March 23, 2025 • 48 mins
In this episode of the Tech Trajectory, host Chris Davis sits down with Pete Cohen to explore the often-overlooked role of creativity in leadership. With a unique perspective bridging multiple disciplines, Pete shares insights on fostering innovation, balancing structure with creative freedom, and making room for unconventional ideas in high-pressure environments.
1. Creativity as a leadership skill
[03:36] Leadership is often associated with strategy and decision-making, but creativity plays a crucial role in navigating uncertainty and fostering innovation.
[04:05] Creativity in business and tech: “bringing something new into the world,” particularly in early-stage ideation.
[05:19] Great leaders balance vision and inspiration with collaboration, encouraging others to contribute creatively.
2. Real-world examples of creative leadership
[07:06] Pete recalls a telco project where shifting to platform-as-a-service (Heroku) allowed the team to move significantly faster—an unconventional decision that led to a project breakthrough.
[08:49] Creativity can often accelerate progress rather than slow it down, challenging the misconception that innovative thinking is inefficient.
3. The role of innovation in high-pressure environments
[11:52] Leaders must define what innovation means within their business—whether it’s transformative, sustaining, or efficiency-driven.
[14:08] Storytelling is key to maintaining stakeholder buy-in and momentum when testing new ideas.
[16:11] Encouraging teams to take creative risks requires creating a psychologically safe environment where failures are seen as learning opportunities rather than setbacks.
4. Lessons from music and psychology
[23:38] Pete draws parallels between leadership and music, emphasizing the importance of intuition, flow, and improvisation.
[24:13] Referencing Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow, he highlights the need to balance rapid, intuitive creativity with structured, methodical execution.
[27:19] Creativity can be cultivated by giving oneself space—whether through running, engaging in hobbies, or simply slowing down to allow ideas to surface naturally.
5. Building a culture of creativity in tech teams
[29:09] Unconventional methods, such as using physical artifacts like zines to document ideas, can unlock new perspectives in workshops and discussions.
[30:00] Leaders should facilitate open-ended problem-solving sessions rather than relying on pre-defined solutions.
[31:36] While music can inspire creativity, Pete prefers organic team interactions over background noise when fostering innovation.
Where to find Pete Cohen
- LinkedIn: Pete Cohen
- Music: Smith and Cohen (formerly Sodastream) – New album releasing this year!
Subscribe and stay tuned: Enjoyed this episode? Subscribe to Tech Trajectory for more insights from the people shaping the future of technology.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Chris Davies (00:00):
Hi everyone, and welcome to the tech trajectory
(00:02):
podcast, where we unpack thehighs, the lows and the
unexpected twists that shape thejourneys of today's top tech
leaders. I'm Chris Davies, andtoday we're talking about
something that doesn't getenough credit in leadership
creativity. My guest for todayis Pete Cohen, someone who
certainly knows a lot about bothleadership and creativity. Even
the way Pete describes himself asystems innovator and
(00:24):
collaboration strategist, echoeshow these two worlds intertwine
at this moment in time, Petesplits his time between being a
consultant for vibrance and adevelopment partner for RMIT at
vibrance, he is tasked with CEOlevel conversations at ASX
listed organizations on thesubject of innovation, observing
the dynamics of seniorleadership in order to foster
(00:46):
the right conversations andsolve the right problems. At
RMIT, Pete has a more autonomousand experimental role. Building
a dynamic ecosystem should shapethe workforce of tomorrow. Pete,
welcome to the podcast.
Pete Cohen (00:58):
Great Chris. Thanks.
Real pleasure to be here.
Chris Davies (01:01):
So Pete a fascinating career spanning
tech, psychology and music,which we'll dig into a little
bit later. But we're going toadd an extra challenge to this
conversation. We're going to beplaying Jenga, although it's not
real Jenga. It's a it's aknockoff, I think it's called
tumbling tower, as you can seeby the quality, yeah, probably
(01:23):
doesn't meet Jenga standards,but in many respects, could be
considered a bit of a metaphorfor leadership. There's lots of
strategic moves, calculatedrisks, and occasionally total
collapse. So we'll playthroughout the episode, and each
time one of us pulls a block,we'll throw in a bit of a rapid
fire question as a bit of fun.
So I'll kick things off firstmove and a question for you, if
(01:47):
you had to describe yourleadership style as a song, what
would it be
Pete Cohen (01:54):
Interesting question and tricky to answer it, because
you haven't asked me my favoritesong. You've asked me to
describe my leadership stylejust watching your movie. Really
risky, straight up.
Chris Davies (02:08):
I know well, it's I'm gonna blame the quality of
the Jenga sorry, tumbling tower.
Tumbling tower. Yeah, that's it.
Pete Cohen (02:16):
All right.
Leadership style of the song,I'm gonna choose a Beatles song,
the long and winding road. Nice.
Yeah, I think that's a, youknow, a good metaphor in the
sense that it's a long game,it's winding I'm going to break
the first rule of systemsthinking by saying systems
thinking in that that'ssomething that is a big part of
(02:37):
the way I approach teams andproblem solving and leadership.
So you don't get there without,you know, navigating the twists
and turns. And the other thingis that, yeah, I think it's not
without the ups and downs.
That's where, where you buildthe relationships and the and
the trust to be able to lead andmove forward together. So yeah,
(02:57):
I think if you try and shortcutthat and look for the short,
direct path, then no one'sreally going to get to those
outcomes. So yeah, that's theone I've chosen.
Chris Davies (03:12):
I love it. We don't want to go into the
psychedelic Era of The Beatles.
Pete Cohen (03:16):
Sure. Happy to, happy to go there.
Chris Davies (03:19):
Yeah. No, great, great answer. And yeah, we could
wax lyrical about that, but weshould probably get back onto
the subject of today's podcast,which is, yeah, why creativity
is such a critical leadershipskill, especially in tech now,
leadership often talk aboutstrategy and decision making,
(03:42):
but yourself, you've alwaysseems to have championed
creativity as a core leadershipskill. So how do you define
creativity in a business and atech setting?
Pete Cohen (03:52):
Yeah, in a business and tech setting, well, when I
think very literally about theterm creativity, you're creating
something, bringing somethingnew into the world. And business
and tech is a broad spectrum,but where I tend to gravitate is
more towards the zero to onephase. So a new idea, a new
(04:13):
product, a new system, bringssomething into the world. So
yeah, I think there's a lot ofcreative energy involved in that
and, and that's yeah, somethingthat I guess the world needs
more of. I think, yeah.
Chris Davies (04:30):
Yeah, 100% and I suppose at those very early
conversations, obviously, mostof those are born from a
problem, right? And especiallyat those, you know, the CEO
level that you kind of speak toon a daily basis. How does
creativity help those leadersnavigate the complexity and the
(04:53):
problems when there's such highstakes on the table?
Pete Cohen (04:56):
Yeah, okay, when I think about that, you know. And
I think I relate this back tomy, my experience as a musician,
and going through that, thatcreative process of of bringing
music into the world. And wheredo these things come from? Where
do these ideas come from? Andlikewise, in a in a business and
(05:17):
leadership setting, I thinkthere's this innate thing, these
these ideas can come sort ofseemingly from nowhere. So I
think that's one part of it forbusiness leaders to trust their
intuition. And it's sort of thethe role, the responsibility,
the privilege of of leadershipis to be bringing those ideas
(05:40):
forward and inspiring others andtaking them on that journey. So
the great leaders I've observedare really good at doing that,
creating, you know, the visionand the enthusiasm to follow an
idea. But then on the otherside, there's also a big part of
the creative process, isbringing others into it and
leveraging the ideas of othersand encouraging them and putting
(06:04):
those all into the melting pot.
So again, I think great leaderscan strike that balance between
holding a vision, inspiringothers towards it, but then
bringing others on the journeyand letting them express their
own creativity. And that's atricky balance is sort of an
alchemy and hard to probably getright all of the time. But yeah,
(06:24):
I think, you know, reallytalented creative leaders can
construct that balance.
Chris Davies (06:32):
Yeah, awesome. And it kind of makes me think
whether there's a moment where acreative approach has changed
the course of a project ordecision, maybe even gone
against that leader's kind ofnatural instinct, especially if
you know they're kind of focusedon how to do business, and maybe
(06:52):
more, kind of less in the worldof creativity, is there a
momentwhere you've kind ofopened their eyes up to Another
way of doing things, and it'schanged the course of a project.
Pete Cohen (07:06):
Okay, one example that comes to mind is perhaps a
bit more, bit more tactical, butI think it plays into the into
the situation and the question,and I'm thinking back to a
project. I was on a team in a,you know, small telco kind of
situation, doing a veryinnovative endeavor. And we
(07:26):
started out, you know, as weusually would at the time, with
probably a pretty engineeringheavy approach, you know,
setting up the AWS sort ofenvironment and all of that. But
what we realized was we weremoving really too slowly for
what the situation called for.
And one of the team suggested weswitch to, you know, using a
Platform as a Service, Heroku inthat case. And what it meant
(07:49):
was, we're able to move muchmore quickly. And it's sort of,
it was a bit of a flip from, youknow, oh, we're here to engineer
a big system and make this thinglast forever to more we've got
to test a business idea here,and we've got to make some
decisions that allow us to movereally quickly. So yeah, it was
(08:09):
a I felt that was a creativeapproach that came from from the
team, and it really changed thetrajectory of that project.
Turned out, after we left,someone thought that was a bad
idea and went and ripped it allout and rebuilt it. But that's
okay too, because I think atthat moment in time it was the
right thing to do, and it wasagainst the grain, kind of a
(08:32):
decision, but, but yeah, I sortof applaud the creativity of the
team to take us in thatdirection.
Chris Davies (08:42):
Yeah, nice. And I really appreciate you mentioning
the word trajectory, becausethat's what we're all about on
this podcast. Just one otherquestion off the back of that
you kind of adopted a creativeapproach there to actually save
time because things were takingtoo long, and we know that
there's a lot of time pressuresin business and the world of
(09:04):
tech. Do you think there's thispreconceived notion that being
creative is potentially suckstoo much time out of a project,
when actually the opposite couldbe true in the Yeah, that
example you just gave, it'sactually got the wheels turning
and actually making progress.
Pete Cohen (09:24):
Yeah, such a, such a big concept, and it can apply at
different levels of problemsolving. And I don't think it's
always about, yeah, let's comeup with brand new ideas. It's
it's often about, how can wetake a step back, challenge our
assumptions, you know, thinkabout the options in front of us
(09:46):
and try something. So, yeah, Ithink often it can speed things
up by not just sticking to thesame old same Yep. Cool.
Chris Davies (09:58):
All right, well, we're back. To tumbling tower,
as I'll now refer to it. AndPete, it's going to be your
turn, so pull a block. And yourquestion that goes alongside
this is, if you could have a jamwith any musician, dead or
alive, who would it be?
Pete Cohen (10:15):
You're going to make me do two things at once, and I
well, I would have to say, thisis probably, yeah, your part of
the world. John Squire from theStone Roses, oh, yeah,
beautiful. Where are you from?
By the way,
Chris Davies (10:30):
I'm from a town called Barry St Edmunds, near
Cambridge in the UK. Okay, yeah,so a few hours from Manchester.
But, yeah, obviously, StoneRoses a huge band across the UK.
Why John swar
Pete Cohen (10:50):
just, you know, living out my adolescent dream
of, you know, and I, actually, Iwon't take us down this rabbit
hole, but I did meet the band,and Manny, the bass player, is
one of my heroes. So by jammingwith John Squire, I certainly
want to, don't want to displaceManny. I'd probably want to be
him, I think is what I'm saying.
Yeah, love that, love that man
Chris Davies (11:14):
and just quickly thoughts on the second coming.
Pete Cohen (11:17):
You know, it was formational in in my in my life,
period, love it.
Chris Davies (11:24):
Yeah, me too. Me too. All right. Back to the
subject in hand. As you can see,I think we're, yeah, itching to
talk about music this wholetime, but yeah, we're going to
talk about how leaders canbalance innovation and execution
under pressure. So yeah, Pete, Iknow you've worked in a lot of
high pressure environments, andhow do you keep innovation alive
(11:46):
when time, budget andexpectations are really
squeezing you?
Pete Cohen (11:52):
I think one part of that is, you know, innovation is
again, another one of these big,amorphous words, and I work in
that field now. And one thing weencourage leaders to do is to
think about, when they say theword innovation, what do they
mean? And yeah, there's, we workwith a strategizer framework.
(12:13):
And within that, there's theytalk about three broad types
being whether you're going formore like transformative
innovation, which is one weoften think about brand new
business models, you know, newways of creating value. At the
other end of the spectrum ismore like efficiency innovation.
We've just got to get better atdoing what we're doing. And in
(12:33):
between that is the idea ofsustaining innovation. So maybe
taking what you're doing to anadjacent sea of some kind. So
once you've got that clear, thenthat can help define, you know,
your situation and yourconstraints. And if you're
working on an efficiency typeproject, then, you know, yeah,
you probably just got to knuckledown and make sure that you're,
(12:57):
you're achieving those goalsthat are going to, you know,
shift the needle on, on beingable to do what you you already
do better, faster, cheaper,somehow. Whereas, if you're in
there, the transformtransformative domain, where
it's much more about test andlearn. You know, you still got
those constraints of time andbudget and whatnot, but you
(13:18):
know, you've everyone's got tobe a lot more open minded about
how quickly things are going tomove. So within in that kind of
situation, I think storytellingis really important. So being
able to bring back the learningsand the evidence from from your
experiments, whether they be youknow more of a technical nature
or often more of a customerdiscovery type nature, but
(13:42):
making sure that you know you'rebringing back those stories
really frequently, because thenthat allows people to course
correct. It gives people, Iguess, the enthusiasm and
motivation to keep supportingthe effort that's underway. But
again, I'd come back to makesure people are clear what
they're what they're sponsoring,because you can get in a real
(14:04):
mismatch situation wheresomeone's trying to manage or
perceive more transformativetype innovation project as
something that should be runninglike a more efficiency style
traditional project, and you'regoing to end up in a in a world
of hurt.
Chris Davies (14:20):
Yeah, no, for sure, and I think yeah, just
personally, my background injournalism and copywriting, the
power of storytelling is, yeah,can be, can be huge and pretty
transformational and justinteresting. What you said about
innovation, similar tocreativity, it doesn't have to
be the brand new and the shiny.
Innovation can mean, can meanlots of things. But do you think
(14:42):
that word itself is sometimes ablocker for leaders, because
they think, you know, it mightneed to be a huge spend on big,
new things and and a wholetransformational project, when
innovation can just be, yeah,simply doing things a bit
different. Differently orlooking to drive efficiencies.
Do you think it can be a bit ofa blocker sometimes?
Pete Cohen (15:05):
Absolutely. Yeah, and something we've been talking
about a lot in in vibrance andwithin our community a lot over
the last couple of years,because the broader environment
just has not been conducivetowards innovation. So we tend
to talk more about growth thesedays, because that's something
that businesses always need tobe thinking about. But for sure,
(15:29):
in this environment where, youknow, people are getting laid
off or there's a lot of marketpressure, it's challenging to
talk about spending money oninnovation.
Chris Davies (15:40):
Yeah, for sure.
And I think, yeah, my nextquestion kind of relates to that
is more on the creative side ofthings. Again, how do you
encourage teams and leaders totake creative risks when you
know the default is the safedecision because of market
pressures or whatever it may be?
How do you kind of ensure thatcreativity is still a voice at
(16:02):
the table.
Pete Cohen (16:03):
Yeah, I think you know the old, tried and true
sort of divergent thinkingmethods of getting people into a
space, often a physical space,where they can see all the
options in front of them and begenerative and facilitate those
those conversations. So again,rather than just going down the
(16:26):
narrow road of a pre preparedPowerPoint pack and the
decisions made before you get inthe room, but dancing with that
ambiguity and possibility, Ithink is, is part of it. So
that's a lot about facilitationand that kind of relationship
building, and the other side ofit, and let's say this applies
(16:47):
at every level, is around safetyand the potential of things
going wrong. And I think youknow, it's it's easy to make a
misstep in that area, that whenthe pressure is on, or if you
know everyone's under pressure,it doesn't matter what level
you're at, there's someonelooking over your shoulder and
(17:10):
and when something inevitablydoesn't go the way that everyone
was hoping, how how peoplerespond To that can really
influence confidence aroundtaking creative steps. So when
things are going well, you know,you you recognize that things
didn't work out as we'd hoped,but you harvest the learnings,
(17:31):
you get encouragement, and youtry again. And so I think
that's, that's really importantthing, and I think as a type of
role that I've tended to play inthe teams I work in is to foster
that safety. So that doesn'tmean that you get a free pass.
There's still some difficultconversations. There's still
(17:52):
some owning the decisions andhow we could have done things
differently. But then thecollective sort of agreement
that, okay, let's go on. Let'stry again. Let's do it better.
Let's embrace creativity ratherthan let's batten down the
hatches and go for the safeapproach. Yeah.
Chris Davies (18:12):
Yeah, yeah, for sure. And you know, you
mentioned the roles you've hadin the past and now, and I feel
like we've done pretty well, notto mention DiUS so far, but I
did want to just touch upon youknow, you've one of the DiUS
alumni. You've also worked withus and engaged with us as a
partner as well. How has workingat DiUS and with DiUS kind of
(18:36):
influenced the way you've kindof approached these kind of
things, like, you say a safespace and and making sure that,
yeah, the things like creativityand innovation are always front
of mind.
Pete Cohen (18:49):
Yeah, yeah. I've still got a I've got a sticker
on my desk, which is be aboutthe band, which is one of the
DiUS stickers from, I don't knowwhich campaign how, many years
ago, but look to me, that reallysums it obviously resonates for
me with the musical background,but it's genuinely like it's,
it's it, that's just the how itfeels like it's, it's a real
(19:13):
team effort. But beyond theteam, it's got more of that,
that family feel, in terms ofthe way people come together to
solve problems and work togetherand and make make work a better
place to be. So, yeah, I thinkthat's a that's a huge part of
it, and then that extends to theclient relationship. So yeah, in
(19:36):
terms of my confidence, ofbringing in a BS team in to
engage with one of my clientsis, you know, 100% because I
know that, you know, the waythat that relationship rolls is
about, you know, forming thatthat shared understanding and
respect. So, yeah, it was reallyformative for me the, you know,
10 years that I spent rollingwith many, many DiUS teams and.
(19:59):
The leadership team at DiUS.
And, yeah, it's something I hopeto take forward.
Chris Davies (20:07):
Yeah, amazing. It just makes you feel all warm and
fuzzy inside, doesn't it? Allright? So I think we have
another Rapid Fire question, andit's TEP, I'll try and pull up a
block from the tumbling tower.
What's the most unconventionalidea you've ever pitched at
work? So yeah, it could be atDiUS. Could be elsewhere, but
unconventional ideaunconventional.
Pete Cohen (20:32):
I'm going to go with an example. It's probably it's
probably crazier things I'vedone, but I like this example in
that I'm something more recentlyat RMIT forward, where I'm
working on a on a broadinitiative to do with we call it
tech new entrants, so how tosupport people that are coming
(20:53):
into basically any field, butwe're focusing focusing on
technology initially, and howthey navigate. You know that
that transition. So we werepulling together some, some
round tables actually had some,some DiUS folks involved in that
from different perspectives.
Some people new to their career.
Some people had been around along time and were wanting to
(21:14):
draw out some insights. But, umYeah, one of the wonderful
things about working at RMITforward is it's a very open,
blank canvas in terms of ourapproach. So I engaged someone
from Sydney, Roy green, who's ahe describes themselves as a
digital poet, I think, supercool person and and we got to
(21:36):
design these collaborationtechniques. And we use zines. So
you're a similar vintage to me.
You might remember pre internetwith, you know, folded paper
magazines is, you know, DIYmagazines is how you found out
about cool, new things.
Chris Davies (21:57):
I always thought it was zines, and I never put it
together as a kid that it wasmagazines. I thought it was
zines, but there we go.
Pete Cohen (22:04):
I like zones, yeah, maybe it's just my Australian
draw. Maybe I've had it wrongthis whole time, yeah. But then
we, you know, have these sort ofbusinessy, you know, tech type
folks, you know, Rory, you know,guided them through how to do
this kind of origami folding, soyou end up with a little book
and then capturing their ownjourney in that narrative format
(22:27):
and then playing that back. Butyeah, there's so many things I
loved about that, in terms ofthe something tangible, like
doing something with your hands,having something physical to
take home and capturing a storyin a in a different way, and
withdrawing, you know, picturesand stick figures and and that
(22:48):
kind of thing. Yeah, pretty,pretty out there, pretty, pretty
unconventional, but they, yeah,filled me with a lot of joy to
see all these little, littlezines emerging from the
workshop.
Chris Davies (23:02):
Yeah, 100% Oh, I love that. Yeah, that sounds
really, really cool. So for mynext question, we're gonna stick
in the realm of education andlook at the science behind
creativity. Because Pete, I knowthat you studied psychology, so
yeah, just really interested toknow what what science tells us
about creativity and innovation.
Pete Cohen (23:22):
Yeah, cool and yeah.
I'll start with a slight caveatthat a long time ago, since I
studied psychology back in Perthin my undergraduate and yeah,
spent more time at the pub,probably back then than in the
classroom. But yeah, again, asanother aside, I didn't love
what I didn't like aboutpsychology back then was so much
focus on the on the negativeside of it, and positive
(23:46):
psychology didn't exist. Then.
We didn't actually talk a lotabout creativity as like, at
least as much as I can remember.
But obviously since then, youknow, still got a strong
interest in it. And yourquestion makes me think about,
you know, like Daniel Kahnemanand ideas of, like, thinking
past and slow and just broadly,those, those two, two modes
that, that we have, you know,the more creativity or the fast
(24:10):
thinking, and then the the othermode, which is more about, You
know, the convergence and slowthinking. But, yeah, through
what science tells us aboutthat, and even some of the other
things I've delved into aroundconsciousness and the way we
(24:31):
work as humans, these insightscan come extremely fast, like
basically at the speed of light.
And I think there's something inthat around learning to trust
that, that you know, doesn'thave to be a forced thing,
these, these, we don't reallyknow what makes us conscious or
(24:56):
where that some of these ideascome from. And. And it's fun to
to examine that, but I thinkit's also important just to
trust that. And so certainlyit's something I experience in
music, like I said before, likethis, these things just come
from kind of nowhere. You can'treally explain it. But even
(25:19):
Yeah, through the thesepsychology frameworks, I think
recognizing that there's thesetwo systems, and when you're in
the creative state and going forflow, then then you kind of got
to go with that. And then, youknow, the other system is about
convergence. It's about analysisand being more methodical. And I
(25:40):
think that's a big part ofcreativity as well. Because I
think we all kind of know peoplethat perhaps are really good at
the fast creative thinking. Butthen when it comes to actually
creating something of value inthe world that's usable is
where, you know, it doesn't,doesn't manifest. So you know,
to be a sort of a roundedcreative that's bringing
(26:03):
something into the world. Ithink we can take something from
from, you know, those studiesinto neuroscience, and think
about what, what mode Am I in atthe moment, and how do I best
embrace that? And then when it'stime to shift mode one way or
the other, okay, what's myenvironment? You know, what do
we collectively need to do nowto to move things forward?
Chris Davies (26:28):
Yeah, nice and I think, yeah, keen to tap into
the kind of shifting of modesand looking to, yeah, ways in
which you can embrace yourcreative side. And even for, you
know, leaders to trainthemselves to be more creative,
if that's the thing. And yeah,I'm glad you mentioned the music
side as well, because, yeah,growing up in bands, I always
(26:52):
felt I was just, you know, ahired hand to come in, and we
need someone to play bass, weneed someone to play drums. And
I always struggled to kind ofcome up with the creative side
of things and thinking, Oh, isit just because of who I am, or
can I kind of learn to be a bitmore creative? Is that something
that that you know in the worldof business and tech, can
(27:12):
leaders do things to to ensurethat they're always thinking
creatively?
Pete Cohen (27:19):
Yeah, look, I feel like one of the main ingredients
is just time and space. Like,you know, you can't just walk
into a room. I'm kind of, in away, I'm contradicting what I
just said, that these things cancome very quickly, but I think
they come quickly in the rightcircumstances. So in terms of
(27:40):
preparing your yourself orgiving yourself space to slow
down and notice things. So I'mgoing to use a extremely, sort
of tired me metaphor. But, youknow, don't touch some grass and
get get out in nature. But youknow, that's a big thing, like
I've taken up running recently,and you know, it's just that
(28:01):
thing. You're outside, you'reyou're doing something physical,
and the amount of insights thatcan come when you're doing
something like that, for me,when I'm playing music, yeah,
there's a, there's a universeplaying out inside my mind that
that then translates to my myprofessional world. So I think,
(28:22):
you know, hobbies is perhapspart of that getting getting
your mind working, and gettinginto more of a flow state, and
getting used to things notworking, but that being fine and
being part of the process. Ithink that's part of the
training is to get used to,yeah, trial and error, and that
(28:43):
being celebrated, because that'show you how you move forward.
Something a bit more tangible.
Perhaps, there's a, there's abook called theory you, and a
body of knowledge around that.
This guy, Otto Sharma, but hedescribes a, it's, again, a sort
of a facilitation technique. Andthey talk about sort of getting
into the you but, you know, it'spretty, pretty simple,
(29:04):
straightforward stuff. But it'sabout, you know, you get a group
of people around together in aroom working on something, but
then the processes you gothrough to arrive in that sort
of creative space. And Ottotalks about, like the energy is
palpable, like, you can cut theair with a knife in those
moments, like for me, like,literally, embarrassingly, my
(29:28):
teeth buzz in those like,literally in those sort of
workshop settings where theconnection and energy is flowing
with people, but it doesn't comewithout a lot of investment of
time. Like you don't walk into aroom and you're not there within
five minutes. It's usually weeksof building relationship and
(29:51):
getting to that point, and theneven within a single workshop,
you go through a bunch of stuffto get there, and then you gotta
hold space. Space and becomfortable in that space. So I
think that's tough for leaders.
You know, when you're your wallto wall meetings every day,
you've got a bunch of stuff onyour mind. You've got a, you
know, a posture and a persona touphold. I think a lot of that
(30:12):
you got to, got to reflect onand and see if you can park some
of that, to get into that, thatreally creative space and work
with your team and let that,that goal, emerge.
Chris Davies (30:28):
Yeah, it's fascinating. I think, yeah, the
thought of jumping into aworkshop probably fills a lot of
people with dread. But yeah, ifyou can kind of foster the right
environment and the rightapproach and goals, then, yeah,
it sounds like amazing thingscan come of it. And I think,
yeah, the point you made aboutkind of being out in nature and
(30:50):
that kind of thing as well, andfinding those those spaces and
opportunities to be creative isreally important, even, yeah,
one of my former band members hetaped on the back of his front
door take dictaphone. Because hewould take the dictaphone out
with him when he went for awalk, because that's song ideas
came to him and he didn't wantto lose them, and he'd just hum
them into his dictaphone. Soyeah, there you go. And just one
(31:15):
more quick one on the subject ofmusic. Can it make people more
creative? So should be tech?
Should tech teams have abrainstorming playlist or
something to get them, help themget into that flow state? Or is
it, you know, maybe just a bitof a distraction?
Pete Cohen (31:33):
Controversial question for me, I would say no,
like i i probably, probablyprobably get too distracted by
music because of my myrelationship to it, and I have
pretty low tolerance for what Iwould consider crap music, so
that is even more distractingand even more common. So look,
(31:56):
yeah, I don't necessarily thinkso that that said. I mean, I do
subscribe to a newsletter calledflow state that every day you
get a really interesting artist,usually with no vocals, and it's
much more into experimental andkind of noise type music for
that kind of thing. So I findthat useful at a personal level.
(32:19):
But yeah, when it comes to theteam, I actually, I actually
think it could be detrimental.
I'm much more interested ingenuine conversations and
connection and being very finelyattuned to nuance and letting
people speak, but, but, youknow, keep, keep the
conversation flowing. Soanything that could interfere
(32:42):
with that, I'd be, I'd behesitant to introduce into a
team setting, and, you know,even like games and stuff like,
which I know it wasn't yourquestion, I can see the value in
some of that, but I probablypull more towards what I
consider an authentic way ofgetting the work done like and
maybe a bit less fun, but getsus to the to the outcome.
Chris Davies (33:10):
Yeah, right. No, no. Really interesting. So I
think we're heading back to thetower, and it's your go, Pete.
So the question for you is,what's the most creative way
you've ever solved a completelynon work related problem?
Pete Cohen (33:28):
Okay, well, I'm gonna try and do it at the same
time. Yeah, multitasking. Risky.
Chris Davies (33:39):
That's a bold choice of block as well. We do
need to see some action, right?
Pete Cohen (33:45):
Yeah, oh, my God.
Oh, my God. Okay. So yeah, theexample I'm going to give we
just at home completed arenovation, which is, you know,
quite a everyone heard aboutthat for several years as we
went through that. But one thingI'm really glad we did. We had
our attic kitted out forstorage, which, you know, I'm a
(34:07):
chronic hoarder of things, andgot a pretty small house. So
that was brilliant. But thething I'm I'm really proud of is
I found on the internet a winchwith our remote control, and I
convinced the guy who was doingthe fit out and to install it.
And I went and begged for a bitof wood from a building site
(34:31):
down the road, and we got thatfitted up. And so now I can,
like, stand downstairs and pressthis button, and the winch goes
into screams, into action andlowers this, you know, enormous
bag that you get from Bunnings.
It's usually for, you know,holding a ton of sand. But then
I can put my boxes and cartonsof beer or whatever I'm storing
(34:53):
up there. But, you know, it'sjust, it brings me joy every
time I use it, because I feellike a bit of a, I don't know,
crane operator. I. Yeah, butit's also that thing of, you
know, it's all off the shelfstuff, right? Like, and I just
can't believe that I've neverseen it before, the attic people
didn't suggest it, becausewhat's your alternative? You're
walking up these, you know, thisladder with, like, some heavy
(35:15):
thing gonna break your neck. SoI'm pretty happy with myself
that I managed to solve thatproblem and and I get to, you
know, press a button and hearsomething loud. Do do something
interesting. So, so that's theexample.
Chris Davies (35:30):
Yeah, amazing.
Well, I think it leads us nicelyinto this next question, and
it's in a similar sort of realm.
Is those, yeah, real worldexamples of where you've a
creative approach has led to amajor breakthrough. So, yeah,
obviously your example is theattic and shifting stuff up
(35:51):
there in your professionalcareer. Is there anything that
kind of is any way similar tothat?
Pete Cohen (36:01):
The one that comes to mind, it's another DiUS
story, actually. And you know,this is a unsolicited sort of
story or plug. Chris didn't askme to say this, but yeah. But
genuinely, the one that comes tomind is, is around the DiUS
power sensor product. And anyonethat's been in the in the DiUS
office would know this was my,my, my first impression when I
(36:24):
did my first interview there,you know, in 2012 or whatever it
was, you know, the the benchwhere the embedded guys work,
and there's a, you know, beyonda pile. It's a, it's a, it's a
mountain of wires and flashinglights and Yeah, still like that
(36:45):
to this day, yeah. And as legendgoes, someone might, might
correct me. But as legend goes,the guys, you know, Bernie and
Johnny, were back in the officelate at night, as they as they
often would do, and we'remucking around with a joystick,
if, if I remember correctly, orif the legend is, is is correct.
(37:06):
And from that, you know, muckingaround with pulling something
apart, and found a way tomeasure electricity going
through a wire that wascompletely novel. And then off
the back of that is spawned awhole new product and a whole
new business around it. Butyeah, to me, that's the closest
I've come to something like, youknow, your question was a what's
(37:27):
a breakthrough? And, you know,there's a bit that goes on
around that, like, you know, interms of the creativity of those
those guys, if anyone's metthem, they're, they're very
creative, unconventional kind offolks, but completely supported
in that and, you know, takes along time and a lot of cycles
(37:49):
and a lot of failed experimentsand a lot of incremental steps
to get to the point of abreakthrough, but, but that
broad equation was alwaysfostered and supported, and then
to have, you know, somethingemerge from that that is, you
know, completely new and doessomething in a different way.
(38:11):
Yeah, it was amazing to to be onthe sidelines for.
Chris Davies (38:15):
Yeah, that's awesome. And yeah, obviously
working with that team on adaily basis, yeah, there are
some pretty new and novel ideasand approaches being thrown
around, but yeah, when they canreach an outcome like that,
yeah, it's testament to how thatcan pay off. But just
(38:36):
interesting to to know how yougo from that, something that's,
yeah, completely new anddifferent, to then the structure
and the logic to then go andbuild that product, that product
or solution, whatever it may be,how do you kind of balance those
two forces in that, yeah, you'vegot something completely off the
(38:59):
wall, even now You need to gowrap some structure around it to
actually go and deliver. How doyou kind of balance those two
worlds?
Pete Cohen (39:07):
Yeah, okay, I think that's just um, that's the to
me, that's the real innovationjourney in terms of, you know,
you got to do both. You can'tjust have the idea. You can't
just have the execution. It'sIt's facilitating that
transition. And, you know, a bigpart of the work I'm doing these
(39:30):
days is around uncover,uncovering assumptions and
testing them systematically andmethodically. And they're across
multiple dimensions. You know,the three main ones being
desirability, viability andfeasibility, but, but working
through that and not trying toshort circuit the process and
(39:52):
and jump ahead to oh, we're justgoing to focus on feasibility
and smash this thing out andimplement it when we haven't
actually. About thedesirability, you know, is this
actually something people want,or the viability? Can we
actually create a sustainablebusiness around this? So I think
to achieve that, you've got tohave the right people involved,
(40:13):
the right shaped team, whichwill evolve as you go through
that process. And that meansyou're engaging, you know,
people, partners, whoever, to dothe right thing at the right
time, and then as a leader, Iguess you've got to have that
overarching visibility andawareness to be able to make
(40:35):
decisions and call in the rightsupport and evidence at the
right time. So yeah, I'd saytrying to get that balance right
is a big part of it.
Chris Davies (40:47):
Yeah, no, I couldn't agree more, especially
on having the right peoplearound because early in my tech
consultant career that thosepeople around me were just very
big on the human centereddesign, and the DVF and that
kind of approach and just, youknow, drilled in you from from
an early age, if it were to yet,know what, what the importance
(41:11):
that takes in, in, yeah,actually delivering something
that is a well rounded product,building the right thing in the
right way.
Pete Cohen (41:20):
So, yeah, I would say, like, something that I
still draw heavily on from mytime at DiUS spend, you know,
likewise I, you know, I exist inthat world now, but you can, you
can often see people stop shortof, okay, you know, particularly
around the feasibility side andagain, slightly contradicting
what I said before, but, youknow, desirability and viability
(41:43):
are super important. But youcan't just stop there to bring
something into the world. Youalso need to take that that lens
also. So yeah, like a roundedteam. So critical.
Chris Davies (41:55):
Yep, agreed. All right, so it's my turn on the
tumbling tower and, yeah, I'mgetting impatient, so I might
have to be a bit risky with thisone. My question for you, Pete,
is, what's the biggest Jengamoment of your career, or
tumbling tower moment a timewhen everything nearly came
(42:15):
crashing down, but you managedto rebuild?
Pete Cohen (42:20):
Yeah. So you know, when I look at my life and
career risky move,
Chris Davies (42:26):
it was remarkably easy, actually disappointing.
Pete Cohen (42:32):
Yeah, for me, it would be say, Yeah, my, my, my
career arc started with being aprofessional musician, and spent
10 years pretty muchconsistently on the road with
that, which was, you know, awonderful, wonderful time. But
the flip side of it is thatyou're on a runaway train, like
(42:54):
you just always booked prettymuch six months at least, if not
a year in advance. You're,you're, you know, sacrificing a
lot of your personalrelationships to that career.
And we got to a point where wewere just burnt out and had to
pull the rip cord. So yeah, we'dbeen back from a tour for a few
(43:18):
days, and my bandmate said,like, no, sorry. We just got a
we just got to stop now. Andthat was that was pretty full
on, like, you know, my entireworld, my entire identity, was
tied up in the band and andwe've been sprinting for 10
years and getting there, or kindof only not quite getting there,
but but still progressinganyway. We had to stop. So that
(43:41):
was a that was a massive,massive moment and a big shift,
but absolutely the right thingto do. And it meant that, you
know, we're able to focus onother parts of life for a while
and build our careers now. Andyou know, never would have ended
up stayed on the road and, youknow, built families and those
(44:04):
kinds of things, but now stillgoing. So actually, next week is
our last session in the studioto finish an album that we've
been working on for seven years.
Would you believe? And, youknow, starting to think about
touring again. So I think, youknow, in terms of that rebirth,
you know, that's been a big partof that, and I think it was a
lesson in, you know, making theright, right decision at the
(44:29):
right time. Because, yeah, if wehad have kept pushing through,
I'm not sure what the outcomewould have been, but probably
not good on any dimension interms of our physical, mental
well being, or where ourrelationship has a band. So
yeah, I'm happy that we've beenable to rebuild.
Chris Davies (44:51):
Yeah, awesome.
Great to hear that Yeah, stillgoing strong. And it can be a
really all consuming, allencompassing thing. And. To be a
musician and to spend so muchtime with the same people, often
in close quarters. And yeah, oneof the bands that I was in for
many years, they played theirfirst or the first gig for 11
(45:12):
years the other week. And yeah,unfortunately, being in England,
it wasn't possible for me to tomake an appearance, a bit bit of
sweet. But yeah, I think, youknow, time can be a bit of a
healer if there's tiredness ortension and that kind of thing.
But yeah, a lot of the timepeople don't change, and you
(45:32):
just want to get back out thereand do the same things that fill
you with joy. So, yeah, awesome.
I'll give you a chance to plugat the end, if you feel
appropriate, because we'recoming to the end of the
podcast. So I just wanted towrap up and kind of give some
(45:53):
some key insights that we hadtoday. So talking about
creativity as a leadershipskill, navigating high pressure
environments and but not losingsight of an innovative mindset
and the role of people as welland how important they can be.
So Pete, is there any kind offinal words of wisdom that you'd
(46:14):
like to give, perhaps forleaders that want to bring more
creativity in their approach andsimple changes that they could
kind of implement today.
Pete Cohen (46:24):
Okay, I'll just say, slow down. Give yourself some
space. Everyone's got thatcreative spark inside them, but
I think it's it's often easy inthe hustle and bustle to just
get caught up in, you know, andsometimes, the more senior you
(46:45):
get them, the more crap you haveto deal with, in terms of HR
and, you know, process and allthat, that side of things. But
that's not really the main game.
The main game is, yeah, havingvision spotting opportunities,
taking people on, on thatjourney towards that vision. So
you're only going to get thereif you, if you give yourself the
(47:09):
time to spot those and theenergy gas in the tank to be
able to bring them to life. Soyeah, just give yourself some
time and space, is what I'd say,as hard as that is.
Chris Davies (47:24):
Yeah, great. And I'll let you have one more go on
the tumbling tower. And at thesame time, I'll ask you, yeah,
where, where people can canfollow you or find out more
about your your work. Wherewould you direct them to? All
right, I did that was easy aswell.
Pete Cohen (47:45):
Let me have a go as well. Dodgy, dodgy. Keep we've
got. There we go.
Chris Davies (47:51):
I didn't maybe encourage that, but I felt we
needed it for dramatic effect.
Pete Cohen (47:55):
Sometimes you just gotta, you know, bring that
House of Cards stumbling down.
Yeah, look, yeah, I'm on most ofthe platforms as Pete Cohen on
LinkedIn is probably the bestplace for this audience to find
me. Otherwise, yeah, blue skyleft Twitter behind or try to
Chris Davies (48:15):
play me yeah
Pete Cohen (48:18):
and yeah. Smith and Cohen is the name, the new name
of the band, known as SodaStreamuntil now, but the new album
will come out this year underSmith and Cohen. So yeah, it'd
be great to see some folks at ashow.
Chris Davies (48:31):
Yeah, great. I didn't know about the name
change, so Yeah, appreciate theupdate. And yeah, I think thanks
for your time. It's been greatto chat and to our listeners. If
you enjoyed today's episode,please subscribe to the tech
trajectory podcast. We'll beback next month with more
insights from the people shapingthe future of technology. Pete,
(48:52):
thanks very much. Thanks, Chris,it was great.
Hi everyone, and welcome to the tech trajectory
(00:02):
podcast, where we unpack thehighs, the lows and the
unexpected twists that shape thejourneys of today's top tech
leaders. I'm Chris Davies, andtoday we're talking about
something that doesn't getenough credit in leadership
creativity. My guest for todayis Pete Cohen, someone who
certainly knows a lot about bothleadership and creativity. Even
the way Pete describes himself asystems innovator and
(00:24):
collaboration strategist, echoeshow these two worlds intertwine
at this moment in time, Petesplits his time between being a
consultant for vibrance and adevelopment partner for RMIT at
vibrance, he is tasked with CEOlevel conversations at ASX
listed organizations on thesubject of innovation, observing
the dynamics of seniorleadership in order to foster
(00:46):
the right conversations andsolve the right problems. At
RMIT, Pete has a more autonomousand experimental role. Building
a dynamic ecosystem should shapethe workforce of tomorrow. Pete,
welcome to the podcast.
Pete Cohen (00:58):
Great Chris. Thanks.
Real pleasure to be here.
Chris Davies (01:01):
So Pete a fascinating career spanning
tech, psychology and music,which we'll dig into a little
bit later. But we're going toadd an extra challenge to this
conversation. We're going to beplaying Jenga, although it's not
real Jenga. It's a it's aknockoff, I think it's called
tumbling tower, as you can seeby the quality, yeah, probably
(01:23):
doesn't meet Jenga standards,but in many respects, could be
considered a bit of a metaphorfor leadership. There's lots of
strategic moves, calculatedrisks, and occasionally total
collapse. So we'll playthroughout the episode, and each
time one of us pulls a block,we'll throw in a bit of a rapid
fire question as a bit of fun.
So I'll kick things off firstmove and a question for you, if
(01:47):
you had to describe yourleadership style as a song, what
would it be
Pete Cohen (01:54):
Interesting question and tricky to answer it, because
you haven't asked me my favoritesong. You've asked me to
describe my leadership stylejust watching your movie. Really
risky, straight up.
Chris Davies (02:08):
I know well, it's I'm gonna blame the quality of
the Jenga sorry, tumbling tower.
Tumbling tower. Yeah, that's it.
Pete Cohen (02:16):
All right.
Leadership style of the song,I'm gonna choose a Beatles song,
the long and winding road. Nice.
Yeah, I think that's a, youknow, a good metaphor in the
sense that it's a long game,it's winding I'm going to break
the first rule of systemsthinking by saying systems
thinking in that that'ssomething that is a big part of
(02:37):
the way I approach teams andproblem solving and leadership.
So you don't get there without,you know, navigating the twists
and turns. And the other thingis that, yeah, I think it's not
without the ups and downs.
That's where, where you buildthe relationships and the and
the trust to be able to lead andmove forward together. So yeah,
(02:57):
I think if you try and shortcutthat and look for the short,
direct path, then no one'sreally going to get to those
outcomes. So yeah, that's theone I've chosen.
Chris Davies (03:12):
I love it. We don't want to go into the
psychedelic Era of The Beatles.
Pete Cohen (03:16):
Sure. Happy to, happy to go there.
Chris Davies (03:19):
Yeah. No, great, great answer. And yeah, we could
wax lyrical about that, but weshould probably get back onto
the subject of today's podcast,which is, yeah, why creativity
is such a critical leadershipskill, especially in tech now,
leadership often talk aboutstrategy and decision making,
(03:42):
but yourself, you've alwaysseems to have championed
creativity as a core leadershipskill. So how do you define
creativity in a business and atech setting?
Pete Cohen (03:52):
Yeah, in a business and tech setting, well, when I
think very literally about theterm creativity, you're creating
something, bringing somethingnew into the world. And business
and tech is a broad spectrum,but where I tend to gravitate is
more towards the zero to onephase. So a new idea, a new
(04:13):
product, a new system, bringssomething into the world. So
yeah, I think there's a lot ofcreative energy involved in that
and, and that's yeah, somethingthat I guess the world needs
more of. I think, yeah.
Chris Davies (04:30):
Yeah, 100% and I suppose at those very early
conversations, obviously, mostof those are born from a
problem, right? And especiallyat those, you know, the CEO
level that you kind of speak toon a daily basis. How does
creativity help those leadersnavigate the complexity and the
(04:53):
problems when there's such highstakes on the table?
Pete Cohen (04:56):
Yeah, okay, when I think about that, you know. And
I think I relate this back tomy, my experience as a musician,
and going through that, thatcreative process of of bringing
music into the world. And wheredo these things come from? Where
do these ideas come from? Andlikewise, in a in a business and
(05:17):
leadership setting, I thinkthere's this innate thing, these
these ideas can come sort ofseemingly from nowhere. So I
think that's one part of it forbusiness leaders to trust their
intuition. And it's sort of thethe role, the responsibility,
the privilege of of leadershipis to be bringing those ideas
(05:40):
forward and inspiring others andtaking them on that journey. So
the great leaders I've observedare really good at doing that,
creating, you know, the visionand the enthusiasm to follow an
idea. But then on the otherside, there's also a big part of
the creative process, isbringing others into it and
leveraging the ideas of othersand encouraging them and putting
(06:04):
those all into the melting pot.
So again, I think great leaderscan strike that balance between
holding a vision, inspiringothers towards it, but then
bringing others on the journeyand letting them express their
own creativity. And that's atricky balance is sort of an
alchemy and hard to probably getright all of the time. But yeah,
(06:24):
I think, you know, reallytalented creative leaders can
construct that balance.
Chris Davies (06:32):
Yeah, awesome. And it kind of makes me think
whether there's a moment where acreative approach has changed
the course of a project ordecision, maybe even gone
against that leader's kind ofnatural instinct, especially if
you know they're kind of focusedon how to do business, and maybe
(06:52):
more, kind of less in the worldof creativity, is there a
momentwhere you've kind ofopened their eyes up to Another
way of doing things, and it'schanged the course of a project.
Pete Cohen (07:06):
Okay, one example that comes to mind is perhaps a
bit more, bit more tactical, butI think it plays into the into
the situation and the question,and I'm thinking back to a
project. I was on a team in a,you know, small telco kind of
situation, doing a veryinnovative endeavor. And we
(07:26):
started out, you know, as weusually would at the time, with
probably a pretty engineeringheavy approach, you know,
setting up the AWS sort ofenvironment and all of that. But
what we realized was we weremoving really too slowly for
what the situation called for.
And one of the team suggested weswitch to, you know, using a
Platform as a Service, Heroku inthat case. And what it meant
(07:49):
was, we're able to move muchmore quickly. And it's sort of,
it was a bit of a flip from, youknow, oh, we're here to engineer
a big system and make this thinglast forever to more we've got
to test a business idea here,and we've got to make some
decisions that allow us to movereally quickly. So yeah, it was
(08:09):
a I felt that was a creativeapproach that came from from the
team, and it really changed thetrajectory of that project.
Turned out, after we left,someone thought that was a bad
idea and went and ripped it allout and rebuilt it. But that's
okay too, because I think atthat moment in time it was the
right thing to do, and it wasagainst the grain, kind of a
(08:32):
decision, but, but yeah, I sortof applaud the creativity of the
team to take us in thatdirection.
Chris Davies (08:42):
Yeah, nice. And I really appreciate you mentioning
the word trajectory, becausethat's what we're all about on
this podcast. Just one otherquestion off the back of that
you kind of adopted a creativeapproach there to actually save
time because things were takingtoo long, and we know that
there's a lot of time pressuresin business and the world of
(09:04):
tech. Do you think there's thispreconceived notion that being
creative is potentially suckstoo much time out of a project,
when actually the opposite couldbe true in the Yeah, that
example you just gave, it'sactually got the wheels turning
and actually making progress.
Pete Cohen (09:24):
Yeah, such a, such a big concept, and it can apply at
different levels of problemsolving. And I don't think it's
always about, yeah, let's comeup with brand new ideas. It's
it's often about, how can wetake a step back, challenge our
assumptions, you know, thinkabout the options in front of us
(09:46):
and try something. So, yeah, Ithink often it can speed things
up by not just sticking to thesame old same Yep. Cool.
Chris Davies (09:58):
All right, well, we're back. To tumbling tower,
as I'll now refer to it. AndPete, it's going to be your
turn, so pull a block. And yourquestion that goes alongside
this is, if you could have a jamwith any musician, dead or
alive, who would it be?
Pete Cohen (10:15):
You're going to make me do two things at once, and I
well, I would have to say, thisis probably, yeah, your part of
the world. John Squire from theStone Roses, oh, yeah,
beautiful. Where are you from?
By the way,
Chris Davies (10:30):
I'm from a town called Barry St Edmunds, near
Cambridge in the UK. Okay, yeah,so a few hours from Manchester.
But, yeah, obviously, StoneRoses a huge band across the UK.
Why John swar
Pete Cohen (10:50):
just, you know, living out my adolescent dream
of, you know, and I, actually, Iwon't take us down this rabbit
hole, but I did meet the band,and Manny, the bass player, is
one of my heroes. So by jammingwith John Squire, I certainly
want to, don't want to displaceManny. I'd probably want to be
him, I think is what I'm saying.
Yeah, love that, love that man
Chris Davies (11:14):
and just quickly thoughts on the second coming.
Pete Cohen (11:17):
You know, it was formational in in my in my life,
period, love it.
Chris Davies (11:24):
Yeah, me too. Me too. All right. Back to the
subject in hand. As you can see,I think we're, yeah, itching to
talk about music this wholetime, but yeah, we're going to
talk about how leaders canbalance innovation and execution
under pressure. So yeah, Pete, Iknow you've worked in a lot of
high pressure environments, andhow do you keep innovation alive
(11:46):
when time, budget andexpectations are really
squeezing you?
Pete Cohen (11:52):
I think one part of that is, you know, innovation is
again, another one of these big,amorphous words, and I work in
that field now. And one thing weencourage leaders to do is to
think about, when they say theword innovation, what do they
mean? And yeah, there's, we workwith a strategizer framework.
(12:13):
And within that, there's theytalk about three broad types
being whether you're going formore like transformative
innovation, which is one weoften think about brand new
business models, you know, newways of creating value. At the
other end of the spectrum ismore like efficiency innovation.
We've just got to get better atdoing what we're doing. And in
(12:33):
between that is the idea ofsustaining innovation. So maybe
taking what you're doing to anadjacent sea of some kind. So
once you've got that clear, thenthat can help define, you know,
your situation and yourconstraints. And if you're
working on an efficiency typeproject, then, you know, yeah,
you probably just got to knuckledown and make sure that you're,
(12:57):
you're achieving those goalsthat are going to, you know,
shift the needle on, on beingable to do what you you already
do better, faster, cheaper,somehow. Whereas, if you're in
there, the transformtransformative domain, where
it's much more about test andlearn. You know, you still got
those constraints of time andbudget and whatnot, but you
(13:18):
know, you've everyone's got tobe a lot more open minded about
how quickly things are going tomove. So within in that kind of
situation, I think storytellingis really important. So being
able to bring back the learningsand the evidence from from your
experiments, whether they be youknow more of a technical nature
or often more of a customerdiscovery type nature, but
(13:42):
making sure that you know you'rebringing back those stories
really frequently, because thenthat allows people to course
correct. It gives people, Iguess, the enthusiasm and
motivation to keep supportingthe effort that's underway. But
again, I'd come back to makesure people are clear what
they're what they're sponsoring,because you can get in a real
(14:04):
mismatch situation wheresomeone's trying to manage or
perceive more transformativetype innovation project as
something that should be runninglike a more efficiency style
traditional project, and you'regoing to end up in a in a world
of hurt.
Chris Davies (14:20):
Yeah, no, for sure, and I think yeah, just
personally, my background injournalism and copywriting, the
power of storytelling is, yeah,can be, can be huge and pretty
transformational and justinteresting. What you said about
innovation, similar tocreativity, it doesn't have to
be the brand new and the shiny.
Innovation can mean, can meanlots of things. But do you think
(14:42):
that word itself is sometimes ablocker for leaders, because
they think, you know, it mightneed to be a huge spend on big,
new things and and a wholetransformational project, when
innovation can just be, yeah,simply doing things a bit
different. Differently orlooking to drive efficiencies.
Do you think it can be a bit ofa blocker sometimes?
Pete Cohen (15:05):
Absolutely. Yeah, and something we've been talking
about a lot in in vibrance andwithin our community a lot over
the last couple of years,because the broader environment
just has not been conducivetowards innovation. So we tend
to talk more about growth thesedays, because that's something
that businesses always need tobe thinking about. But for sure,
(15:29):
in this environment where, youknow, people are getting laid
off or there's a lot of marketpressure, it's challenging to
talk about spending money oninnovation.
Chris Davies (15:40):
Yeah, for sure.
And I think, yeah, my nextquestion kind of relates to that
is more on the creative side ofthings. Again, how do you
encourage teams and leaders totake creative risks when you
know the default is the safedecision because of market
pressures or whatever it may be?
How do you kind of ensure thatcreativity is still a voice at
(16:02):
the table.
Pete Cohen (16:03):
Yeah, I think you know the old, tried and true
sort of divergent thinkingmethods of getting people into a
space, often a physical space,where they can see all the
options in front of them and begenerative and facilitate those
those conversations. So again,rather than just going down the
(16:26):
narrow road of a pre preparedPowerPoint pack and the
decisions made before you get inthe room, but dancing with that
ambiguity and possibility, Ithink is, is part of it. So
that's a lot about facilitationand that kind of relationship
building, and the other side ofit, and let's say this applies
(16:47):
at every level, is around safetyand the potential of things
going wrong. And I think youknow, it's it's easy to make a
misstep in that area, that whenthe pressure is on, or if you
know everyone's under pressure,it doesn't matter what level
you're at, there's someonelooking over your shoulder and
(17:10):
and when something inevitablydoesn't go the way that everyone
was hoping, how how peoplerespond To that can really
influence confidence aroundtaking creative steps. So when
things are going well, you know,you you recognize that things
didn't work out as we'd hoped,but you harvest the learnings,
(17:31):
you get encouragement, and youtry again. And so I think
that's, that's really importantthing, and I think as a type of
role that I've tended to play inthe teams I work in is to foster
that safety. So that doesn'tmean that you get a free pass.
There's still some difficultconversations. There's still
(17:52):
some owning the decisions andhow we could have done things
differently. But then thecollective sort of agreement
that, okay, let's go on. Let'stry again. Let's do it better.
Let's embrace creativity ratherthan let's batten down the
hatches and go for the safeapproach. Yeah.
Chris Davies (18:12):
Yeah, yeah, for sure. And you know, you
mentioned the roles you've hadin the past and now, and I feel
like we've done pretty well, notto mention DiUS so far, but I
did want to just touch upon youknow, you've one of the DiUS
alumni. You've also worked withus and engaged with us as a
partner as well. How has workingat DiUS and with DiUS kind of
(18:36):
influenced the way you've kindof approached these kind of
things, like, you say a safespace and and making sure that,
yeah, the things like creativityand innovation are always front
of mind.
Pete Cohen (18:49):
Yeah, yeah. I've still got a I've got a sticker
on my desk, which is be aboutthe band, which is one of the
DiUS stickers from, I don't knowwhich campaign how, many years
ago, but look to me, that reallysums it obviously resonates for
me with the musical background,but it's genuinely like it's,
it's it, that's just the how itfeels like it's, it's a real
(19:13):
team effort. But beyond theteam, it's got more of that,
that family feel, in terms ofthe way people come together to
solve problems and work togetherand and make make work a better
place to be. So, yeah, I thinkthat's a that's a huge part of
it, and then that extends to theclient relationship. So yeah, in
(19:36):
terms of my confidence, ofbringing in a BS team in to
engage with one of my clientsis, you know, 100% because I
know that, you know, the waythat that relationship rolls is
about, you know, forming thatthat shared understanding and
respect. So, yeah, it was reallyformative for me the, you know,
10 years that I spent rollingwith many, many DiUS teams and.
(19:59):
The leadership team at DiUS.
And, yeah, it's something I hopeto take forward.
Chris Davies (20:07):
Yeah, amazing. It just makes you feel all warm and
fuzzy inside, doesn't it? Allright? So I think we have
another Rapid Fire question, andit's TEP, I'll try and pull up a
block from the tumbling tower.
What's the most unconventionalidea you've ever pitched at
work? So yeah, it could be atDiUS. Could be elsewhere, but
unconventional ideaunconventional.
Pete Cohen (20:32):
I'm going to go with an example. It's probably it's
probably crazier things I'vedone, but I like this example in
that I'm something more recentlyat RMIT forward, where I'm
working on a on a broadinitiative to do with we call it
tech new entrants, so how tosupport people that are coming
(20:53):
into basically any field, butwe're focusing focusing on
technology initially, and howthey navigate. You know that
that transition. So we werepulling together some, some
round tables actually had some,some DiUS folks involved in that
from different perspectives.
Some people new to their career.
Some people had been around along time and were wanting to
(21:14):
draw out some insights. But, umYeah, one of the wonderful
things about working at RMITforward is it's a very open,
blank canvas in terms of ourapproach. So I engaged someone
from Sydney, Roy green, who's ahe describes themselves as a
digital poet, I think, supercool person and and we got to
(21:36):
design these collaborationtechniques. And we use zines. So
you're a similar vintage to me.
You might remember pre internetwith, you know, folded paper
magazines is, you know, DIYmagazines is how you found out
about cool, new things.
Chris Davies (21:57):
I always thought it was zines, and I never put it
together as a kid that it wasmagazines. I thought it was
zines, but there we go.
Pete Cohen (22:04):
I like zones, yeah, maybe it's just my Australian
draw. Maybe I've had it wrongthis whole time, yeah. But then
we, you know, have these sort ofbusinessy, you know, tech type
folks, you know, Rory, you know,guided them through how to do
this kind of origami folding, soyou end up with a little book
and then capturing their ownjourney in that narrative format
(22:27):
and then playing that back. Butyeah, there's so many things I
loved about that, in terms ofthe something tangible, like
doing something with your hands,having something physical to
take home and capturing a storyin a in a different way, and
withdrawing, you know, picturesand stick figures and and that
(22:48):
kind of thing. Yeah, pretty,pretty out there, pretty, pretty
unconventional, but they, yeah,filled me with a lot of joy to
see all these little, littlezines emerging from the
workshop.
Chris Davies (23:02):
Yeah, 100% Oh, I love that. Yeah, that sounds
really, really cool. So for mynext question, we're gonna stick
in the realm of education andlook at the science behind
creativity. Because Pete, I knowthat you studied psychology, so
yeah, just really interested toknow what what science tells us
about creativity and innovation.
Pete Cohen (23:22):
Yeah, cool and yeah.
I'll start with a slight caveatthat a long time ago, since I
studied psychology back in Perthin my undergraduate and yeah,
spent more time at the pub,probably back then than in the
classroom. But yeah, again, asanother aside, I didn't love
what I didn't like aboutpsychology back then was so much
focus on the on the negativeside of it, and positive
(23:46):
psychology didn't exist. Then.
We didn't actually talk a lotabout creativity as like, at
least as much as I can remember.
But obviously since then, youknow, still got a strong
interest in it. And yourquestion makes me think about,
you know, like Daniel Kahnemanand ideas of, like, thinking
past and slow and just broadly,those, those two, two modes
that, that we have, you know,the more creativity or the fast
(24:10):
thinking, and then the the othermode, which is more about, You
know, the convergence and slowthinking. But, yeah, through
what science tells us aboutthat, and even some of the other
things I've delved into aroundconsciousness and the way we
(24:31):
work as humans, these insightscan come extremely fast, like
basically at the speed of light.
And I think there's something inthat around learning to trust
that, that you know, doesn'thave to be a forced thing,
these, these, we don't reallyknow what makes us conscious or
(24:56):
where that some of these ideascome from. And. And it's fun to
to examine that, but I thinkit's also important just to
trust that. And so certainlyit's something I experience in
music, like I said before, likethis, these things just come
from kind of nowhere. You can'treally explain it. But even
(25:19):
Yeah, through the thesepsychology frameworks, I think
recognizing that there's thesetwo systems, and when you're in
the creative state and going forflow, then then you kind of got
to go with that. And then, youknow, the other system is about
convergence. It's about analysisand being more methodical. And I
(25:40):
think that's a big part ofcreativity as well. Because I
think we all kind of know peoplethat perhaps are really good at
the fast creative thinking. Butthen when it comes to actually
creating something of value inthe world that's usable is
where, you know, it doesn't,doesn't manifest. So you know,
to be a sort of a roundedcreative that's bringing
(26:03):
something into the world. Ithink we can take something from
from, you know, those studiesinto neuroscience, and think
about what, what mode Am I in atthe moment, and how do I best
embrace that? And then when it'stime to shift mode one way or
the other, okay, what's myenvironment? You know, what do
we collectively need to do nowto to move things forward?
Chris Davies (26:28):
Yeah, nice and I think, yeah, keen to tap into
the kind of shifting of modesand looking to, yeah, ways in
which you can embrace yourcreative side. And even for, you
know, leaders to trainthemselves to be more creative,
if that's the thing. And yeah,I'm glad you mentioned the music
side as well, because, yeah,growing up in bands, I always
(26:52):
felt I was just, you know, ahired hand to come in, and we
need someone to play bass, weneed someone to play drums. And
I always struggled to kind ofcome up with the creative side
of things and thinking, Oh, isit just because of who I am, or
can I kind of learn to be a bitmore creative? Is that something
that that you know in the worldof business and tech, can
(27:12):
leaders do things to to ensurethat they're always thinking
creatively?
Pete Cohen (27:19):
Yeah, look, I feel like one of the main ingredients
is just time and space. Like,you know, you can't just walk
into a room. I'm kind of, in away, I'm contradicting what I
just said, that these things cancome very quickly, but I think
they come quickly in the rightcircumstances. So in terms of
(27:40):
preparing your yourself orgiving yourself space to slow
down and notice things. So I'mgoing to use a extremely, sort
of tired me metaphor. But, youknow, don't touch some grass and
get get out in nature. But youknow, that's a big thing, like
I've taken up running recently,and you know, it's just that
(28:01):
thing. You're outside, you'reyou're doing something physical,
and the amount of insights thatcan come when you're doing
something like that, for me,when I'm playing music, yeah,
there's a, there's a universeplaying out inside my mind that
that then translates to my myprofessional world. So I think,
(28:22):
you know, hobbies is perhapspart of that getting getting
your mind working, and gettinginto more of a flow state, and
getting used to things notworking, but that being fine and
being part of the process. Ithink that's part of the
training is to get used to,yeah, trial and error, and that
(28:43):
being celebrated, because that'show you how you move forward.
Something a bit more tangible.
Perhaps, there's a, there's abook called theory you, and a
body of knowledge around that.
This guy, Otto Sharma, but hedescribes a, it's, again, a sort
of a facilitation technique. Andthey talk about sort of getting
into the you but, you know, it'spretty, pretty simple,
(29:04):
straightforward stuff. But it'sabout, you know, you get a group
of people around together in aroom working on something, but
then the processes you gothrough to arrive in that sort
of creative space. And Ottotalks about, like the energy is
palpable, like, you can cut theair with a knife in those
moments, like for me, like,literally, embarrassingly, my
(29:28):
teeth buzz in those like,literally in those sort of
workshop settings where theconnection and energy is flowing
with people, but it doesn't comewithout a lot of investment of
time. Like you don't walk into aroom and you're not there within
five minutes. It's usually weeksof building relationship and
(29:51):
getting to that point, and theneven within a single workshop,
you go through a bunch of stuffto get there, and then you gotta
hold space. Space and becomfortable in that space. So I
think that's tough for leaders.
You know, when you're your wallto wall meetings every day,
you've got a bunch of stuff onyour mind. You've got a, you
know, a posture and a persona touphold. I think a lot of that
(30:12):
you got to, got to reflect onand and see if you can park some
of that, to get into that, thatreally creative space and work
with your team and let that,that goal, emerge.
Chris Davies (30:28):
Yeah, it's fascinating. I think, yeah, the
thought of jumping into aworkshop probably fills a lot of
people with dread. But yeah, ifyou can kind of foster the right
environment and the rightapproach and goals, then, yeah,
it sounds like amazing thingscan come of it. And I think,
yeah, the point you made aboutkind of being out in nature and
(30:50):
that kind of thing as well, andfinding those those spaces and
opportunities to be creative isreally important, even, yeah,
one of my former band members hetaped on the back of his front
door take dictaphone. Because hewould take the dictaphone out
with him when he went for awalk, because that's song ideas
came to him and he didn't wantto lose them, and he'd just hum
them into his dictaphone. Soyeah, there you go. And just one
(31:15):
more quick one on the subject ofmusic. Can it make people more
creative? So should be tech?
Should tech teams have abrainstorming playlist or
something to get them, help themget into that flow state? Or is
it, you know, maybe just a bitof a distraction?
Pete Cohen (31:33):
Controversial question for me, I would say no,
like i i probably, probablyprobably get too distracted by
music because of my myrelationship to it, and I have
pretty low tolerance for what Iwould consider crap music, so
that is even more distractingand even more common. So look,
(31:56):
yeah, I don't necessarily thinkso that that said. I mean, I do
subscribe to a newsletter calledflow state that every day you
get a really interesting artist,usually with no vocals, and it's
much more into experimental andkind of noise type music for
that kind of thing. So I findthat useful at a personal level.
(32:19):
But yeah, when it comes to theteam, I actually, I actually
think it could be detrimental.
I'm much more interested ingenuine conversations and
connection and being very finelyattuned to nuance and letting
people speak, but, but, youknow, keep, keep the
conversation flowing. Soanything that could interfere
(32:42):
with that, I'd be, I'd behesitant to introduce into a
team setting, and, you know,even like games and stuff like,
which I know it wasn't yourquestion, I can see the value in
some of that, but I probablypull more towards what I
consider an authentic way ofgetting the work done like and
maybe a bit less fun, but getsus to the to the outcome.
Chris Davies (33:10):
Yeah, right. No, no. Really interesting. So I
think we're heading back to thetower, and it's your go, Pete.
So the question for you is,what's the most creative way
you've ever solved a completelynon work related problem?
Pete Cohen (33:28):
Okay, well, I'm gonna try and do it at the same
time. Yeah, multitasking. Risky.
Chris Davies (33:39):
That's a bold choice of block as well. We do
need to see some action, right?
Pete Cohen (33:45):
Yeah, oh, my God.
Oh, my God. Okay. So yeah, theexample I'm going to give we
just at home completed arenovation, which is, you know,
quite a everyone heard aboutthat for several years as we
went through that. But one thingI'm really glad we did. We had
our attic kitted out forstorage, which, you know, I'm a
(34:07):
chronic hoarder of things, andgot a pretty small house. So
that was brilliant. But thething I'm I'm really proud of is
I found on the internet a winchwith our remote control, and I
convinced the guy who was doingthe fit out and to install it.
And I went and begged for a bitof wood from a building site
(34:31):
down the road, and we got thatfitted up. And so now I can,
like, stand downstairs and pressthis button, and the winch goes
into screams, into action andlowers this, you know, enormous
bag that you get from Bunnings.
It's usually for, you know,holding a ton of sand. But then
I can put my boxes and cartonsof beer or whatever I'm storing
(34:53):
up there. But, you know, it'sjust, it brings me joy every
time I use it, because I feellike a bit of a, I don't know,
crane operator. I. Yeah, butit's also that thing of, you
know, it's all off the shelfstuff, right? Like, and I just
can't believe that I've neverseen it before, the attic people
didn't suggest it, becausewhat's your alternative? You're
walking up these, you know, thisladder with, like, some heavy
(35:15):
thing gonna break your neck. SoI'm pretty happy with myself
that I managed to solve thatproblem and and I get to, you
know, press a button and hearsomething loud. Do do something
interesting. So, so that's theexample.
Chris Davies (35:30):
Yeah, amazing.
Well, I think it leads us nicelyinto this next question, and
it's in a similar sort of realm.
Is those, yeah, real worldexamples of where you've a
creative approach has led to amajor breakthrough. So, yeah,
obviously your example is theattic and shifting stuff up
(35:51):
there in your professionalcareer. Is there anything that
kind of is any way similar tothat?
Pete Cohen (36:01):
The one that comes to mind, it's another DiUS
story, actually. And you know,this is a unsolicited sort of
story or plug. Chris didn't askme to say this, but yeah. But
genuinely, the one that comes tomind is, is around the DiUS
power sensor product. And anyonethat's been in the in the DiUS
office would know this was my,my, my first impression when I
(36:24):
did my first interview there,you know, in 2012 or whatever it
was, you know, the the benchwhere the embedded guys work,
and there's a, you know, beyonda pile. It's a, it's a, it's a
mountain of wires and flashinglights and Yeah, still like that
(36:45):
to this day, yeah. And as legendgoes, someone might, might
correct me. But as legend goes,the guys, you know, Bernie and
Johnny, were back in the officelate at night, as they as they
often would do, and we'remucking around with a joystick,
if, if I remember correctly, orif the legend is, is is correct.
(37:06):
And from that, you know, muckingaround with pulling something
apart, and found a way tomeasure electricity going
through a wire that wascompletely novel. And then off
the back of that is spawned awhole new product and a whole
new business around it. Butyeah, to me, that's the closest
I've come to something like, youknow, your question was a what's
(37:27):
a breakthrough? And, you know,there's a bit that goes on
around that, like, you know, interms of the creativity of those
those guys, if anyone's metthem, they're, they're very
creative, unconventional kind offolks, but completely supported
in that and, you know, takes along time and a lot of cycles
(37:49):
and a lot of failed experimentsand a lot of incremental steps
to get to the point of abreakthrough, but, but that
broad equation was alwaysfostered and supported, and then
to have, you know, somethingemerge from that that is, you
know, completely new and doessomething in a different way.
(38:11):
Yeah, it was amazing to to be onthe sidelines for.
Chris Davies (38:15):
Yeah, that's awesome. And yeah, obviously
working with that team on adaily basis, yeah, there are
some pretty new and novel ideasand approaches being thrown
around, but yeah, when they canreach an outcome like that,
yeah, it's testament to how thatcan pay off. But just
(38:36):
interesting to to know how yougo from that, something that's,
yeah, completely new anddifferent, to then the structure
and the logic to then go andbuild that product, that product
or solution, whatever it may be,how do you kind of balance those
two forces in that, yeah, you'vegot something completely off the
(38:59):
wall, even now You need to gowrap some structure around it to
actually go and deliver. How doyou kind of balance those two
worlds?
Pete Cohen (39:07):
Yeah, okay, I think that's just um, that's the to
me, that's the real innovationjourney in terms of, you know,
you got to do both. You can'tjust have the idea. You can't
just have the execution. It'sIt's facilitating that
transition. And, you know, a bigpart of the work I'm doing these
(39:30):
days is around uncover,uncovering assumptions and
testing them systematically andmethodically. And they're across
multiple dimensions. You know,the three main ones being
desirability, viability andfeasibility, but, but working
through that and not trying toshort circuit the process and
(39:52):
and jump ahead to oh, we're justgoing to focus on feasibility
and smash this thing out andimplement it when we haven't
actually. About thedesirability, you know, is this
actually something people want,or the viability? Can we
actually create a sustainablebusiness around this? So I think
to achieve that, you've got tohave the right people involved,
(40:13):
the right shaped team, whichwill evolve as you go through
that process. And that meansyou're engaging, you know,
people, partners, whoever, to dothe right thing at the right
time, and then as a leader, Iguess you've got to have that
overarching visibility andawareness to be able to make
(40:35):
decisions and call in the rightsupport and evidence at the
right time. So yeah, I'd saytrying to get that balance right
is a big part of it.
Chris Davies (40:47):
Yeah, no, I couldn't agree more, especially
on having the right peoplearound because early in my tech
consultant career that thosepeople around me were just very
big on the human centereddesign, and the DVF and that
kind of approach and just, youknow, drilled in you from from
an early age, if it were to yet,know what, what the importance
(41:11):
that takes in, in, yeah,actually delivering something
that is a well rounded product,building the right thing in the
right way.
Pete Cohen (41:20):
So, yeah, I would say, like, something that I
still draw heavily on from mytime at DiUS spend, you know,
likewise I, you know, I exist inthat world now, but you can, you
can often see people stop shortof, okay, you know, particularly
around the feasibility side andagain, slightly contradicting
what I said before, but, youknow, desirability and viability
(41:43):
are super important. But youcan't just stop there to bring
something into the world. Youalso need to take that that lens
also. So yeah, like a roundedteam. So critical.
Chris Davies (41:55):
Yep, agreed. All right, so it's my turn on the
tumbling tower and, yeah, I'mgetting impatient, so I might
have to be a bit risky with thisone. My question for you, Pete,
is, what's the biggest Jengamoment of your career, or
tumbling tower moment a timewhen everything nearly came
(42:15):
crashing down, but you managedto rebuild?
Pete Cohen (42:20):
Yeah. So you know, when I look at my life and
career risky move,
Chris Davies (42:26):
it was remarkably easy, actually disappointing.
Pete Cohen (42:32):
Yeah, for me, it would be say, Yeah, my, my, my
career arc started with being aprofessional musician, and spent
10 years pretty muchconsistently on the road with
that, which was, you know, awonderful, wonderful time. But
the flip side of it is thatyou're on a runaway train, like
(42:54):
you just always booked prettymuch six months at least, if not
a year in advance. You're,you're, you know, sacrificing a
lot of your personalrelationships to that career.
And we got to a point where wewere just burnt out and had to
pull the rip cord. So yeah, we'dbeen back from a tour for a few
(43:18):
days, and my bandmate said,like, no, sorry. We just got a
we just got to stop now. Andthat was that was pretty full
on, like, you know, my entireworld, my entire identity, was
tied up in the band and andwe've been sprinting for 10
years and getting there, or kindof only not quite getting there,
but but still progressinganyway. We had to stop. So that
(43:41):
was a that was a massive,massive moment and a big shift,
but absolutely the right thingto do. And it meant that, you
know, we're able to focus onother parts of life for a while
and build our careers now. Andyou know, never would have ended
up stayed on the road and, youknow, built families and those
(44:04):
kinds of things, but now stillgoing. So actually, next week is
our last session in the studioto finish an album that we've
been working on for seven years.
Would you believe? And, youknow, starting to think about
touring again. So I think, youknow, in terms of that rebirth,
you know, that's been a big partof that, and I think it was a
lesson in, you know, making theright, right decision at the
(44:29):
right time. Because, yeah, if wehad have kept pushing through,
I'm not sure what the outcomewould have been, but probably
not good on any dimension interms of our physical, mental
well being, or where ourrelationship has a band. So
yeah, I'm happy that we've beenable to rebuild.
Chris Davies (44:51):
Yeah, awesome.
Great to hear that Yeah, stillgoing strong. And it can be a
really all consuming, allencompassing thing. And. To be a
musician and to spend so muchtime with the same people, often
in close quarters. And yeah, oneof the bands that I was in for
many years, they played theirfirst or the first gig for 11
(45:12):
years the other week. And yeah,unfortunately, being in England,
it wasn't possible for me to tomake an appearance, a bit bit of
sweet. But yeah, I think, youknow, time can be a bit of a
healer if there's tiredness ortension and that kind of thing.
But yeah, a lot of the timepeople don't change, and you
(45:32):
just want to get back out thereand do the same things that fill
you with joy. So, yeah, awesome.
I'll give you a chance to plugat the end, if you feel
appropriate, because we'recoming to the end of the
podcast. So I just wanted towrap up and kind of give some
(45:53):
some key insights that we hadtoday. So talking about
creativity as a leadershipskill, navigating high pressure
environments and but not losingsight of an innovative mindset
and the role of people as welland how important they can be.
So Pete, is there any kind offinal words of wisdom that you'd
(46:14):
like to give, perhaps forleaders that want to bring more
creativity in their approach andsimple changes that they could
kind of implement today.
Pete Cohen (46:24):
Okay, I'll just say, slow down. Give yourself some
space. Everyone's got thatcreative spark inside them, but
I think it's it's often easy inthe hustle and bustle to just
get caught up in, you know, andsometimes, the more senior you
(46:45):
get them, the more crap you haveto deal with, in terms of HR
and, you know, process and allthat, that side of things. But
that's not really the main game.
The main game is, yeah, havingvision spotting opportunities,
taking people on, on thatjourney towards that vision. So
you're only going to get thereif you, if you give yourself the
(47:09):
time to spot those and theenergy gas in the tank to be
able to bring them to life. Soyeah, just give yourself some
time and space, is what I'd say,as hard as that is.
Chris Davies (47:24):
Yeah, great. And I'll let you have one more go on
the tumbling tower. And at thesame time, I'll ask you, yeah,
where, where people can canfollow you or find out more
about your your work. Wherewould you direct them to? All
right, I did that was easy aswell.
Pete Cohen (47:45):
Let me have a go as well. Dodgy, dodgy. Keep we've
got. There we go.
Chris Davies (47:51):
I didn't maybe encourage that, but I felt we
needed it for dramatic effect.
Pete Cohen (47:55):
Sometimes you just gotta, you know, bring that
House of Cards stumbling down.
Yeah, look, yeah, I'm on most ofthe platforms as Pete Cohen on
LinkedIn is probably the bestplace for this audience to find
me. Otherwise, yeah, blue skyleft Twitter behind or try to
Chris Davies (48:15):
play me yeah
Pete Cohen (48:18):
and yeah. Smith and Cohen is the name, the new name
of the band, known as SodaStreamuntil now, but the new album
will come out this year underSmith and Cohen. So yeah, it'd
be great to see some folks at ashow.
Chris Davies (48:31):
Yeah, great. I didn't know about the name
change, so Yeah, appreciate theupdate. And yeah, I think thanks
for your time. It's been greatto chat and to our listeners. If
you enjoyed today's episode,please subscribe to the tech
trajectory podcast. We'll beback next month with more
insights from the people shapingthe future of technology. Pete,
(48:52):
thanks very much. Thanks, Chris,it was great.
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