teams.
> Understand the science of storytelling and why storytelling is essential to make positive change.
Reaching People the Right Way: Developing Your Communications Plan
This workshop helps non-communications professionals to apply strategic communications methods to engaging team members and spreading insights about their work.
Takeaways:
> Learn the advantages of tailoring communications to different audiences.
> Identify a key population to focus outreach efforts.
> Draft a basic communications plan to engage this population.
This workshop was originally developed for healthcare quality improvement teams in hospital and ambulatory settings, but can be adapted for other non-communications professionals leading change efforts.
I am willing to travel
Up to 100 miles
When it comes to payments
Everything is negotiable
Topics
Best Story
”The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” This quote, attributed to George Bernard Shaw, sums up one of the challenges we often face when we are responsible for change initiatives. We typically think because we have repeated a message multiple times, or said it in a way that is clear to us, that we have done our best to communicate. The reality, however, is that we often spend too little time thinking about our audiences, what matters most to them, who they are most likely to listen to, and what messages will resonate most with them.
A team leading a large-scale improvement effort for a major healthcare system once came to Jo Ann because they wondered if using internal communications strategies might help them advance their efforts. She encouraged the team to shift their mindset about how they were communicating with their key partners and participants.
Instead of repeating the same messages over and over, she helped them customize messages for the multiple audiences they needed to engage and worked with them to identify the right messengers. Within a few months, they reported that these strategies helped them convince their leaders to elevate their project to a system-level priority. They also got the resources to hire three more staff members, and they recruited new practices as project participants.
Origin Story
Before focusing on communications, Jo Ann Endo was a clinical social worker. She saw up close how much dedicated workers do for the populations they serve. She also saw how overburdened systems can undermine those efforts and challenge the energy, intentions, and well-being of caring professionals.
Most people enter the helping professions because they want to make a difference. Sadly, understaffing, burnout, lack of resources, and other factors often hinder their original aspirations.
While working for one of the world’s leading healthcare improvement organizations, Jo Ann realized that storytelling and other communications strategies were essential to reconnecting helping professionals to their why and to making their change initiatives more effective and sustainable. She saw that both internal and external communications planning are too often forgotten or left to the end of a project. When communications strategies are embedded in an initiative from the beginning, however, Jo Ann has seen change accelerate, spread, and have a more lasting impact.
Example talks
Finding Our Voice Amid Uncertainty: Storytelling to Make a Difference
This interactive workshop focuses on building confidence, deepening human connections, and strengthening adaptable, values-based storytelling skills for a variety of audiences. Developing the discipline of centering values — our own and those of others — in our storytelling helps us stay true to ourselves when facing pressure or pushback while broadening our reach and building real relationships.
Takeaways:
> Build storytelling confidence.
> Strengthen values-based message adaptation skills.
> Deepen human connections.
Team-Building for Chaotic Times
Nonprofit organizations are under more pressure than ever. They need ways to do their crucial mission-driven work more efficiently with fewer resources. Amid so much uncertainty, this can't be done without strong teamwork and effective communication. In this interactive workshop, teams learn to communicate more strategically to accelerate their progress toward outcomes that matter.
Takeaways:
> Practice storytelling techniques to develop listening and communications skills.
> Learn how developing psychological safety is essential for building effective teams.
> Understand the science of storytelling and why storytelling is essential to make positive change.
Reaching People the Right Way: Developing Your Communications Plan
This workshop helps non-communications professionals to apply strategic communications methods to engaging team members and spreading insights about their work.
Takeaways:
> Learn the advantages of tailoring communications to different audiences.
> Identify a key population to focus outreach efforts.
> Draft a basic communications plan to engage this population.
This workshop was originally developed for healthcare quality improvement teams in hospital and ambulatory settings, but can be adapted for other non-communications professionals leading change efforts.