E71 Silent Revolutionaries: Firing up corporate innovation without getting fired

Episode Transcript
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Chris Hudson (00:07):
Hello and welcome to another episode of the
Company Road Podcast, where wenavigate the fascinating world
of entrepreneurship andinnovation.
And today I'm really excited tointroduce a highly distinguished
guest whose expertise in designand innovation and growth
strategies has really left anincredible mark on both academic
and corporate landscapes, Dr.
Munib Karavdic, thank you verymuch for joining us on the show,

(00:27):
Dr.
Munib.

Dr.Munib Karavdic (00:28):
It's pleasure to be with you, Chris.

Thank you.
Munib you're an esteemedintrapreneur and award winning
innovation executive.
I'm just going to introduce youa little bit.
So you're also CEO of WaveDesign and Wave Design, for
those that don't know, is apillar of the design and
innovation industry here inAustralia.
And Munib is a senior executiveand conjunct professor at
University of New South Wales.

(00:50):
And you've led award winningteams and crafted customer
centric strategies.
And you've driven growth acrossmany, many organizations.
So you've got commercial acumenand human centered design, and
you're really all abouttransforming ideas into
impactful solutions.
And you've also got a PhD in ecommerce and a wealth of
experience in corporateleadership and academia.
So I'm really excited to getinto the conversation today Dr.

(01:13):
Munib.
And I think maybe we start witha conversation around your
journey as an intrapreneur andsome of the significant moments
that may spring to mind thingsthat shaped your career.
So what led you to corporatelife and how did you end up
doing what you do?

Well, the first significant moment in my
life, it was when I came toAustralia with my family, and I
came here to do my PhD and I dida PhD in e commerce so to be
honest when I started, it wasvery much about supply chain
management, we are talking about95, 96 with only few Australian
companies had a website.
And then I had a very, very nicePhD supervisor who told me Hey,

(01:52):
you know what?
It's supply chain.
A lot of people write aboutthat.
Did the research about supplychain management might be better
idea to focus on new technology.
There is something calledinternet.
And and why don't you actuallystart building this academic
Paradigm.
There is still not theory aboute commerce, we call it a
paradigm.
And then he intrigued me withthat.

(02:12):
And I started digging in deeper,but then, with the, always with
new things, you're facingchallenges.
And a lot of people didn'tunderstand the internet or e
commerce and saying, well, Iremember I was told why are you
doing this?
Because we are in academia, wedo serious research.
Internet is very much wherepeople are reading news, playing

(02:34):
games and watch porno and myresponse was, they're making
money.
They start making money on that.
It means that there is anindication that money will be
there.
So, it was actually verydifficult for a period of time
because then suddenly e commercebecomes buzzword like, today
where everybody's talking aboutAI.
And just reminded me today whilewe were 25 years ago, when he's

(02:55):
completely talking aboutcommerce, cash, e card, e this,
e that, it was unbelievable.
And until 2000, when actuallythese.Com bubble burst.
And that was the critical momentwould help me to actually go and
focus on, collect the data andthen test my hypotheses, which

(03:15):
are based very much onSchumpeter's creative
destruction, which is theinnovation theory established
back in forties.
But what is actually then, aturning moment for me during the
PhD.
It wasn't actually that Icompleted PhD, but what I
learned from that.
And one of the many learningsthat I had was if companies, or
if we want to move our life froma physical world into digital or

(03:41):
a virtual world, we need toreimagine product, service, and
experience and processes, so itis impossible to get it right if
we try to literally movephysical experience, like what
we have here today is mimickingphysical experience.
Not just in the studio, but Idon't think it's a great
experience for audience.

(04:02):
Same with many other things whenyou go shopping and whatever you
do on the internet.
And even worse, a lot ofcompanies are now thinking, Oh,
I will turn off my phone, anumber in my call center, and I
will put some internet enginethat drive this and people
become frustrated and that's whyYou can see, you can read a lot
of unsatisfied customers becauseof the fact that companies try

(04:24):
to save money in turninginternet as a service tool, but
which is not right.
And I'm talking about back in2019.
So which 1999 or 2000.
And we talked 24 years ago, andthat was the moment that I
realized that I don't want to gointo e commerce and technical
aspect of e commerce.
I believe that reinventingexperience, products and

(04:47):
services requires innovation,and that was the moment.
And then instead of actuallygoing, being full time in
academia, I continue my work atIncorporated World and then I
was trying to promote innovationas part of the growth options
for corporations, especiallyestablished, I started working
with Macquarie bank, then St.
George bank, and then end up atAMP with as executive director

(05:11):
for growth innovation.
But during that journey, I wasalways pushing new things to
actually develop and focus oninnovation.
And you can imagine you alwayshave a pushback and the company
that I didn't have a lot ofpushback was macquarie and no
one them.
Well, I was in Macquarie, Ifinished 2001 for four or five

(05:31):
years and we had 900 employees.
Today, they have a more than 20,000 and that's what's telling
you magnitude of the openmindedness and the kind of
supporting ideas and creativityin the organization.
So that was a big moment.
And then another big moment waswith St.
George, when the learning wasthat.

(05:53):
We had some growth initiativeswhich were quite innovative at
the time, building somefranchise model for lending in
the states that St.
George didn't have a strongpresence like, Victoria,
Queensland, and WA.
And then we learned that whenyou actually do it in business
case and you finish that and yougot the money and you hand over
to team to implement.
And then because I was head ofgrowth strategy at the time I

(06:15):
was actually ordered the guys todo is post implementation
review.
And what we found that peoplewho were implementing didn't
follow exactly the requirements,essential requirements for that
particular approach.
And then I decided that nextproject I'm going to do end to
end on my own and I've navigatedthrough blank sheet of paper
with a product and it was quiteinnovative product and right for

(06:38):
the launch, where we launchedthat to Australian market and
very much New South Walesmarket.
And then acquired St.
George and they established Bankof Melbourne.
And that product was key featureto demonstrate how Bank of
Melbourne is innovative.
By kind of, launching thatproduct in Melbourne at the
time.
So that was learning that howimportant is actually not to

(07:01):
hand over, that to transitionwhen you have an idea, a concept
very well developed.
You don't hand over that, youtransition that and navigate
through just having differentmix of capabilities and skills
that people need.
Obviously, when you come to theIT implementation, you need
people from IT, but you neveractually lose that aspect of

(07:23):
design and understanding endusers, and then taking insights
with you as long as you gothrough the process, including
these insights into IT andtechnology, because very often.
Technology is just doing kind ofprogramming, hardwiring, coding,
and things like that.
But it is important to have inmind, even when they do that, to
have in mind that they are doingthat based on insights that they

(07:45):
hear from people.
And the third one is with AMP,when we actually, I had an
unbelievable support.
From leadership to actuallyestablish design, the innovation
function and then we actuallystarted to really focusing
entire organization on humancentered design, and then have a
customer centric focus to thepoint that we design new system

(08:09):
and platform for financialplanning called goals based
advice, which is basicallydesigned for people goals and
then advisors would use digitalmeans to actually engage with
clients and customers.
And then to the point thatcustomers will have a very clear
picture of what they need totalk to with financial advisors
before they even joined them andbefore they started the first

(08:32):
meeting.
And then what actually helped usto significantly increase
acquisition from the firstmeeting.
The acquisition rate was verypoor, but because of these kind
of not known expectation fromboth sides.
So what we discovered thatthrough our insights and find
out, that it is important thatwe prepare both supports
customers as well as financialadvisors before they meet.

(08:55):
And when they meet, they have afriendly conversation and it's
kind of massively increasedacquisition rate for them.
And then also we did a lot ofinsurance products, claims, it
designed a new claim system.
We designed new transactionalbanking product, which is also
quite a good feature at thetime.
And then we got all for all ofthese initiatives that had a

(09:17):
good design award there that wewere the first financial
services organization to get agood design award in Australia.
It was probably 2014 or 15, Ican't remember that.
And then pinnacle of that wasactually the team that we built.
And then in the processes andframeworks to the point that we
had a senior design, design leadsitting into investment

(09:39):
committee and then makingdecisions with other kind of
functions to make sure that itis customer centric that have a
design kind of all theseaesthetics and everything what
is necessary for product orwhatever we approve money for.
It was, that was very important.
And then the, all our designerswere almost all capital

(09:59):
expenditure projects involveddesigners in that work and it
was always starting from problemframing, understanding the
problem, and then workingthrough end users and
understanding user and go andtesting that with end users and
figuring out, is this the rightthing?
We had a lot of prototypes whichdidn't work, but that's the cold
point.
We didn't spend a lot of moneyon prototypes before we actually

(10:23):
have a full blown system launchand especially for example, with
these goals based advisorsrequire a lot of technology
there.
And we launched that I think on30 practices across Australia to
see how it's going to work andwe learned from there.
And then fourth milestone isthen when I realized that when
we did it with AMP we had aestablished innovation lab once

(10:46):
without leadership known thatand then I introduce them to
them.
They all like love that and theygave me money to build another
one innovation lab in thebuilding.
And then suddenly we got a lotof interest from other Companies
like AMP, like, you know, topAEC listed company, Telstra,
Qantas to Optus well manycompanies came to our lab and to

(11:08):
learn what we achieved there.
And we got a design ManagementInstitute award for best
practice in establishing designinnovation team in an
organization.
And it was really at that momentwas an eye opener for me and
thinking probably it's now timethat I spread my wings and then
help other organizations inAustralia to build and innovate

(11:30):
design innovation programs.
And because we talk aboutgrowth.
Because innovation is creatinggrowth.
Design is helping createinnovation.
So it's all kind of line up witheach other.
And then I thought that's theway.
And then that's the reason Iresigned at AMP, left very
comfortable position and thendecided to go into challenging

(11:51):
role in building Wave design.
And eight years down the track Istill believe in that.
And we are, our key propositionhere is to make an impact with
the organizations together andwhich means we're not just
coming in and help companies toeither solve the problem or
build innovation or define thegrowth options.

(12:13):
We actually get their subjectmatter experts together with us.
And then once we finish ourwork, we train them to the level
that they can handle that.
And remember what I told you,what I learned at St.
George, transitioning, weupskill people to the point when
we leave with all of thesetested concepts or prototypes,
they can continue with their ITor implementation team that

(12:38):
without any challenges whilethey are doing that.
So making sure that what isactually projected from customer
insights and then what adesirability level is going
through feasibility andviability as well.
So we have a Couple of companieswe did it and which means It's
working and it requires leadersto recognize that and then

(12:58):
believe in that and then thecrucial thing in all of this is
It is significantly less riskydoing in that way, rather than
saying, here is my businesscase, put 10 million and then
have a leap of faith that willbe executed.
As it's actually written inbusiness case, and I can tell
you, I've been writing businesscases, monitoring, and then

(13:20):
having post implementationreview many of them.
And I can tell you hardly,probably only 40 percent of
those business cases wereexecuted in the way how it was
actually put in the paper.
And the main reason for that.
Is that they all work onunvalidated assumptions and that
was great challenge with thisapproach you validate
assumptions and you go throughthe process and then there are a

(13:44):
lot of theory was that say.
If you make a mistake in thevery early stage of idea
development for every dollarinvest, you'll lose 1.
and I can tell you, buildingsmall paper prototype, as you
know that, would cost 50, noteven that.
So, paper prototype will costyou 10, 000, but including
people, work, and things likethat.

(14:05):
But if you go and start itworking and then fail, close it
to launch, it will, for everydollar you invest, you're losing
10.
But if you actually finish thathard wire, put in the system and
code it and everything and youlaunch it.
For every dollar you invest,you're losing a hundred dollars.
And then that's the kind ofproblem.

(14:26):
And then we work on that onefrom day one with the leap of
faith, whatever we put in thebusiness case, we believe that
we'll deliver that.
But when you start launchingthat, that creates problem for
the organization.
And I remember I was listeningradio and the one.
GM for when the company issaying, they're asking him, what
happened to your product?
Why it's not going well in themarket and his response was,

(14:49):
well, I don't know.
We actually run the survey andthen we got a response that 80
percent of people said that theywill highly likely buy the
product.
And that's the catch.
But well, let's launch it andexpect that to happen.
But what people say and whatpeople do are two different
things.
And that's why it's important togo through these journeys slowly

(15:10):
and then prototype this and testthese prototypes to make sure
the people, what they actuallysaying they actually doing.
Not just saying it is probably along introduction of these, my
four phases of life here inAustralia, but there are
significant milestones for me.

Yeah.
Good answer.
Very comprehensive.
And I like the way in which youtell the story from your
beginnings and all the waythrough.
And there's a wealth ofexperience in there that I'd
like to go into, but it feelslike maybe unifying theme across
all of that is maybe to do withyou more at a personal level.
And I'd love to get your pointof view on you as a person and

(15:48):
what drives you forward throughsome of the experiences that
you've come across in yourcareer because it's not
something that everyone couldendure.
And I wonder on a personallevel, what's driving you?

Well, it's a very good question.
And actually I was asked byAGSM.
Four or five years ago, of myexperience navigating innovation
through complex organizations, Iwas asked to actually create a
product called intrapreneurship.
And then intrapreneurship isquite interesting.
Not many people talking aboutthat.
So a lot of people talk aboutthat.
Entrepreneurship.

(16:19):
And then it's very cool.
Suddenly you have a startup, youhave a t shirt with the name of
your startup.
You have a hat and you lookcool.
And because you're going topitching and things like that,
which is all great.
And I don't want to minimizethat.
But the point here is we don'tgive the justice for people who
are really fighting very hard invery complex organizations.

(16:40):
thing you have here in startup,then you have a three or four or
five people and it's very easyto make this call.
But the problem here is when youhave a four, five or 10, 000
people or 100, 000 people,Procter and Gamble would have a
400, 000 people globally.
And that's the catch how younavigate that.
Then what these companies have.
This is a market reach verytechnology expertise, money, a

(17:04):
lot of things.
And what they have a problem isthat culture that we try to
actually pigeonhole people onfor that function.
They got a job description for,and we're saying, look, you are
an accountant and all you do isjust accounting, and then we're
not actually helping people.
To think broadly or actuallystart releasing their

(17:27):
creativities because to someextent we are all born equally
creative and then our lives arePush us out of creativity for
example somebody born australiaWould have a much better
prospect for creativity thansomebody who was born in
developing countries forexample, poor nations, like they
don't have enough money, like,Afghanistan or in Africa,

(17:49):
because surrounding is notactually there, but it doesn't
limit that.
In some way, they're creatingsome challenges with it.
And that's the kind of key pointnow a new modern world with
innovation, how we actuallybring people back with
creativity.
Because people are They arecreative to find a partner.
They are creative to establishfamily.

(18:11):
They are creative buying houses.
They have hobbies outside thework, they are very creative
people.
As soon as they walk in theorganization, we say, No, you
are doing this.
And that's it.
And we think that is mostefficient.
It's not about efficiency, it'sabout effectiveness.
And then it's a significantdifference between these two

(18:31):
terms.
Efficiency is doing faster, nomatter what.
But effectiveness are you makingimpact?
Are you creating some effect?
And then we measure this valuethrough doing faster and I
remember when I started here,constantly, it's too slow, too
slow.
But you know, when you are goingfast, then you are making a lot
of mistakes.

(18:52):
And a very long way to answerquestion, I was very inspired
with the fact that it isimportant to navigate your idea
or different thinking throughthe organization.
And then as you can imagine, youdon't go to CEO and say, Hey,
I'm okay for innovation, I willdrive this for you.
You don't go there.
You're actually trying to findthem some, friends and champions

(19:15):
who will actually follow you ifyou want to do that.
And then I was surprised when Istarted talking to people, how
many people actually turn up andsay, Hey.
I'm here to help call me and lala.
And we actually, somehow I waslucky that I managed to get some
funding to test some innovation.
And fortunately, we reallydeliver innovation.

(19:35):
And that was actually proventhat's working.
And I established this subjectto actually help people, MBA
students to navigate innovationto organization.
And when I talked to them, myfirst advice for them, which is
not applicable for everybody,but it was me how I look at that
to the point that I wasconfident that it is important

(19:55):
to focus on innovation andchange and design to the point
that I will challenge.
Every day leadership and peoplein the organization to the point
that they fire me.
And fortunately orunfortunately, they didn't fire
me.
And they probably, if they firedme, I could get some redundancy
and things like that.
But they didn't.
And then sometimes you go thereand there are some ways how you

(20:18):
challenge that.
But you also have people whoare.
Behind you champions who arewith the same mindset and same
desire to change or createsomething new.
And you can see those peoplethat they work in company for
salary, they don't own anyshares in the company, but they
feel excited because they'rethinking I'make my life in

(20:40):
office much more interestingrather than just focusing on
what I was asked in pigeonholedfor.

Yeah, okay.
it sounds like you've you'veobviously taken it from your
experience and you've now sharedthat with a number of people
through your academic work andobviously you've helped a number
of organizations through that.
Was there something at the coreof your own experience that
meant that you felt eitherconfident or brave enough to
take that forward in thecorporate world when you first
came into it?

I think it was well, well, a long time ago
when I graduated, I accidentallyintroduced some policy in, I was
actually graduate and then therewas some changing the policy and
how people are.
And it was very accidentally Iput like something around
innovation saying we shouldprobably reward people who are

(21:28):
bringing new things and eithergenerating revenue or saving the
cost for the company.
And then I was going aroundthrough for some mechanical
engineering company and I wastalking to some people and the
guy was saying to me, we'rehaving coffee.
This is really crazy.
We're spending this much moneyon this small spare part, but I

(21:49):
can make it manual and then wewill save a lot of money.
And so look, did you know thatwe have in our policy, if you
save money You will get thispercentage of saved money for
your, but it's a bonus.
And he said, I didn't know that.
And the guy started actuallydoing that.
And then suddenly he did it andthen tested and we've started

(22:10):
actually installing thismechanical device instead of
electronic device.
And then it was announced thathe got up.
Nice bonus because he savedcompany probably with probably a
couple of million dollars He wedidn't get it two million
dollars But got a nice bonus andeverybody was shocked when they
heard that and they said oh wedidn't know this exist from that

(22:32):
Moment everybody started doingstuff And a lot, not everybody,
but people start actuallyexperimenting, trying to figure
out some things.
People stay after work to dosome stuff.
Because in a chemicalengineering, you can stay there
and you can test it and you canquickly find if it's working or
not.
That was the moment that Irealized that if you actually
have some right policy and thentry to actually create some

(22:54):
mindset that people willactually, people would like to
put their creativity on thetable and it's one thing is
money, but the other thing iseven more important is
recognition.
And then guy, for example, thatguy was talking, he become very
popular in the organization andeverybody was asking him, Hey,
what do you think about this?
What do you want to take to thepoint that he said, well, I

(23:16):
can't do my work properlybecause people are annoying me
with their questions and askinghim to support them to do stuff
like that.
That was one of the moment andthe second moment was the PhD
results when I mentioned to you,when I realized that, we need to
focus on innovation in order toactually transition from
physical world into virtualworld, whatever we want to do,

(23:36):
we can't transition everythingand then as we say, we can't
actually have a perform all jobsRemotely, you have to go
physically in the office or,factory or whatever.
Same with physical versus versusdigital.
There are two moments welldefining moments in my career
that I realized how important isto focus on innovation.

(23:57):
And that will give you growth.
Like, that's the whole point.
Sooner you start doing that, thebetter chance you have for
growth.

A lot of people ask, where to start in a sense,
and I'm hearing from your storythat And I can relate to this
totally as well.
It feels like almost aconstraint.
So in the case, in the storythat you described where there
was a bonus involved if somebodycould say the company money,
that was written down in apolicy somewhere and that was
made known to you.
And then obviously that became athing.

(24:26):
And I wonder where theconstraint, because it's so
present.
In a lot of large organizationsand corporate government,
wherever you work, but it feelslike constraint can obviously be
a starting point for what topush against and what to work
within what's been yourobservation around working with
restrictions.
In that sense.

Yeah.
It's a very good question.
I think as I mentioned earlier,and I was actually just finished
writing paper for a servicedesign network, a touch point.
They have a published paper, howto establish design service
design function in complexorganization.
And one of the first point I wasmaking and saying, you need to
demonstrate the value of that.

(25:05):
And then demonstrating value,you don't need to have an entire
board.
support recognition.
You don't need to have aleadership recognition.
You just need to have a oneenthusiastic leader with small
budget willing to make thedifference.
The catch is to find thatperson.
And once you find that person asusually you don't spend a lot of

(25:26):
money to create movement.
And then you'd set with smallamount, you demonstrate that if
it can create value and then youstart working on it.
So one example from when one ofthe companies that I work for,
we found that we are sending 50cents or 2 check to customers

(25:47):
while processing that check cost20.
And then, you know what, we talkabout millions of customers
sending these checks.
And then it's very well knownfact that 30 percent of
addressees of Banking orfinancial services, customers
are wrong because people aremoving and they don't update
addresses or they're changingother things.
And then you get these mailedback and then you need to send

(26:10):
again and we talk about 5 cents,20 two,$2,$10 below$10 and
nonsense.
So we found solution for thatand we first realized this is
really problem.
And then, we had a campaigncalled Done Things We Ask you to
do.
And then people say, this isreally dumb and people saying,
and we changed it.
And guess what?

(26:30):
We kind of immediately saved600, 000 a year, just not doing
that.
And then when we went and askedfinance guys to actually put
these numbers together andprojections and they put on and
they went to leadership and say,well, it's really actually 600,
000.
That means that we contributethe bottom line.
And then people say, Oh, reallyinteresting.
Or what can we do more of thesethings?

(26:51):
And then suddenly things startedmoving.
It's this very small thing,which wasn't actually, didn't
cost us much money to implementat all.
Just change the policy.
Then just inform when one ofthese checks that you are
sending informed and that youwill not send check again.
So you will have some otheroptions for them.

Yeah.
I think this is where innovationobviously gets a bad rap
sometimes because it'sconsidered to be superfluous.
It's over and above the means ofthe core business.
And it's usually associated withsomething that's net new to what
that business is delivering as anew venture or new pursuit in
some way.
But what you're also saying isthat, incremental innovation or,

(27:29):
even something that's a bitreductionist in how it's
focused, because it's takingsomething, simplifying it, make
it more effective, notefficient.
Yeah, but efficient as well,probably and it's just about
focusing in on the right thingsand fixing them.
And it's more about solutioningin that space.

Spot on Chris and several times I've been
invited to CEO Institute to talkto actually have a innovation
workshop with CEOs non-competingceo.
They have their cohorts andevery month they met together
and they discuss differenttopics and themes, and one of
them was innovation.
And I had a one slide, which Iwas trying to explain to them

(28:07):
that a lot of people, I've foundworking with Wave and talking to
leaders, a lot of leaders aresaying, we have a problem, we
don't know how to defineinnovation.
And this is a serious problembecause when you're sitting in a
leadership group, everybody hastheir own definition of
innovation.
And it's not helpful.
And then what I was saying thatinnovation, a lot of people
mistakenly believe thatinnovation must be jaw dropping,

(28:29):
like something, wow, it's allsignificant.
And I have a picture moving fromanalog phone to a smartphone,
which is really yes,revolutionary, absolutely.
But I have another picture in,in the cosmetics retail shop
where you have a shopping bags,sorry, shopping cards with white
and black color.

(28:50):
And the white color was sayingtake this shopping cart if you
need assistance.
Black color was saying, takethis one if you don't need
assistance.
Yeah.
So, and then when you look atthat saying, well, so what, but
you know, how often you actuallyannoyed in the shop, you want to
do something on your own, youbrowsing around and somebody is
coming and say, can I help you?

(29:11):
Because people don't know if youneed help or not.
When you take one of thosecolors, people have a very clear
picture.
if you need help or not, andthat's innovation too, that's
small thing didn't cost you justordering shopping carts, two
different colors.
It costs you marginal.
funding just to have a differentcolors and that's it.
But you're helping people andyour staff internally enormously

(29:34):
and creating pleasant experienceand that's service innovation.

Yeah.
So it doesn't have to be thisbig, million, million, million
dollar.
Arm of the company and there's ahead of innovation and they only
got sort of VIP projects.
It can actually be very day today.
We've been talking aboutinnovation.
We've also talked a bit aboutentrepreneurship.
I'm curious as to, what youteach, but also what your view
is around where we've got a lotof intrapreneurs listening to

(29:58):
the show is about that what arewe saying people should be
focusing on in their roles toget some of the impacts that
you've been describing, do youthink?

Yeah.
It's very interesting youmentioned this entrepreneurship
and intrapreneurship and it'sinteresting tension.
And then well, I've beenwitnessing this hype about
entrepreneurship and startupsand when I worked in large
organization, they're saying,well, we need to actually invest
in startups.
And I said, why do you need toinvest in startups?
And the answer was, oh, we needto learn how they come with the

(30:28):
newer things, how they navigatethings, how they build product
service systems and things likethat.
And I said, hang on a minute.
Like, you're telling me that youare going to learn from five
people, organizations had 10,000 employees, massive
leadership, and you're going tolearn how five people navigate
that without anything, and youhave everything.

(30:48):
And then these two worlds arenot comparable.
And that was one of the keychallenges that I had
personally.
The other thing, what I realizedthat a lot of companies are
trying to avoid the inevitablerepositioning, then they need to
transform themselves to be morenimble, more agile, more
innovative, more intrapreneurbased and things like that.

(31:12):
Then more creative.
When you have these increativity expressing the
organization, and then afterthat makes sense to say, Hey, in
my kind of concept that I havehere, I need these three aspects
to buy and let's search themarket, find the startup and see
how we can actually slot in astartup into it.

(31:33):
But in startup will actuallywork nicely.
If your organization is preparedto receive that startup at the
moment, what you have isactually big companies are just
finding interesting startup.
They swallow this up and theykill it.

Oh, I

I haven't seen successful integration of
startup in Australian corporateworld.

Ever.

If you have seen them, tell me which one is
that.
And even worse neobanking, andgovernment is saying we will
establish neobanking because wewant to strengthen competition
in banking sector.
As soon as you have a startupstarted creating interesting
ideas and creating new things,the big banks just follow that
and the government approved it.

(32:20):
And what kind of competition arewe talking here?
And then immediately theyswallowed the startup AI, we
know a few of the bankingstartups are swallowed by big
banks.
And because government allowedit.
Instead of actuallystrengthening regional banks or
allowing them all, leave thesenew banks to build and create
bit among themselves orsomething like that.
We just follow them and thenwhat happened, you integrate, if

(32:42):
you look UBank and NAB.
What is there is Ubank brand,everything else is NAB and then
NAB's culture, they're revealedand that's it.
You

can't do much about it.
Can't do much about that.
There's a ferocious commercialengine, obviously that's driving
a lot of decisions and I'mwondering if that's the driver,
to what extent we feel like wecan control it or take a
sidestep here or there to bringthings into a new perspective.
I feel like sometimes that's thestatus quo is immovable and

(33:12):
you're often trying to stepeither around it, but you're
still having to deliver againstthe target that you've been set
because that's the broadercommercial goal.
So.
Yeah, it feels like as anintrapreneur, within a company
of 10, 000 people, what is yourremit in terms of influence and
how can you do that in a waythat feels fulfilling to you in
a way that you feel you'recontributing, have you got any

(33:33):
perspectives on that?

Yeah.
So we, when we work with one ofthe companies.
We had a great, great conceptand everybody agreed that's
fantastic.
And then because the tradition,which because of the legacy in
that company, it was reallyhard, almost impossible to break
through, to actually implementthis innovation.

(33:58):
And at one point we have a team,internal team, very enthusiastic
doing stuff.
And they, people are really.
And I had a meeting withleadership and I suggested, I
said, look, why don't weactually create startup from
this company, from this project,and then offer people redundancy

(34:19):
who working there and ask themto put this redundancy as a kind
of in capital in the newcompany.
And we invest into this as well.
And then.
People will be employed by thestartup and they will own
partially that startup togetherwith that organization.
And I thought that's potentiallygood model to test and see.

(34:41):
And then in the end, when it'sactually successful, if it's
proven in the market, then youbring all of them back.
To the company and then allpeople who are there, they will
be really familiar with theenvironment with people, how
they work and things like itwould be much easier to
integrate that into existingbusiness, and to my surprise was
actually, when I asked why not,answer was we want actually our

(35:05):
company brand to be seen asinnovative brand.
Rather than actually have a lotof running start, but then in
the end, we didn't implement it.
We didn't actually put it in themarket because of the
constraints of the complexity ofthe organization and things like
that.
And didn't end up seeing and asinnovative company as well.
So it's hard and we needprobably more leaders who are

(35:28):
keen to take this risk and say.
I'm going to do this and thenwe'll see how it happens.

Yeah, leadership was a point I was going to raise
probably because, the leadersthat are making the decisions at
C- level now were not always atthat level, obviously.
And so what conditions do youthink we're setting up in terms
of those that are rising up andemerging leaders?
Do you feel like the conditionsfor intrapreneurship are right
for the next wave of leaders toemerge and to be able to make

(35:55):
those decisions that you weredescribing with a bit more
conviction, a bit more courage?

I think there are multiple factors here.
And then I look at that fromseveral perspectives and first,
in my view, and the biggestchallenge we have is that we are
so focused on digging the dirtand shipping that overseas and
mining sector, which isfantastic.
Well, it's a point to say we arefortunate that we have this is

(36:22):
such a rich in mineral resourcesthat we can live on that, but
they will not be here forever.
That's number one.
And number two, these resourcesshould be boost for our thinking
in the way where we go.
But we actually have oppositesituation.
A lot of people are happy wherethey are now.
And we are probably victims ofour own growth.

(36:44):
Because we had like 27 or 30years of unprecedented growth,
but never had a recession.
and then the leaders are saying,why are you asking me to change
something?
Why would I change?
And it's working.
I'm fine, I'm happy.
But if you look at just onesector, like manufacturing
sector, I'm helping these guysfrom AU Manufacturing Media, we

(37:05):
help them to establish thiscampaign to select 50 most
innovative manufacturers inAustralia three years ago.
And then it's really going well,we did a pro bono work helping
them to actually, because I'mreally passionate about
manufacturing because I believethat manufacturing in Australia,
it could be very advanced andbecause we have expertise and we

(37:27):
have a universities very well,very good reputation globally.
And we can actually create amanufacturing environment where
we're just doing some highly Andsmart manufacturing outcomes.
And if you look at that, forexample, I'm not sure if it's
back in the nineties, thatmanufacturing contributed 12

(37:49):
percent to Australian GDP.
Today, it contributes only 6%.
And I'm really glad thatgovernment is actually having
this what I call this NationalReconstruction Fund which is
really boosting this innovationin manufacturing in Australia
and then future of Australiamade, which is another very

(38:10):
good, and if you look at thatbetween these two big
initiatives, we are talkingabout.
25, 30 billion government money,but he put actually then private
money and other companies thatshould create massive
environment.
But probably with theseinitiatives, big initiatives, it
takes time because after many,many years thinking, well, we

(38:31):
are happy with the resources andwe never leveraged a mining boom
back in 2000, early 2000.
And then build this environmentwhere we have a fantastic
creative environment wherepeople start moving on it.
And that's the number oneproblem in culture.
And then government started nowto boosting that thinking.
But, you know, the stateenvironment in Australia and

(38:53):
corporate world is that.
Boards in many cases are veryconservative.
And if you look at that, when Ifinished my PhD, I was thinking,
I will do a Australian Instituteof Company Directors course, and
I would like to be non executivedirector or a board member And
then I completed this course andI realized, I was thinking I
would push innovation, I wouldcreate a thinking and things

(39:15):
like that.
But I realized that it's nothingto do with innovation.
It's all about a compliance andmake sure that everything is in
order from complianceperspective.
Otherwise you are at risk.
And your assets are at risk andthings like that.
And I was thinking, no, no, I'mtoo loose to be a board member.
And that's the problem with ourboard culture If you compare

(39:36):
board culture in America andhere, you can see the
difference.
Like, you know, entire boardculture is on entrepreneurs or
intrapreneurs.
While in Australia is morelooking for compliance, follow
up what law is saying, and ifit's that thick, move on, tick a
box, and we move on.
So that's the second impendmentslowing us down.

(39:58):
And the third one is very muchleadership.
And then when you u look at alot of surveys, as you can
imagine.
And so one of them was saying, Ithink BCG did this while ago,
interviewing 3000 CEOs globally.
And they asked them what are theThree most biggest priorities on
your agenda.
And then 75 percent of leaders,innovation was top three

(40:21):
priorities on their agenda.
But when they ask how committedare they to innovation?
Only half of them committed andcommitted to innovation means.
I do have a framework andstrategy how to do that.
I have a very clear roadmap tothe implemented.
I have a processes, methods,tools, people governance,
funding KPIs.

(40:42):
I have that in place, and if Ihave that in place, I'm
committed leader.
And as I said half of thoseleaders, and I believe in
Australia is less than half arecommitted to innovation.
They talk about innovation, butthere is no commitment, you need
to demonstrate that.
It's one thing you are going outin your town hall discussion and
say, we would like, we have tobe innovative company, blah,

(41:03):
blah, blah.
But then when people are askinghow much money you dedicate to
innovation and say, we will findout.
Which means I'm not committed.
And that's the serious problem.
But for that requires leadershipmindset shift and what we found,
it's very interesting.
Actually, when we have adiscussion internally, my team,
and we often talk about who isour competitor, and then some of

(41:25):
my team members would say thiscompany, that company and things
like that.
And I was telling them, you knowwhat guys.
None of those companies arecompetitors.
In my view, leadership mindsetis our key competitor.
Because the question here is howwe convince leader.
That it is important to thinksome things in different way and
take your business in differentway.

(41:48):
And then not many leaders willdo it, but when we find that
leader and then when you startworking to them, it's kind of
heaven, like, you know, you justenjoy doing that.
And currently, we are workingfor your clients.
The leaders are absolutelydedicated for it.
Yeah.
And you will see, I can't tellthe names of the companies, but

(42:08):
you will see the impact.
I don't want to say yes, we arehelping them, but it's not about
us.
It's about leaders.
And if you have a leader who iskeen and then they will exhaust
everything from us and saying,give me this, give me that, what
about this, what about that,move this, move that.
And you will see the impact.
We already have seen fewcompanies that we work with very
ambitious and open mindedleaders and we can see the

(42:31):
impact.

Yeah.
So I think it's around.
Obviously we started theinterview with really an
interesting perspective on whoyou surround yourself with.
And you as an entrepreneur havedecisions to make in terms of
your career, who do you alignto, who do you avoid?
And it's the same with socialcircles, but it feels like
there's a real.
Importance around where to placeyour effort and almost hooking

(42:55):
your carriage to the right trainbecause if you don't, then,
you're down a path of eitherstaying the same or into a
leadership situation, whichprobably tips either towards
more conservatism.
So for the intrapreneurs outthere, I'm thinking that, as a
tangible piece of advice, it'sreally around assessing.
Have the conditions around youand the environment around you
and understanding whether theleadership is there to make you

(43:19):
feel comfortable, to push you,to inspire you, to question what
you're doing, or is it there tokeep you down and in one place?
And I feel like that is a goodstarting point, but a lot of
people out there will feel quitepowerless in this situation.
Yeah.

But I can tell you, Chris, for your
audience, tricks that I use.
It's not just accidental kind ofthing.
So there are well definedapproaches how you do that.
So one of them is prioritizingstakeholders and then, or
influences well, whichever wayyou want to put it, but when you
prioritize them and you havesome certain methods, how you do
that.

(43:52):
And once you have a clearpicture, who are your essential
influencers or essentialstakeholders then you actually
create some communication andinteract with them.
And they don't need to be toldthat they are essential
influencer or stakeholders, butyou would have a clever strategy
and you communicate some thingsto them on regular basis.

(44:15):
So for example, you might say,Chris, Is kind of, driving this
business and he's keyinfluencers for potential
innovation, but he doesn't knowthat he has that potential or he
can drive business in thatdirection.
And then one simple trick couldbe, I will just send Chris one
article, which is talking aboutinnovation from prestige journal

(44:36):
or whatever, written in simplelanguage and then say, Hey,
Chris, well, look at this.
If you want to have a chat overcoffee and see how do you feel
about it?
And suddenly, you started.
And some people will say, we'lljust delete.
But you know, true people, trueleaders will start actually
thinking, you spark them withsomething and they will jump on
it.
Some of them, probably 80percent of them will jump if you

(44:59):
just go dedicate, but it's notjust, here is the article, read
it.
If you actually put a little bitmore effort and explain why is
that important for him.
For Chris, if I put it and say,Hey, I would say, Chris, look at
this and I think from yourperspective, it will be for this
and this and that.
And then you can't actually getan email and just say, well, I
would delete this.

(45:19):
But you will go and say, Hey,I'm just curious because he was
actually thinking about mybusiness and connection to this
article.
That's one small thing, but letalone bringing friend and say.
Hey, I'm bringing in person whois really expert in innovation.
Who wants to come?
A brown bag lunch.
Come to see what people aretalking.
And then you start actuallysparking slowly and creating,

(45:42):
and then I bet after thatsession, you will have a three
or four champions coming to youand say, Hey, Do you need help?
And this is kind of yourcreative movement.
Sounds like, voluntary movement,but yet if you don't have a
leader who is strong, you can gobottom up.
And then ideally you would havea leader who would say, Hey,
here is my strategy, my view,how I do that roadmap.

(46:04):
Here's the money.
Here's the people do it.
But if you don't, and if youstill burst on creativity and
keen on creativity.
There are ways to do that.

Yeah.
Yeah.
No, I like that it's also likerunning a lot of experiments and
almost pre typing what you thinkthe response is going to be.
You know, the situation that youdescribed, I had it in a
previous company.
I tried to invite, I think I'veinvited one leader to an event
that I thought would be reallyexciting for them.
They were not interested inthat.
I tried another one where I wassending stuff to the CEO and you

(46:34):
can almost get an immediateread.
And I think it's almost like abit of a research technique for
an intrapreneur because you canreally sound out based on that
response.
Like you say, the three peoplethat turn up with their lunch
and listen to you or your friendtalk for an hour, that's going
to give you a sense as to howmuch engagement or interest
there is really quickly.
So I think that's verypractical.
Thank you.

That's right.
But look, there is no writtenrules.
There are some techniques.
How to do that.
And then you try to navigatethat and influence other people,
but very often it's reallydependent on enthusiasm.
As I said, if you don't have aleader and you don't want to
give up on the organization.
And I told you, I decided topush boundaries to the point

(47:16):
that they fired me and theydidn't find me and they lack
actually quite opposite.
They like it and although it wasannoying for them at the
beginning and thinking like,what this guy wants to do with,
you know, clear.
And then suddenly when thingsstarted getting clearer, when we
announced that we have a coupleof million dollars contribution
to bottom line from theseprograms and they all started

(47:38):
getting very serious about it.

That's a good point as well.
How comfortable do you think payyou?
Entrepreneurs should be withpushing things so far that they
would get fired.
Do you think that would be anexpectation or do you think that
doesn't?

No, no, that I had a strong push when I was
talking to my MBA students andsay Well, you must be paying
your mortgage, you paid moreyour mortgage, your family,
probably kids went out or thingslike that, and that's how you're
thinking.
But it is not.
This is more about my confidencethat I believe in that it will
work.
But even if I lose job here, Iwill find job somewhere else.

(48:13):
That's more about me.
Like, you know, you have anentrepreneur, an entrepreneur is
very confident, saying, I'mgoing to actually bring this
idea, and I'm pushing that.
even if it's not working, peopleare pushing hard.
And we know that.
The biggest problem withentrepreneur is that people fell
in love with their ideas andthen they can't actually see it
if it's not working, if it's notactually solving problem that

(48:34):
people are looking for.
Similar here in entrepreneurshipis actually you need to love it
and you need to actually beenthusiastic about that to the
point.
That's so what?
If you know all of thesetechniques, how it works, how
you engage people, how youengage followers or influencers
or stakeholders, how younavigate your colleagues around

(48:55):
this looking for funding andthings like that.
Well, that's the kind of waythat will give you comfort that
wherever you go, you willsucceed.
And then you just need to findleaders who will actually
support you.
As simple as that, and that wasmy belief and probably
overconfident potentially.
I don't know.
I didn't test it.
I would tell you a differentstory if I test it, if they

(49:18):
fired me and I couldn't find thejob.
So who knows?

And you can test that as early as an interview.
You can put yourself forward tothat extent to really see what
response you get even at thatstage, to know whether the
organizational fit will be thereor not.
Yeah.
That's

right.
That's right.
That's right.
To be honest when I was at AMP,when we started actually getting
a lot of big guns in the town,coming to see that and then so
all senior executives and theywould say, oh wow, this is
really fantastic.
I got a call from Headhuntersaying, well, these guys want to
talk to you.
But I didn't, didn't want to gobecause I found these leaders

Yeah.

Buying in and I was thinking, well, I don't
want to go until I exhaust myold options and I did.

Sounds like the right decision, and then you
were able to obviously move onand up and see what happened
after that.
So fantastic.
Hey maybe we finish on onequestion, which is probably
still around intrapreneurship,but it's also maybe pointing to
the future and where you seethings going.
Is there anything in that areathat you want to just share with
the audience before we close?

I think the technology.
It's always double edged sword,sometimes he's playing good kind
of role.
Sometimes he's playing veryannoying role.
But I think in this particularsituation is that we will
actually technology will finallyI wouldn't like to say force it,
force us, but actually we'llpush us into territory that we

(50:42):
need to think more creatively inthe larger organizations and
because we're getting to thepoint that wasting a lot of time
investing in technology that arenot actually serving purpose or
don't have a end userexperience, which is quite
Annoying.
And you have a lot of news inthe papers these days, people

(51:04):
aren't happy.
If you look at thesesuperannuation companies, that
you have ASIC is forcingsuperannuation companies, CBUS
to actually get serious aboutcustomer experience.
So and how you get there is ifyou have a creative people
actually thinking about customerexperience.
So more and more, those things,and then these renewable
energies and things like that,it's actually pushing us more

(51:28):
and more that those bigcompanies need to get serious.
They can't rely on smallstartups anymore.
They need to actually transformthemselves and get serious about
this innovation and the programthat they are working.
The situation that people arejust calling innovation for
innovation's sake, but more andmore companies and leaders, I

(51:49):
can see they are getting behindthat.
And they really would like to,and then in today's social
media, like, the latest Iexposed, you can't pretend
anymore that you are, I'minnovative guy, but if you don't
see in the companies, peoplewill call this out and customers
will call this out.

And

there are a lot of things in my view and as
I'm linking up with the smartmanufacturing, it will be
inevitable.
If we want to have a smartmanufacturing in Australia, you
need to build, build the kind ofprofile and capabilities of
intrapreneurs, notentrepreneurs.
Well, you can have entrepreneursin absolutely, but it usually,

(52:27):
the Steve Jobs was saying.
The reason why he was fired fromApple in the first place was
because he didn't recognize thathe is not actually leading
startup.
He didn't recognize that he'sleading very serious
corporation, big corporation.
He was in mindset that he'sstill running startup and he was
making a decision on his own.
He's doing some stuff, go atthis way and things like that.

(52:50):
And then when he pushed out fromApple, then he realized, he is
the one of the key kind ofadvocates of intrapreneurship
because he said everyentrepreneur, when they reach
some certain scale, They need toshift into intrapreneur, which
is much more complex job thatyou need to navigate through
this process.
So the more people we have, andI can see there are courses in

(53:13):
Australia in intrapreneurshipcourses are people are running.
And and then I think the termintrapreneurship might be quite
clumsy because it's very oftenpeople mix up with
entrepreneurship.
When I say I'm an intrapreneur,I say, Oh yeah, you have a
startup.
So no, no intrapreneur.
And they say, Oh, okay, I gotit.

(53:33):
So it's confusing this now.
A lot of people called itcorporate innovation or
something like that.
So it might be betterdistinction between
entrepreneurship and corporateinnovation.
But I think I think you can, youmight say I'm, and.
Corporate corporateentrepreneur.
So anyway, so quite confusing,but I think the future here is

(53:58):
we will need more of thosepeople in corporate world, which
will create strong link betweenbusiness and technology, and
then which will work together inthe function of end users.
And I really like to finish thison a very interesting quote from
one American football coach whenhe was actually talking to his
team.

(54:18):
And he was saying the differencebetween ordinary and
extraordinary is in that littleextra.
And that's what actuallyinnovation and intrapreneurs
will create ordinary companiesinto extraordinary.

Wonderful.
Thank you so much, Dr.
Munib and you've brought a wholewealth of stories and
perspectives into the podcastepisode today.
And I just can't thank youenough for coming onto the show
and for sharing those with usand the audience, obviously.
So thank you so much we'll leaveit there.
If people want to get in touchwith you, how do they get in
touch with you?

LinkedIn or email me at munib@wave.Design
and any time and probablyLinkedIn might be the best
channel to do it.
And Chris, thank you very muchfor inviting me and I can see
you are experiencing similarthings, what we have been
experiencing, which is veryinteresting.
And I hope we'll, at some pointwe will start cooperating or

(55:11):
collaborating and things likethat.
But I really hope that.
This story to your audience willresonate with your audience, and
I hope we will have moreintrapreneurs in the corporate
world.

Yeah, definitely.
I'm with you on that.
Thanks so much, Dr.
Munib.
Thank you.
We'll leave it there.

Thank you.
All the best.

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