Leading with Creativity: Driving Innovation in High-Pressure Environments

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!

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Transcript

Chris Davies: 0:00

Hi everyone, and welcome to the tech trajectory podcast, where we unpack the highs, the lows and the unexpected twists that shape the journeys of today's top tech leaders. I'm Chris Davies, and today we're talking about something that doesn't get enough credit in leadership creativity. My guest for today is Pete Cohen, someone who certainly knows a lot about both leadership and creativity. Even the way Pete describes himself a systems innovator and collaboration strategist, echoes how these two worlds intertwine at this moment in time, Pete splits his time between being a consultant for vibrance and a development partner for RMIT at vibrance, he is tasked with CEO level conversations at ASX listed organizations on the subject of innovation, observing the dynamics of senior leadership in order to foster the right conversations and solve the right problems. At RMIT, Pete has a more autonomous and experimental role. Building a dynamic ecosystem should shape the workforce of tomorrow. Pete, welcome to the podcast.

Pete Cohen: 0:58

Great Chris. Thanks. Real pleasure to be here.

Chris Davies: 1:01

So Pete a fascinating career spanning tech, psychology and music, which we'll dig into a little bit later. But we're going to add an extra challenge to this conversation. We're going to be playing Jenga, although it's not real Jenga. It's a it's a knockoff, I think it's called tumbling tower, as you can see by the quality, yeah, probably doesn't meet Jenga standards, but in many respects, could be considered a bit of a metaphor for leadership. There's lots of strategic moves, calculated risks, and occasionally total collapse. So we'll play throughout 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 first move and a question for you, if you had to describe your leadership style as a song, what would it be

Pete Cohen: 1:54

Interesting question and tricky to answer it, because you haven't asked me my favorite song. You've asked me to describe my leadership style just watching your movie. Really risky, straight up.

Chris Davies: 2:08

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: 2:16

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, you know, a good metaphor in the sense that it's a long game, it's winding I'm going to break the first rule of systems thinking by saying systems thinking in that that's something that is a big part of the way I approach teams and problem solving and leadership. So you don't get there without, you know, navigating the twists and turns. And the other thing is that, yeah, I think it's not without the ups and downs. That's where, where you build the relationships and the and the trust to be able to lead and move forward together. So yeah, I think if you try and shortcut that and look for the short, direct path, then no one's really going to get to those outcomes. So yeah, that's the one I've chosen.

Chris Davies: 3:12

I love it. We don't want to go into the psychedelic Era of The Beatles.

Pete Cohen: 3:16

Sure. Happy to, happy to go there.

Chris Davies: 3:19

Yeah. No, great, great answer. And yeah, we could wax lyrical about that, but we should probably get back onto the subject of today's podcast, which is, yeah, why creativity is such a critical leadership skill, especially in tech now, leadership often talk about strategy and decision making, but yourself, you've always seems to have championed creativity as a core leadership skill. So how do you define creativity in a business and a tech setting?

Pete Cohen: 3:52

Yeah, in a business and tech setting, well, when I think very literally about the term creativity, you're creating something, bringing something new into the world. And business and tech is a broad spectrum, but where I tend to gravitate is more towards the zero to one phase. So a new idea, a new product, a new system, brings something into the world. So yeah, I think there's a lot of creative energy involved in that and, and that's yeah, something that I guess the world needs more of. I think, yeah.

Chris Davies: 4:30

Yeah, 100% and I suppose at those very early conversations, obviously, most of those are born from a problem, right? And especially at those, you know, the CEO level that you kind of speak to on a daily basis. How does creativity help those leaders navigate the complexity and the problems when there's such high stakes on the table?

Pete Cohen: 4:56

Yeah, okay, when I think about that, you know. And I think I relate this back to my, my experience as a musician, and going through that, that creative process of of bringing music into the world. And where do these things come from? Where do these ideas come from? And likewise, in a in a business and leadership setting, I think there's this innate thing, these these ideas can come sort of seemingly from nowhere. So I think that's one part of it for business leaders to trust their intuition. And it's sort of the the role, the responsibility, the privilege of of leadership is to be bringing those ideas forward and inspiring others and taking them on that journey. So the great leaders I've observed are really good at doing that, creating, you know, the vision and the enthusiasm to follow an idea. But then on the other side, there's also a big part of the creative process, is bringing others into it and leveraging the ideas of others and encouraging them and putting those all into the melting pot. So again, I think great leaders can strike that balance between holding a vision, inspiring others towards it, but then bringing others on the journey and letting them express their own creativity. And that's a tricky balance is sort of an alchemy and hard to probably get right all of the time. But yeah, I think, you know, really talented creative leaders can construct that balance.

Chris Davies: 6:32

Yeah, awesome. And it kind of makes me think whether there's a moment where a creative approach has changed the course of a project or decision, maybe even gone against that leader's kind of natural instinct, especially if you know they're kind of focused on how to do business, and maybe more, kind of less in the world of creativity, is there a momentwhere you've kind of opened their eyes up to Another way of doing things, and it's changed the course of a project.

Pete Cohen: 7:06

Okay, one example that comes to mind is perhaps a bit more, bit more tactical, but I 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 very innovative endeavor. And we started out, you know, as we usually would at the time, with probably a pretty engineering heavy approach, you know, setting up the AWS sort of environment and all of that. But what we realized was we were moving really too slowly for what the situation called for. And one of the team suggested we switch to, you know, using a Platform as a Service, Heroku in that case. And what it meant was, we're able to move much more quickly. And it's sort of, it was a bit of a flip from, you know, oh, we're here to engineer a big system and make this thing last forever to more we've got to test a business idea here, and we've got to make some decisions that allow us to move really quickly. So yeah, it was a I felt that was a creative approach that came from from the team, and it really changed the trajectory of that project. Turned out, after we left, someone thought that was a bad idea and went and ripped it all out and rebuilt it. But that's okay too, because I think at that moment in time it was the right thing to do, and it was against the grain, kind of a decision, but, but yeah, I sort of applaud the creativity of the team to take us in that direction.

Chris Davies: 8:42

Yeah, nice. And I really appreciate you mentioning the word trajectory, because that's what we're all about on this podcast. Just one other question off the back of that you kind of adopted a creative approach there to actually save time because things were taking too long, and we know that there's a lot of time pressures in business and the world of tech. Do you think there's this preconceived notion that being creative is potentially sucks too much time out of a project, when actually the opposite could be true in the Yeah, that example you just gave, it's actually got the wheels turning and actually making progress.

Pete Cohen: 9:24

Yeah, such a, such a big concept, and it can apply at different levels of problem solving. And I don't think it's always about, yeah, let's come up with brand new ideas. It's it's often about, how can we take a step back, challenge our assumptions, you know, think about the options in front of us and try something. So, yeah, I think often it can speed things up by not just sticking to the same old same Yep. Cool.

Chris Davies: 9:58

All right, well, we're back. To tumbling tower, as I'll now refer to it. And Pete, it's going to be your turn, so pull a block. And your question that goes alongside this is, if you could have a jam with 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, this is probably, yeah, your part of the world. John Squire from the Stone 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, Stone Roses 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, I won'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 jamming with John Squire, I certainly want to, don't want to displace Manny. 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 whole time, but yeah, we're going to talk about how leaders can balance innovation and execution under pressure. So yeah, Pete, I know you've worked in a lot of high pressure environments, and how do you keep innovation alive when time, budget and expectations 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 we encourage leaders to do is to think about, when they say the word innovation, what do they mean? And yeah, there's, we work with a strategizer framework. And within that, there's they talk about three broad types being whether you're going for more like transformative innovation, which is one we often think about brand new business models, you know, new ways of creating value. At the other end of the spectrum is more like efficiency innovation. We've just got to get better at doing what we're doing. And in between that is the idea of sustaining innovation. So maybe taking what you're doing to an adjacent sea of some kind. So once you've got that clear, then that can help define, you know, your situation and your constraints. And if you're working on an efficiency type project, then, you know, yeah, you probably just got to knuckle down and make sure that you're, you're achieving those goals that are going to, you know, shift the needle on, on being able to do what you you already do better, faster, cheaper, somehow. Whereas, if you're in there, the transform transformative domain, where it's much more about test and learn. You know, you still got those constraints of time and budget and whatnot, but you know, you've everyone's got to be a lot more open minded about how quickly things are going to move. So within in that kind of situation, I think storytelling is really important. So being able to bring back the learnings and the evidence from from your experiments, whether they be you know more of a technical nature or often more of a customer discovery type nature, but making sure that you know you're bringing back those stories really frequently, because then that allows people to course correct. It gives people, I guess, the enthusiasm and motivation to keep supporting the effort that's underway. But again, I'd come back to make sure people are clear what they're what they're sponsoring, because you can get in a real mismatch situation where someone's trying to manage or perceive more transformative type innovation project as something that should be running like a more efficiency style traditional project, and you're going 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 in journalism and copywriting, the power of storytelling is, yeah, can be, can be huge and pretty transformational and just interesting. What you said about innovation, similar to creativity, it doesn't have to be the brand new and the shiny. Innovation can mean, can mean lots of things. But do you think that word itself is sometimes a blocker for leaders, because they think, you know, it might need to be a huge spend on big, new things and and a whole transformational project, when innovation can just be, yeah, simply doing things a bit different. Differently or looking to drive efficiencies. Do you think it can be a bit of a blocker sometimes?

Pete Cohen: 15:05

Absolutely. Yeah, and something we've been talking about a lot in in vibrance and within our community a lot over the last couple of years, because the broader environment just has not been conducive towards innovation. So we tend to talk more about growth these days, because that's something that businesses always need to be thinking about. But for sure, in this environment where, you know, people are getting laid off or there's a lot of market pressure, it's challenging to talk about spending money on innovation.

Chris Davies: 15:40

Yeah, for sure. And I think, yeah, my next question kind of relates to that is more on the creative side of things. Again, how do you encourage teams and leaders to take creative risks when you know the default is the safe decision because of market pressures or whatever it may be? How do you kind of ensure that creativity is still a voice at the table.

Pete Cohen: 16:03

Yeah, I think you know the old, tried and true sort of divergent thinking methods of getting people into a space, often a physical space, where they can see all the options in front of them and be generative and facilitate those those conversations. So again, rather than just going down the narrow road of a pre prepared PowerPoint pack and the decisions made before you get in the room, but dancing with that ambiguity and possibility, I think is, is part of it. So that's a lot about facilitation and that kind of relationship building, and the other side of it, and let's say this applies at every level, is around safety and the potential of things going wrong. And I think you know, it's it's easy to make a misstep in that area, that when the pressure is on, or if you know everyone's under pressure, it doesn't matter what level you're at, there's someone looking over your shoulder and and when something inevitably doesn't go the way that everyone was hoping, how how people respond To that can really influence confidence around taking 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, you get encouragement, and you try again. And so I think that's, that's really important thing, and I think as a type of role that I've tended to play in the teams I work in is to foster that safety. So that doesn't mean that you get a free pass. There's still some difficult conversations. There's still some owning the decisions and how we could have done things differently. But then the collective sort of agreement that, okay, let's go on. Let's try again. Let's do it better. Let's embrace creativity rather than let's batten down the hatches and go for the safe approach. Yeah.

Chris Davies: 18:12

Yeah, yeah, for sure. And you know, you mentioned the roles you've had in the past and now, and I feel like we've done pretty well, not to mention DiUS so far, but I did want to just touch upon you know, you've one of the DiUS alumni. You've also worked with us and engaged with us as a partner as well. How has working at DiUS and with DiUS kind of influenced the way you've kind of approached these kind of things, like, you say a safe space and and making sure that, yeah, the things like creativity and 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 about the band, which is one of the DiUS stickers from, I don't know which campaign how, many years ago, but look to me, that really sums it obviously resonates for me with the musical background, but it's genuinely like it's, it's it, that's just the how it feels like it's, it's a real team effort. But beyond the team, it's got more of that, that family feel, in terms of the way people come together to solve problems and work together and and make make work a better place to be. So, yeah, I think that's a that's a huge part of it, and then that extends to the client relationship. So yeah, in terms of my confidence, of bringing in a BS team in to engage with one of my clients is, you know, 100% because I know that, you know, the way that that relationship rolls is about, you know, forming that that shared understanding and respect. So, yeah, it was really formative for me the, you know, 10 years that I spent rolling with many, many DiUS teams and. The leadership team at DiUS. And, yeah, it's something I hope to take forward.

Chris Davies: 20:07

Yeah, amazing. It just makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside, doesn't it? All right? So I think we have another Rapid Fire question, and it's TEP, I'll try and pull up a block from the tumbling tower. What's the most unconventional idea you've ever pitched at work? So yeah, it could be at DiUS. Could be elsewhere, but unconventional idea unconventional.

Pete Cohen: 20:32

I'm going to go with an example. It's probably it's probably crazier things I've done, but I like this example in that I'm something more recently at RMIT forward, where I'm working on a on a broad initiative to do with we call it tech new entrants, so how to support people that are coming into basically any field, but we're focusing focusing on technology initially, and how they navigate. You know that that transition. So we were pulling 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 a long time and were wanting to draw out some insights. But, um Yeah, one of the wonderful things about working at RMIT forward is it's a very open, blank canvas in terms of our approach. So I engaged someone from Sydney, Roy green, who's a he describes themselves as a digital poet, I think, super cool person and and we got to design these collaboration techniques. And we use zines. So you're a similar vintage to me. You might remember pre internet with, you know, folded paper magazines is, you know, DIY magazines 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 was magazines. 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 wrong this whole time, yeah. But then we, you know, have these sort of businessy, you know, tech type folks, you know, Rory, you know, guided them through how to do this kind of origami folding, so you end up with a little book and then capturing their own journey in that narrative format and then playing that back. But yeah, there's so many things I loved about that, in terms of the something tangible, like doing something with your hands, having something physical to take home and capturing a story in a in a different way, and withdrawing, you know, pictures and stick figures and and that 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, little zines emerging from the workshop.

Chris Davies: 23:02

Yeah, 100% Oh, I love that. Yeah, that sounds really, really cool. So for my next question, we're gonna stick in the realm of education and look at the science behind creativity. Because Pete, I know that you studied psychology, so yeah, just really interested to know what what science tells us about creativity and innovation.

Pete Cohen: 23:22

Yeah, cool and yeah. I'll start with a slight caveat that a long time ago, since I studied psychology back in Perth in my undergraduate and yeah, spent more time at the pub, probably back then than in the classroom. But yeah, again, as another aside, I didn't love what I didn't like about psychology back then was so much focus on the on the negative side of it, and positive psychology didn't exist. Then. We didn't actually talk a lot about creativity as like, at least as much as I can remember. But obviously since then, you know, still got a strong interest in it. And your question makes me think about, you know, like Daniel Kahneman and 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 thinking, and then the the other mode, which is more about, You know, the convergence and slow thinking. But, yeah, through what science tells us about that, and even some of the other things I've delved into around consciousness and the way we work as humans, these insights can come extremely fast, like basically at the speed of light. And I think there's something in that around learning to trust that, that you know, doesn't have to be a forced thing, these, these, we don't really know what makes us conscious or where that some of these ideas come from. And. And it's fun to to examine that, but I think it's also important just to trust that. And so certainly it's something I experience in music, like I said before, like this, these things just come from kind of nowhere. You can't really explain it. But even Yeah, through the these psychology frameworks, I think recognizing that there's these two systems, and when you're in the creative state and going for flow, then then you kind of got to go with that. And then, you know, the other system is about convergence. It's about analysis and being more methodical. And I think that's a big part of creativity as well. Because I think we all kind of know people that perhaps are really good at the fast creative thinking. But then when it comes to actually creating something of value in the world that's usable is where, you know, it doesn't, doesn't manifest. So you know, to be a sort of a rounded creative that's bringing something into the world. I think we can take something from from, you know, those studies into neuroscience, and think about what, what mode Am I in at the moment, and how do I best embrace that? And then when it's time to shift mode one way or the other, okay, what's my environment? You know, what do we collectively need to do now to to move things forward?

Chris Davies: 26:28

Yeah, nice and I think, yeah, keen to tap into the kind of shifting of modes and looking to, yeah, ways in which you can embrace your creative side. And even for, you know, leaders to train themselves 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 felt I was just, you know, a hired hand to come in, and we need someone to play bass, we need someone to play drums. And I always struggled to kind of come up with the creative side of things and thinking, Oh, is it just because of who I am, or can I kind of learn to be a bit more creative? Is that something that that you know in the world of business and tech, can leaders do things to to ensure that 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 a way, I'm contradicting what I just said, that these things can come very quickly, but I think they come quickly in the right circumstances. So in terms of preparing your yourself or giving yourself space to slow down and notice things. So I'm going to use a extremely, sort of tired me metaphor. But, you know, don't touch some grass and get get out in nature. But you know, that's a big thing, like I've taken up running recently, and you know, it's just that thing. You're outside, you're you're doing something physical, and the amount of insights that can come when you're doing something like that, for me, when I'm playing music, yeah, there's a, there's a universe playing out inside my mind that that then translates to my my professional world. So I think, you know, hobbies is perhaps part of that getting getting your mind working, and getting into more of a flow state, and getting used to things not working, but that being fine and being part of the process. I think that's part of the training is to get used to, yeah, trial and error, and that being celebrated, because that's how you how you move forward. Something a bit more tangible. Perhaps, there's a, there's a book called theory you, and a body of knowledge around that. This guy, Otto Sharma, but he describes a, it's, again, a sort of a facilitation technique. And they talk about sort of getting into the you but, you know, it's pretty, pretty simple, straightforward stuff. But it's about, you know, you get a group of people around together in a room working on something, but then the processes you go through to arrive in that sort of creative space. And Otto talks about, like the energy is palpable, like, you can cut the air with a knife in those moments, like for me, like, literally, embarrassingly, my teeth buzz in those like, literally in those sort of workshop settings where the connection and energy is flowing with people, but it doesn't come without a lot of investment of time. Like you don't walk into a room and you're not there within five minutes. It's usually weeks of building relationship and getting to that point, and then even within a single workshop, you go through a bunch of stuff to get there, and then you gotta hold space. Space and be comfortable in that space. So I think that's tough for leaders. You know, when you're your wall to wall meetings every day, you've got a bunch of stuff on your mind. You've got a, you know, a posture and a persona to uphold. I think a lot of that you got to, got to reflect on and and see if you can park some of that, to get into that, that really 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 a workshop probably fills a lot of people with dread. But yeah, if you can kind of foster the right environment and the right approach and goals, then, yeah, it sounds like amazing things can come of it. And I think, yeah, the point you made about kind of being out in nature and that kind of thing as well, and finding those those spaces and opportunities to be creative is really important, even, yeah, one of my former band members he taped on the back of his front door take dictaphone. Because he would take the dictaphone out with him when he went for a walk, because that's song ideas came to him and he didn't want to lose them, and he'd just hum them into his dictaphone. So yeah, there you go. And just one more quick one on the subject of music. Can it make people more creative? So should be tech? Should tech teams have a brainstorming playlist or something to get them, help them get into that flow state? Or is it, you know, maybe just a bit of a distraction?

Pete Cohen: 31:33

Controversial question for me, I would say no, like i i probably, probably probably get too distracted by music because of my my relationship to it, and I have pretty low tolerance for what I would consider crap music, so that is even more distracting and even more common. So look, yeah, I don't necessarily think so that that said. I mean, I do subscribe to a newsletter called flow state that every day you get a really interesting artist, usually with no vocals, and it's much more into experimental and kind of noise type music for that kind of thing. So I find that useful at a personal level. But yeah, when it comes to the team, I actually, I actually think it could be detrimental. I'm much more interested in genuine conversations and connection and being very finely attuned to nuance and letting people speak, but, but, you know, keep, keep the conversation flowing. So anything that could interfere with that, I'd be, I'd be hesitant to introduce into a team setting, and, you know, even like games and stuff like, which I know it wasn't your question, I can see the value in some of that, but I probably pull more towards what I consider an authentic way of getting the work done like and maybe a bit less fun, but gets us to the to the outcome.

Chris Davies: 33:10

Yeah, right. No, no. Really interesting. So I think we're heading back to the tower, and it's your go, Pete. So the question for you is, what's the most creative way you've ever solved a completely non 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, the example I'm going to give we just at home completed a renovation, which is, you know, quite a everyone heard about that for several years as we went through that. But one thing I'm really glad we did. We had our attic kitted out for storage, which, you know, I'm a chronic hoarder of things, and got a pretty small house. So that was brilliant. But the thing I'm I'm really proud of is I found on the internet a winch with our remote control, and I convinced the guy who was doing the fit out and to install it. And I went and begged for a bit of wood from a building site down the road, and we got that fitted up. And so now I can, like, stand downstairs and press this button, and the winch goes into screams, into action and lowers 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 cartons of beer or whatever I'm storing up there. But, you know, it's just, it brings me joy every time I use it, because I feel like a bit of a, I don't know, crane operator. I. Yeah, but it's also that thing of, you know, it's all off the shelf stuff, right? Like, and I just can't believe that I've never seen it before, the attic people didn't suggest it, because what's your alternative? You're walking up these, you know, this ladder with, like, some heavy thing gonna break your neck. So I'm pretty happy with myself that I managed to solve that problem and and I get to, you know, press a button and hear something loud. Do do something interesting. So, so that's the example.

Chris Davies: 35:30

Yeah, amazing. Well, I think it leads us nicely into this next question, and it's in a similar sort of realm. Is those, yeah, real world examples of where you've a creative approach has led to a major breakthrough. So, yeah, obviously your example is the attic and shifting stuff up there in your professional career. Is there anything that kind of is any way similar to that?

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 ask me to say this, but yeah. But genuinely, the one that comes to mind is, is around the DiUS power sensor product. And anyone that's been in the in the DiUS office would know this was my, my, my first impression when I did my first interview there, you know, in 2012 or whatever it was, you know, the the bench where the embedded guys work, and there's a, you know, beyond a pile. It's a, it's a, it's a mountain of wires and flashing lights and Yeah, still like that to this day, yeah. And as legend goes, someone might, might correct me. But as legend goes, the guys, you know, Bernie and Johnny, were back in the office late at night, as they as they often would do, and we're mucking around with a joystick, if, if I remember correctly, or if the legend is, is is correct. And from that, you know, mucking around with pulling something apart, and found a way to measure electricity going through a wire that was completely novel. And then off the back of that is spawned a whole new product and a whole new business around it. But yeah, to me, that's the closest I've come to something like, you know, your question was a what's a breakthrough? And, you know, there's a bit that goes on around that, like, you know, in terms of the creativity of those those guys, if anyone's met them, they're, they're very creative, unconventional kind of folks, but completely supported in that and, you know, takes a long time and a lot of cycles and a lot of failed experiments and a lot of incremental steps to get to the point of a breakthrough, but, but that broad equation was always fostered and supported, and then to have, you know, something emerge from that that is, you know, completely new and does something in a different way. Yeah, it was amazing to to be on the sidelines for.

Chris Davies: 38:15

Yeah, that's awesome. And yeah, obviously working with that team on a daily basis, yeah, there are some pretty new and novel ideas and approaches being thrown around, but yeah, when they can reach an outcome like that, yeah, it's testament to how that can pay off. But just interesting to to know how you go from that, something that's, yeah, completely new and different, to then the structure and the logic to then go and build that product, that product or solution, whatever it may be, how do you kind of balance those two forces in that, yeah, you've got something completely off the wall, even now You need to go wrap some structure around it to actually go and deliver. How do you 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 innovation journey in terms of, you know, you got to do both. You can't just have the idea. You can't just have the execution. It's It's facilitating that transition. And, you know, a big part of the work I'm doing these days is around uncover, uncovering assumptions and testing them systematically and methodically. And they're across multiple dimensions. You know, the three main ones being desirability, viability and feasibility, but, but working through that and not trying to short circuit the process and and jump ahead to oh, we're just going to focus on feasibility and smash this thing out and implement it when we haven't actually. About the desirability, you know, is this actually something people want, or the viability? Can we actually create a sustainable business around this? So I think to achieve that, you've got to have the right people involved, the right shaped team, which will evolve as you go through that process. And that means you're engaging, you know, people, partners, whoever, to do the right thing at the right time, and then as a leader, I guess you've got to have that overarching visibility and awareness to be able to make decisions and call in the right support and evidence at the right time. So yeah, I'd say trying 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 people around because early in my tech consultant career that those people around me were just very big on the human centered design, and the DVF and that kind of approach and just, you know, drilled in you from from an early age, if it were to yet, know what, what the importance 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 my time at DiUS spend, you know, likewise I, you know, I exist in that world now, but you can, you can often see people stop short of, okay, you know, particularly around the feasibility side and again, slightly contradicting what I said before, but, you know, desirability and viability are super important. But you can't just stop there to bring something into the world. You also need to take that that lens also. So yeah, like a rounded team. So critical.

Chris Davies: 41:55

Yep, agreed. All right, so it's my turn on the tumbling tower and, yeah, I'm getting impatient, so I might have to be a bit risky with this one. My question for you, Pete, is, what's the biggest Jenga moment of your career, or tumbling tower moment a time when everything nearly came crashing down, but you managed to 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 a professional musician, and spent 10 years pretty much consistently on the road with that, which was, you know, a wonderful, wonderful time. But the flip side of it is that you're on a runaway train, like you just always booked pretty much six months at least, if not a year in advance. You're, you're, you know, sacrificing a lot of your personal relationships to that career. And we got to a point where we were just burnt out and had to pull the rip cord. So yeah, we'd been back from a tour for a few days, and my bandmate said, like, no, sorry. We just got a we just got to stop now. And that was that was pretty full on, like, you know, my entire world, my entire identity, was tied up in the band and and we've been sprinting for 10 years and getting there, or kind of only not quite getting there, but but still progressing anyway. We had to stop. So that was a that was a massive, massive moment and a big shift, but absolutely the right thing to do. And it meant that, you know, we're able to focus on other parts of life for a while and build our careers now. And you know, never would have ended up stayed on the road and, you know, built families and those kinds of things, but now still going. So actually, next week is our last session in the studio to finish an album that we've been working on for seven years. Would you believe? And, you know, starting to think about touring again. So I think, you know, in terms of that rebirth, you know, that's been a big part of that, and I think it was a lesson in, you know, making the right, right decision at the right time. Because, yeah, if we had have kept pushing through, I'm not sure what the outcome would have been, but probably not good on any dimension in terms of our physical, mental well being, or where our relationship has a band. So yeah, I'm happy that we've been able to rebuild.

Chris Davies: 44:51

Yeah, awesome. Great to hear that Yeah, still going strong. And it can be a really all consuming, all encompassing thing. And. To be a musician and to spend so much time with the same people, often in close quarters. And yeah, one of the bands that I was in for many years, they played their first or the first gig for 11 years the other week. And yeah, unfortunately, being in England, it wasn't possible for me to to make an appearance, a bit bit of sweet. But yeah, I think, you know, time can be a bit of a healer if there's tiredness or tension and that kind of thing. But yeah, a lot of the time people don't change, and you just want to get back out there and do the same things that fill you with joy. So, yeah, awesome. I'll give you a chance to plug at the end, if you feel appropriate, because we're coming to the end of the podcast. So I just wanted to wrap up and kind of give some some key insights that we had today. So talking about creativity as a leadership skill, navigating high pressure environments and but not losing sight of an innovative mindset and the role of people as well and how important they can be. So Pete, is there any kind of final words of wisdom that you'd like to give, perhaps for leaders that want to bring more creativity in their approach and simple 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 that creative spark inside them, but I think it's it's often easy in the hustle and bustle to just get caught up in, you know, and sometimes, the more senior you get them, the more crap you have to deal with, in terms of HR and, you know, process and all that, that side of things. But that's not really the main game. The main game is, yeah, having vision spotting opportunities, taking people on, on that journey towards that vision. So you're only going to get there if you, if you give yourself the time to spot those and the energy gas in the tank to be able to bring them to life. So yeah, 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 the same time, I'll ask you, yeah, where, where people can can follow you or find out more about your your work. Where would you direct them to? All right, I did that was easy as well.

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 of the platforms as Pete Cohen on LinkedIn is probably the best place for this audience to find me. Otherwise, yeah, blue sky left 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 SodaStream until now, but the new album will come out this year under Smith and Cohen. So yeah, it'd be great to see some folks at a show.

Chris Davies: 48:31

Yeah, great. I didn't know about the name change, so Yeah, appreciate the update. And yeah, I think thanks for your time. It's been great to chat and to our listeners. If you enjoyed today's episode, please subscribe to the tech trajectory podcast. We'll be back next month with more insights from the people shaping the future of technology. Pete, thanks very much. Thanks, Chris, it was great.