The Inner Game of Change
Welcome to The Inner Game of Change podcast, where we dive deep into the complexities of managing organisational change. Tailored for leaders, change practitioners, and anyone driving transformation, our episodes explore key topics like leadership, communication, change capability, and process design. Expert guests share practical strategies and insights to help you navigate and lead successful change initiatives. Listen in to learn fresh ideas and perspectives from a variety of industries, and gain the tools and knowledge you need to lead transformation with confidence. Explore our episodes at www.theinnergameofchange.com.au, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Youtube or anywhere you listen to your podcasts.
The Inner Game of Change
E92 - CIOs, AI, And The Change Wind Ahead - Podcast With Greg Sawyer
Welcome to The Inner Game of Change, the podcast where we explore the unseen forces that shape how we lead, adapt, and thrive in the face of change and transformation.
Every so often, I like to step outside and look at what I call the Outer Game of Change—that wider perspective where leaders and influencers shape the systems we all work within.
Today, I am joined by Greg Sawyer, CEO of CAUDIT, the Council of Australasian University Directors of IT. Greg has been at the centre of some of the most pressing conversations in higher education—AI, cybersecurity, the evolving role of CIOs, and the signals shaping our future through CAUDIT’s annual Top 10. For nearly two decades, the Top 10 has been a compass for CIOs, surfacing the sector’s priorities and giving leaders a shared language to act on.
In this conversation, Greg shares why IT is not a cost centre but an enabler, how CIOs are stepping up as strategic leaders, and why sharing knowledge across institutions is one of the sector’s greatest superpowers.
I truly enjoyed this exchange with Greg and I know you will find it insightful too.
About Greg
Seasoned leader and technologist. I have worn many hats in my career - geek, engineer, manager, director, architect, program/ project manager, security, cybersecurity, and soldier. As a result, I have a unique ability to lead multi-disciplinary teams, lead strategic delivery and projects to navigate complex challenges. This unique focus and experience has taught my professional value boils down to:
- I don’t care who gets the credit. I just want to win. I know how to get things done to make it happen.
- Relationships matter and they make work fun.
- I speak many languages – geek, executive, designer, customer, board member, plain English and difficult client. Listening rather than speaking makes the difference.
- I have been in technology and communication for most of my life. It’s what I do.
- Leading people comes naturally.
- I make decisions, I own my decisions and can admit to wrong decisions. But I then own moving that forward to the outcome.
- I don’t know everything, but I can learn quickly to make informed decisions.
- I dance in the storm.
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Ali Juma
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IT is often seen as a cost centre.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:And I think that that is again 100%. It is a large cost to any business, so it is for any business. As it is within the institutions, however, it is an enabler. You can't make that holistic student experience without a whole bunch of IT systems empowering and supporting those outcomes. Same with AI. It was a rapid change. What we're finding, again going back to those successful measures, is where IT is working with the business to make some really big outcomes.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Inner Game of Change, the podcast where we explore the unseen forces that shape how we lead, adapt and thrive in the face of change and transformation. I am your host, Ali Juma. Every so often, I like to step outside and look at what I call the Outer Game of Change, the wider perspective, where leaders and influencers shape the systems we all work within. Where leaders and influencers shape the systems we all work within. Today, I'm joined by Greg Sawyer, Chief Executive Officer of Cordit, the Council of Australasian University Directors of IT.
Speaker 2:Greg has been at the center of some of the most pressing conversations in higher education AI, cybersecurity, the evolving role of CIOs and the signals shaping our future through Corda's annual top 10. For nearly two decades, the top 10 has been a compass for CIOs, servicing the sector's priorities and giving leaders a shared language to act on. In this conversation, Greg shares why IT is not a cost center but an enabler, how CIOs are stepping up as strategic leaders, and why sharing knowledge across institutions is one of the sector's greatest superpowers. I truly enjoyed this exchange with Greg and I know you'll find it insightful too. I am grateful to have Greg chatting with me today. I am grateful to have Greg chatting with me today. Well, Greg, thank you so much for joining me in the In a Game of Change podcast. I am very grateful for your time today.
Speaker 1:Thanks, Ali. We are really glad to be able to join you today.
Speaker 2:Thank you very much. We're going to cover a lot of things today, including your organization, cit, your mission, you You've done many things in your past as a human and a professional and also we're going to cover the top 10, which is, you know, one of the campaigns and one of the pieces of insight and critical pieces of insight that Codit provides to the market. And, lo and behold, ai is there. So we're going to cover AI, obviously, and anything between as well. So let's start from the top Cordit, what's your mission, what's the remit? What do you do?
Speaker 1:Cordit's the Council of Australasian University Directors of IT, so a fairly fancy name, but we've been around, in operation Next year will actually be 50 years formerly. The core that's been formed and what we do is support the ICT leaders across the sector in the delivery of services for staff and students.
Speaker 2:And the ICT. They are predominantly the CIOs technology officers.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's correct. So the CIOs are both my customer and my boss and we deliver four key services to them. We do a live collective procurement on behalf of the sector, so leveraging the collective buying power of all our members and all our members all the Australian, new Zealand, fiji, papua New Guinea and a number of prestigious research and education partners within Australia as well. We deliver cybersecurity advice and guidance. We do a lot of work on thought leadership and our benchmark analytics leads that environment. And we also do a lot of events where we have the opportunity to connect, like we did where we connected down to your home institution last year with our Corda Communities Conference. So we do a lot of events like that as well.
Speaker 2:How do you see? I'm always curious, greg how do you see the relationship with your, with your stakeholders? Do they influence the way you provide insight, or is it you find the insight and you provide it back, or is it a combination of the two?
Speaker 1:Yes, it's the latter, it's the combination of the two. So Cordit has three words we run by, which is connect, challenge and enable, and that challenge is where we provide some of that thought leadership back to our members, but then we also bring the connection of that thought leadership into being able to bring that into delivering benefits to them and enabling the outcome. So it is a combination of that. We are governed by a board of CIOs as well, so they make sure that Kordit has a laser focus on delivering value back to the sector.
Speaker 2:Which area do you think most over the years, Greg, and from your experience, which area do you think they are very open to receiving your insight and which area do you think they probably need to do more in?
Speaker 1:Probably through our community of practice is probably one that delivers the most insights because it's the practitioners. We have our 13 communities of practice over five and a half thousand practitioners from across the sector and so that's often where we can deliver insights through the learnings or applied research and outcomes that other institutions have been able to achieve or share insights, say, from. We had a study tour to the UK earlier this year. We were able to have a look at how our UK colleagues were able to address the challenges they're facing. So we see a lot of those opportunities where we can. If we can't land that from our own learnings, we can introduce those externally or we'll share some new ideas that we come across. So we often share new products, new solutions to our members that might help them in there, what their challenges are, and often, again, the top 10 helps guide some of those decisions as well.
Speaker 2:And I might add that I am part of a very powerful change management community in your organization, greg, and I'm very grateful that we get the opportunity as professionals in this sector to share ideas, create, solve problems and just have that human connection. So I'm grateful that Codit offer that opportunity for us. Yeah, look.
Speaker 1:Cordit's probably the same way. From Cordit as well, we're very grateful of people like yourself who lead those communities of practice. We find that the communities of practice are only successful if they're actually led by members from within the institution. So the communities of practice that are successful are those that have leadership of members like yourself within the institution. So the communities of practice that are successful are those that have leadership of members like yourself within the sector. If caught at drive it forward, we don't find we get the same success. So we're very grateful that you give that.
Speaker 1:And again, I still see those communities of practice highlighting some of what I call the superpowers that we have as a sector, that we compete for students and we compete for research 100%. But we're lucky in the environment that we can share the good ideas and the practitioners can share updates on what they're doing in the sector to help their colleagues. A number of ideas I picked up when I was in institutions that saved me months of work or tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars of investment because some other institution shared what they had done for the collective good. And again, cybersecurity is another one where we share those key threats across the sector.
Speaker 2:I see you, and from my experience I see you as somebody that goes inside the forest and then you're also outside the forest of the higher education sector. Yeah, just share with us. How do you see the sector changing? Post-covid.
Speaker 1:I think that there's still change going through that.
Speaker 1:We saw IT come in when COVID hit.
Speaker 1:Now, in a two-week period, we had to move from what was largely across the board an in-person environment, to an online environment and IT led that and that shows the impact that IT can have. And we're now seeing, with AI, the impact that again, it can have in empowering a holistic student experience. So, again, I think that IT has the opportunity to be able to deliver and continue to deliver that, and where Corda consists is bringing those ideas, finding the volume-based discounts that are going to allow institutions to maximize that and share the really good practitioner outcomes that are happening across the sector to show those wins. When we saw AI first learn, it was promising to do everything for everyone, and what we found over the last sort of two-year period is it's actually now focused on going back to business outcomes. What problem you're trying to solve and we're finding AI solutions like again that you've been leading have made a difference because again, you're doing work in that space and you're focused on business outcome. That's where the actual impacts are happening in AI.
Speaker 2:I've heard many times from executives in the sector maybe three, four years ago that the IT departments are always expensive. They are very high in cost. Is it time now that they are rethinking that statement and that investment in technology is actually very important for a couple of reasons. One is that the current systems are not enabled or optimized to actually move us forward, and the second thing is the arrival of Mr AI.
Speaker 1:Yeah, look, I think you raise a really good point. It's one that I've made the argument for that IT is often seen as a cost centre.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:And I think that that is again 100%. It is a large cost to any business, so it is for any business as it is within the institutions. However, it is an enabler. You can't make that holistic student experience without a whole bunch of IT systems empowering and supporting those outcomes. Same with AI. It was a rapid change. What we're finding, again going back to those successful measures, is where IT is working with the business to make some really big outcomes we're looking at again.
Speaker 1:Students want a lot of choice in their courses. That they do. They want to have that ability to pick the subjects that they want to think that make value. However, if you look at TEQSA, there's requirements on what we've got to deliver as an institution for them to be awarded their graduate certificate, their degree, whatever that may be, and the problem is that our students will go and start picking courses but they won't be aligned to what they need to do with TEQSA.
Speaker 1:And so what some institutions now are utilising AI is going and checking in year two how are students progressing, and then giving them advice, utilising AI to tell them what they need to do in their final year to make sure they graduate on time so that they're again not spending six or 12 months longer ticking boxes for qualifications that they need to get their award. But again, that's something we couldn't do at scale. When you've got 30, 40, 50, 60,000 students, you don't have the resources to manually go through that. So there's some really good uses of where AI is really making that holistic student experience and that's led by IT departments, so they're enabling outcomes in that case. So I still see passionately fight that IT departments are not a cost center. They're an enabler for business.
Speaker 2:I like that. They are an enabler and I'm a strong believer in that. I do also believe that even CIOs would need to rethink and reimagine the way they run their businesses, not because of the cost pressures and all of that. It's because of the value they want to bring to an organization, and I'm talking from experience. I've seen CIOs. Now they've become integral leaders rather than just tech people. Is that your observation as well?
Speaker 1:Yeah, look 100%. We see that all the time that when you have a strong leader who can influence the business and show some outcomes and that's something I've always been passionate about is showing outcomes to deliver the value so you can show where you can assist business. We're seeing that now, where I just recorded awards. I had the honor of being able to judge all the applicants this year and the quality of the leaders and the quality of the work and passionate technology professionals we have in the sector is second to none. They are amazing people and good ones. Where they're talking about even the application process, where they're cutting meeting time down from nearly a month, from applying to hours and days, makes a massive difference. And that's IT getting in, understanding and working with the business.
Speaker 2:a massive difference and that's IT getting in, understanding and working with the business. Yeah, the few that I engage with they've become close business partners driven by the value for the organization rather than the localized controlling of the costs and getting the latest tech. Getting the latest tech and I always go back to that word value and how their delivery is actually enabling the organization to go faster. I always think the imagery in my head is around the sport, which is the rowing team. If a team member is not helping with making the boat go faster, then they're probably not a needed team member. And I'm seeing now the CIOs are actually part of the teams that are actually working hard to make their boat go faster. That's the mission of the race. The mission of the university is obviously providing the best learning experience and making that joining a university a very easy and fulfilling experience for students.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and we have a rapid change. Going back to that question about what's happened post-pandemic, there's still that move of that. What is the learning model that we'll now have? What is the pedagogy that we'll be delivering to our students? For that? And again, it can assist the academics in making decisions about what they could possibly achieve. We've seen that reimagined. I had academics I used to work with for many years that were never going to move away from the old chalk and talk style where they had the in-person.
Speaker 1:And the pandemic changed the game for them because they got some of the systems that also supported it. It's just not making a change, but supporting them with the systems that enable them to be powerful and make really meaningful outcomes for their students. They're passionate about what they give to their students, and so IT does so. Again, I think, where they can sit there and look at IT as an enabler, and cybersecurity is a similar thing. Cybersecurity is even more challenging in terms of it is seen as a very large cost centre, and it is. There's no doubt that IT and cyber are large cost centres, but without them being successful, the institutions won't be successful. They won't be able to make those changes If we're not secure and we've not got an empowered system supporting different outcomes for our students. And that's the flexible learning, the online, the hybrid looking at that, flexible ways of working even across institutions. All of that's underpinned by really good IT.
Speaker 2:Greg, in my eyes, you are a change maker and I'm always interested in leaders like yourself. You know leading a very dynamic organization, and very nimble, I might add as well. I mean, you don't have a large organization yourself, but you always punch above your weight as an organization. I'm always interested in leaders like yourself. You see a lot of noise in the market, but you've got the ability to see the real signals. What's your framework? How do you go about your business? And you are always on a listening tour and observation. You are what I call an observer of change. How do you go about your business?
Speaker 1:Yeah, look. Thankfully, I had 20-odd years in the sector before I took on with Cordit, so that gave me a really good start for understanding. I spent a year when I was at USW in the Faculty of Engineering as the IT manager there. A really good friend of mine, kate, encouraged me to take that role. I've been in central IT. You know the ivory tower. We see central IT seen as ivory. Now, in 20 odd years, I've never seen any ivory. I've just seen a lot of, again, dedicated IT professionals trying to make a difference.
Speaker 1:But, again, that was some of the challenge we had to face with getting out, engaging with the students, engaging with academics, engaging with the researchers. So that time I got to engage out in the Faculty of Engineering the researchers, the things that they did I'd have conversations with researchers where they'd start talking about what they're doing. I wouldn't understand anything. After they said their name, the one things I could do, though, was help them with their IT systems, how they move and store their ones and zeros, how to make sure that their research was reliably. After they said their name, the one things I could do, though, was help them with their IT systems how they move and store their ones and zeros, how to make sure that their research was reliably powered and had all the environmentals in it that cooled that HPC at the right temperature so they could do their seven and eight week computational runs. So that's really helped me in terms of giving me a grounding for what happens within the sector. But that knowledge is starting to age. So where I try and sit there is, as you said, take those opportunities to connect with people in person.
Speaker 1:The Corded Awards is surprisingly a really good opportunity for me to understand what's happening because that celebrates a lot of the successes that happen within the sector. So you see what is actually working out there, what's moving the dial that happen within the sector. So you see what is actually working out there, what's moving the dial. So we had 63 nominations across all four categories this year, which is one of our equal record, and the work in there was just amazing Lots of innovation, lots of people putting and going the extra yard in to get things done. So that helps me also understand that.
Speaker 1:And then I engage. I've kept active connections with colleagues, as Corda exists in about 20 different countries globally, and I'm actively connected with the UK, the US, canada, europe and South Africa and so I learn what's happening in those environments. Because one thing I do say is that geography disappears very quickly when you're talking about higher education, when you talk about a colleague, an IT colleague, say, in the UK or Canada a lot of the same problems we have here in ANZ. They have the same challenges and solutions that they need over there. So again, having the opportunity that a lot of the local members don't have to be able to connect with those and bring those ideas in really helps as well.
Speaker 2:So I love it staying connected and listening those ideas in really helps as well, so I love it staying connected and listening. How do you see our education landscape in comparison with the outside world?
Speaker 1:I see that we do punch exceptionally well across all environments. Whenever you sit there when I again was back in a trade and you go and do a course when I was back at the uni and you go to a course with an external and you have these big companies going, oh, this is our size of our environment and we'd be sitting there going yeah, we've got 5,000, 10,000 staff, we've got 40,000, 50,000 students, we've got 6,000 wireless access points, we've got hundreds of switches, we've got thousands of servers, virtual machines. So our environment is at scale with any of the big ones outside. We run fairly efficiently, we have very light, but we have a challenging environment.
Speaker 1:Sometimes it can be a bit slow to get change and that can make it difficult and it's not like a normal business where the VC or the CEO says this is how it will be. You've got to work collaboratively with researchers and academics to bring them on a journey. That's where I see there is a difference to some of the businesses outside. So again, but the opportunity the one thing I do miss being in the role of court as opposed back in the sector, is that engagement the researchers and academics going out and meeting them, seeing what they're doing. That's where you see some amazing outcomes being done by those people. So I do miss that element, but again, that provides some opportunity. So that's where we try and support. I can't, in court, do that for you, but we can negotiate a contract with a major supplier that allows you to then have the time to go and spend that with those academics and researchers. So, yeah, it's a changing environment, but we're happy to always look at that space.
Speaker 2:Wonderful. I want to shift gear, greg, and talk about your top 10. Where did the idea come from? What's the value of this particular yearly campaign? And I imagine there's a lot of sweat equity behind putting all of these things together.
Speaker 1:Yeah, look, I wish I could take credit for the top 10, but it was way before my time at Cordit, so the first top 10, and this is one of the things I've loved being able to go back.
Speaker 2:Well, you take the credit for continuing with it.
Speaker 1:Well, I'll take a little bit. I'll take a little bit, but mainly there's a lot of good people with everything who are empowering. The outcome so call it top 10 goes back to 2006. And I just recently caught up with Nick Tate. Many people were very familiar with Nick Tate, heavily involved with ACS. Still, he is a leader who's been within this sector for a long time and the original top 10 was actually a top nine and it was one of the great mysteries of our time why and Nick just said oh, there was two that very similar, so we joined them. But the top 10 has a pedigree back to 2006, and we continue to work on that because it yields a lot of insights. And if you have a look at the 2006 top 10 and the 2025 top 10, there still are some similarities. You look at identity, access and management is in the 2006 and the 2025 versions. It doesn't mean that we're not achieving, though. What it does is we're changing to the reflecting world. So, again, identity and access management is going to change significantly over the next few years, where we move from passwords to passphr phrases, to pass word lists. So, again, that's a huge change. And so it's not that we're not achieving. We're responding to the environment we have.
Speaker 1:Why isn't AI its own topic? That's often one that we get asked a lot of. Why is it emerging technologies and AI? And that's because, as IT professionals, we see lots of emerging technologies. Yes, ai has probably been the biggest and shiniest of them all, but there's another one just around the corner with quantum computing. That is going to change all that. It will superpower AI, but will change everything we need to do with cryptography, with securing our environments, and so there's a lot of work ahead. So, emerging technology is something that we're in there, but again, you see cybersecurity in there.
Speaker 1:So one thing I note from this year's top 10, and it's great that I had an opportunity to spend a little bit more time in it this year is it's not just corded. This is not a corded outcome. This is the CIOs help shortlist the topics for this year and then vote on the topics for this year. So this is all the CIOs who put forward what are the top 10 topics of interest for themselves, and when you have a look at this year's top 10, you sit there and you think, oh okay, there's one to 10. But when the reality is, you have a look at how important they are and how short they've got to be delivered in. There's not much between one and 10.
Speaker 1:And that reflects how busy ICT leaders are in most businesses, not just within the sector. But the sector has its challenges as well, and you see that they have a lot of competing priorities, and so that's one thing that was a really good insight from this year is, yes, there's a top 10, but they're busy doing all of those top 10 plus other things. They've got change program, they've got culture, they've got development. They've got all of those things. They're doing budgets. We're heading into budget cycle now, so everyone's starting to feverishly start cranking away at next year's budget. So a lot of competing demands. That requires a lot of time on a CIO.
Speaker 2:I've got this image in my head where I think you describe yourself somewhere. I read it that you dance in the storm, and I see all of these IT environments. They are the storm and you are the one dancing in the middle of it. And you are right. I mean, ai is actually taking precedence now and I suspect, greg, it will stay at the number one for a couple of years. It won't budge because the awareness is now and, as you would imagine, there's going to be after that. What does that mean for our organizations and the use cases? And what caught your observation from the current top 10? Because there was a lot of movement happening.
Speaker 1:Yeah, look one. That probably did surprise me a little bit, but when I reflect on it now, it probably shouldn't have which was number two of cyber strategy. So securing the digital campus environment has been number one since 2019. And that just reflects if you can't secure our environments, then everything else it becomes difficult to achieve. It's not saying that the student experience and research are not critically important. What it's saying is we need to have that secure footprint to be able to deliver those.
Speaker 1:Yes, what was interesting this year is that's still within there, but it's dropped down to number four. What was interesting would come in at number two was cyber strategy. So emerging technology and AI that was fairly obvious that that would be in there. But the cyber strategy at number two was interesting. And now, thinking back and reflecting, is that what it means is we've seen that from a coordinate lens, all our members taking cybersecurity journeys over the last five years to really increase their maturity to respond to the threats that they face. We've got going back to the size and complexity of our institutions. They're massive. Not many businesses will have 50,000 students with, on average, three devices each connecting to your environment to access your core systems on a daily basis and that's what we all face. So cyber has been really critical, but where we've got to is we've now gone on that journey and most institutions have gone through either one or two iterations of their initial project programs to address their cyber risk and get to an acceptable level. So what we're now seeing is that the cyber strategy is probably changing a little in terms of how do we maintain our current maturity against a changing cyber landscape and then where are the key areas that we still need to invest in to address our risk appetite for cyber. So that was one that was a bit interesting to come in, but when you think back and reflect on that, it just reflects the journey and we see that from all the measures that we have. We do a lot of benchmarking with our members. We're doing one right now on a NIST framework for all our institutions and we're seeing them mature year on year and again comes back a lot of the sharing that we do as a sector. That is one way that informs that and that assists us in addressing the risks that we face.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, that was the one that probably surprised me a little bit. The other one was probably number 10, which is the CIO challenge and that just reflects what I talked a bit earlier the diverse amounts of competing priorities they have in a very difficult environment where there's been a lot of budget cuts, where there's been a lot of restructures across the sector. They're trying to do that while doing AI, doing cybersecurity. Ten years ago, ai and cyber were not things that were on the landscape of a CIO. Now they dominate, but they're going to do all of their other activities that are within their remit. So again, the ERP systems, the upgrade, the refreshes, the investment, the training, development of staff. So the CIO challenge is real and we're seeing a lot more turnover in CIOs, more frequently than has historically occurred.
Speaker 2:I reckon that turnover in my opinion, greg, as somebody that works in the business of observing change and managing it is that it's a reflection of the new demand on the type of leader the sector needs, not just for the higher education, but I think overall. In many industries the role of the CIO or technology officer is actually changing. They're going to have to play at that leadership level rather than a technical level.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think they'll do both. They'll do both, yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean, you need to be good at what you do, but at the same time, you need to think strategically and as part of the leadership group rather than you know. That's why I think it was wise from many organizations now to let the CIOs and technology officers lead the AI strategy and the cybersecurity strategy Then in that way, then you're not only responsible, but you are accountable on enabling the organization. It doesn't mean that you were not responsible or accountable before, but the role would need to be slightly different and far more active engagement in driving the strategic goals of an organisation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and we're seeing them doing that. We're seeing the CIO leaders doing that. What we're seeing is also the really good engagement with the faculty and the researchers, again reflected in this year's quarter awards. Wherever you saw an award that came up and something that really stood out, and often that was because they had such strong engagement and partnership with their colleagues across the sector where they collaborated to make an outcome. So, yeah, 100%, we're seeing the leaders are stepping into those roles and making a massive difference within their institutions.
Speaker 2:What about Corded itself? How do you plan if you haven't already started on capitalizing on this AI technology?
Speaker 1:We've looked at that. We've had a number of opportunities for that. We don't have an AI community of practice and we were just discussing that with the board just recently. We've sort of tried to unpack why the AI. We've tried to land that a couple of times and what we found is that AI is being talked about in all our communities of practice.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:And having one that's too general is actually delivering no value. So having AI that talks very generally is not helping institutions. Where we're finding is having AI that talks about cybersecurity, but talking specifically about cyber elements of cybersecurity, and so therefore, what we're finding is AI is just gravitating, actually, into all conversations. We saw that at the Theta conference in Perth in May. About 50% of the presentations had an AI flavor in them, but they were focused on the topic. So where does Cordit see that?
Speaker 1:We're looking at again some of the again, we've tried to get some consortia-type deals on some of the big players for AI. At this stage most aren't into that space. They're still dealing one-for-one and again, the cost of AI is still fairly huge when you look at an institution-type size. Trying to get licensing at $30 per user per month is fairly expensive when you look at the size. So we've tried to land that. What we've been doing is a lot of trying to introduce good practice. So share where people have put policies, guide rails. Try and share some of those documentation and share the outcome. Share some of the success stories so that institutions can share what they've done. Naranjan, who's the outcome? Share some of the success stories so that institutions can share what they've done. Naranjan, who's the president University of Sunshine Coast, president of Corda, he looked at what they've done with their bot called Sunny and how that's made some massive differences. So we're seeing a lot of those and try to share the learnings. So institutions capitalize on those and keep building on them.
Speaker 2:With generative AI, Greg, how do you use generative AI? Do you use generative AI yourself?
Speaker 1:Yeah, we do. We've used that a lot within the Corda team. Lots of varying different roles From one simple one is we don't get it to write the contracts. But if we had a contract for the vendor and they've sent us back an updated document, ai is really good for quickly reviewing the differences.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You need to make sure and be able to trust it. We've found some instances where we've said don't change that link, just do this, and it's come back and actually changed exactly what we said not to change. So you've got to still have that human in the loop. But we're utilizing that where it can save a lot. Asking it questions when we're looking at doing policies or documentation, it can certainly help us with a lot of those. So we're finding some efficiencies in that regard where we're able to do more with the same amount.
Speaker 1:But we've looked at some of the automations and we are looking at some of the automations in our website to see if we can have AI empowering to get some more benefit to our members when they connect to their, have a better experience connecting and getting the right information more quickly, because, as you imagine, the Cordit website has a lot of information and sometimes it can be a little bit difficult to navigate. So we're doing some work right now on how we can improve that access to our members. So, yeah, we're looking at a whole bunch within the core of it Most of the information there is around that getting more with the same type approach and a quicker response time to our members.
Speaker 2:I'd like to see that when I arrive at your website, an agent greets me and then I can just ask it about what I'm looking for, rather than me doing the search in there. I also think that your organization will benefit a lot from generative AI when using it for research and insight, because it can look at the whole worldwide web and then synthesize information for you, in whatever topic, and that can give you speed of gathering insight.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, definitely. And what's really good? Because all the Corda team, we all have fairly different skills and we're in different focus areas. So actually finding that across the team and, not surprisingly, this is probably the same in all businesses other chat, gdp and whether that's a paid or a free versions varies across the team as well. I'm using very much the Microsoft free version and it really does a lot. I use it every day. I'll use it several times just to assist in some of those automation. But again, I still find the human in the loop, particularly for the work I'm trying to do. I've got to get it right and so I've got to make sure that it can help me do about 70% of the work, but I've still got to do that last 30 to get the outcome and make sure it's 100% correct in what I'm doing.
Speaker 2:I love that, and I love to see the leaders leading by example and just even experimenting with technology. This particular change is driven in many directions, and one of those directions is actually a leadership direction. I want to shift gears and I want to talk about the area that I'm also interested in. You're in the business of influencing and building relationships, and you're in the business of influencing and building relationships. How do you go about building those relationships and sustain them over time, based on trust and genuine interest?
Speaker 1:I've always been a people person. I'm not a massive follower of Richard Branson, but there are a couple of quotes of his I like, and again he talked about one that is always resume People aren't your only asset. But there are a couple of quotes of his I like, and again he talked about one that is always resonating with. People aren't your only asset, but they are your greatest. And so people is something I've always focused on. They're the relationships I enjoy, whether it's back at seeing there as faculty IT and getting to meeting the academic or researchers or working central IT or here in Cordit. So where I find those is just having genuine relationships being honest with each other. So where I find those is just having genuine relationships being honest with each other. So we have sometimes there's things that caught it is difficult for us to be able to do at the pace that maybe our members want. But talking about how we can do that a skill I looked I was taught earlier was a skill was talked about responsibility, tennis and how you come back and say not, no, it's a way that you can not say no again. We get seen in it as the ministry of no. Um, people come up to us and ask us and there's a no and that's that was something that I had a really good uh guide coach who talked about and saying it's not no, it's looking for that solution. So rather than come back and say, no, we can't do that, how can we do this? Would this you? Here's a solution. It's not what you requested, but would that work with you? Can we do that?
Speaker 1:So I always just try and find those relationships, the mutual outcomes and mutual benefit. And the other thing is I need to in my role you talked about it earlier I need to be engaged in listening to what people are doing, learning, and so those relationships are critically important for me. I'm not doing the on-the-ground work and haven't been on the tools for several years now, so I need to make sure I'm listening to those people and be open to the conversations, because that's where then I'll be able to have my greatest impact here within Corda. So I enjoy the conversations. I really like the in-person. We've got a members' meeting coming up where I'll get to connect with a lot of the CIOs. I'll get a lot out of that week in terms of listening to their conversations, the questions they ask. That will be really empowering for me to understand.
Speaker 1:Look, where do we need to drive Corda over the next 12 and 24 months? And then I've got a board that I work with who are all CIOs within the sector. So those are great relationships as well. It's really good. A lot of the team are surprised that the CIOs there seem to be these big people on the pedestal can sometimes be a little bit scary. All the team really enjoy that. They get to connect with them and they go oh, these are really good people. They are really good people who are happy to spend their time and assist them. They just have big responsibility in their day-to-day roles.
Speaker 2:They're human and I must say on the podcast that from a personal experience, I've seen you as a CEO in the service of others and I really like that and I respect that and I think that's probably why you enjoy what you do and you are successful. Change happening in the market and therefore the responsibility now is how we look at change collectively, not just the change management community. What would be your key advice to people like myself who actually work in the business of enabling our organizations adopt a good change?
Speaker 1:Yeah, look, I'll go back to when I first started at UNSW that when we're looking at annual performance reviews, change was an attribute that we used to get measured on like it was something that we had to aspire to. I reflect now and I fast forward to now and change is just something that we deal with on a day-to-day basis In IT. The pace of change Justin Trudeau says the pace of change has never been this fast and will never be this slow again, and that's something that I always try and reflect on that we just need to embrace that it is going to change and actually provides opportunities. So UCEDD used to have I don't know if they still do, but they talked about never stand still, and that's something I talk to the team about. When we're looking at that, we try and explain the why, make them understand, bring them along for the journey so they're empowered to feel what the outcome is. I said we're doing some work in the background. I've called it on how we can make sure that what we're doing is what we think is right. But now we're testing that and we're doing some user experience and engaging with our communities to ask them is this exactly landing and is this delivering value for you, and so I've let the team know why we're looking at doing this change and I'm bringing them along have the honest, transparent conversation.
Speaker 1:Sometimes they're hard. It's a little bit easier for Corda because we don't have sometimes the constraints of an enterprise bargaining agreement can be difficult to navigate, where sometimes the conversations are a little bit more constrained because you have those environments or those structures that you need to navigate and I get why they're there and that's what they have to do, and so that can be a challenge for CIO. But again, the conversations bring people along for the journey. I think change makes your job interesting. It's good sometimes to be coming and not have to throw into overdrive thinking about all the different things we're going to do. Sometimes some of that day-to-day that clock it, get it done, move on to the next thing is great, but it'd be pretty boring after a while if we were just doing the same thing in day-on-day. What's empowering is actually trying to do these changes and see where they can have an impact and see as you talk about those outcomes. We've seen a lot of the work we do at Corda where we've introduced a new solution and then we have someone come back and tell us oh, that was great, we've brought that on board.
Speaker 1:We're doing the Corda Awards at the moment. I've mentioned that a few times. We've just announced the finalists and of the awards at the moment. I've mentioned that a few times. We've just announced the finalists and what we've done that. Why that? Again, not Greg's initiative.
Speaker 1:Ian Kearley, the previous CEO, had kicked that one off, but it was one that I've loved, because sometimes the practitioners within our environments don't get some of the attention that they otherwise deserve. There's not that recognition. So it's part of the quarter of the awards is just to shine a spotlight on all the amazing people and what they're doing and then provide the opportunities for everyone to learn. What I've had now with a couple of the finalist names is a couple have come back and said, yeah, this has really made such a shot in the arm for the team They've really loved one just being nominated, but two that they got to be a finalist. It's just done such an amazing thing for them.
Speaker 1:So that's where I sit there and go. That's part of the job, parts of my job. I love where I hear that the things we're doing are making a change within institutions and we see that across all of ours benchmarking, where we share some benchmarking, that saves several months of work because of the insights that have been shared by a peer. So yeah, change is certainly something that we all have to deal with. It can be frightening, it can be daunting, but if we learn to lean into it, then there's a lot more outcomes that we can get from it rather than the fear that we see of it coming.
Speaker 2:I like that and I have the same belief that to have any measure of control over anything embracing it is probably a good start in there. Final question for you and I'm really enjoying this conversation, greg and I'm learning actually. I mean, I've known you for a while now, but now I'm learning a lot about you and I'm not surprised of how impactful you are in your sector and your career and as a human as well. You're a very positive person. I really admire that. I mean you dance in the storm. So what is your measure of success? What does success mean to you as a leader of an organization that is in service of others?
Speaker 1:leader of an organization that is in service of others. For me, it's empowering the team to be able to make the outcomes that benefit our members. That's why I say my role is to make sure that I give my team all the support so they can do the work that makes the outcomes for our members. So create an environment for them, make it positive, make it a safe environment, give them the tools where they need the tools, support them on their growth and trust them. We've got, as you said earlier, it's a small team. We're just 13 people delivering what we deliver. So I need to empower those people to be able to get the most out of that.
Speaker 1:I'm lucky. I've inherited an amazing collection of individuals. Some of the areas where I reflect back on highlights within my career, it's the teams I've worked with. That's often the impact, because the teams I work with making and empowering them to be able to deliver get to the really enjoyable outcome. So empowering your team is one. So making sure that they're able to deliver, give value, and then checking in with the members to make sure that what we do in Corda is delivering value. If we're not delivering that, then we're not hitting the mark anyway. So those are the two elements and I really enjoy when I see those measures. Again, I enjoy I connect with the team. We've got our team connection every Tuesday, which I look forward to. I scattered all around the country but we connect back in every week and in September most of us will be together in Sydney for the spring members meeting. Those are the times I really enjoy the opportunity to connect, build and then make sure that we're delivering for our members.
Speaker 2:Fantastic Congratulations to you and to your team, greg. It's been a pleasure having you in my podcast, the inner game of change. How would people connect with you, greg?
Speaker 1:uh, linkedin. I'm on linkedin so you'll be able to reach out to me via that. Um, all my details are on the call to website, so I'll be able to reach out there as well and we're going to put all the information about you and your organization in the podcast.
Speaker 2:I'm eternally grateful for your time. I hope I can get you back at some stage next year and revisit where we are in this dynamic world of change. But until then, stay well and stay safe.
Speaker 1:Thanks, ali, really enjoyed it. You look after yourself too. Hope you have a great week.
Speaker 2:Thank you very much. Right, blake, thank you very much. Thank you for listening. If you found this episode valuable, remember to subscribe to stay updated on upcoming episodes. Your support is truly appreciated and, by sharing this podcast with your colleagues, friends and fellow change practitioners, it can help me reach even more individuals and professionals who can benefit from these discussions. Remember, and in my opinion, change is an enduring force and you will only have a measure of certainty and control when you embrace it. Until next time, thank you for being part of the Inner Game of Change community. I am Ali Jammah and this is the Inner Game of Change podcast.
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