E21 Charlie Carpinteri - Technology tales: Confronting fears, artificial intelligence & staying agnostic

“Being technology agnostic is crucial. Don't assume that your playbook from one business will magically work at a different one. There's no one-size-fits-all approach.”

Charlie Carpinteri

In this episode, you’ll hear about:

• Technology agnosticism: How to remain agnostic and flexible in making tech decisions based on specific circumstances and contexts
• Challenges in tech adoption: Highlighting common challenges faced in adopting new organisational technology and how to manage them for smooth transition
• Digging change tunnels: Why it’s can be necessary to invest time in digging ‘tunnels’ to allow for big change initiatives to be successfully implemented 
• Adopting a tech-friendly mindset: Strategies for building organisational culture that is open, excited and on-the-front of technological change and innovation
• Human-AI collaboration: Confronting key fears about AI and how humans can pave a safe, beneficial collaborative path forward

Key links

Rolling Labs https://rollinglabs.com/

RedFlex https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redflex_Holdings

Swinburne https://www.swinburne.edu.au/

Industry Based Learning https://www.swinburne.edu.au/study/courses/units/Industry-Based-Learning-HEA30005/local

Tesla https://www.tesla.com/en_au

About our guest

Charlie Carpinteri (https://www.linkedin.com/in/ccarpinteri/) has over 20 years of experience as a leader, an entrepreneur and a passionate technologist, which require creativity, collaboration, and lateral thinking. A strong and transparent communicator, data and insight decision making and driven by delivering an exceptional customer experience, Charlie enjoys working closely with customers to understand their perspectives and leverage a combination of existing and emerging technologies to meet their digital requirements.

Throughout Charlie’s career, he has worked with a combination of start-up, medium and large corporates and organisations, and has been known to challenge traditional processes and ways of thinking; actively driving cultural and technological advancements using innovative methods and tools. As a highly effective business leader, Charlie is adept at engaging and influencing across all levels of an organisation; working with customers, technology partners and cross-departmental teams to recommend and advise on best-practice solution delivery.

About our host

Our host, Chris Hudson (https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-hudson-7464254/), is a Teacher, Experience Designer and Founder of business transformation coaching & consultancy Company Road (www.companyroad.co)

Chris considers himself incredibly fortunate to have worked with some of the world’s most ambitious and successful companies, including Google, Mercedes-Benz, Accenture (Fjord) and Dulux, to name a small few. He continues to teach with Academy Xi in CX, Product Management, Design Thinking and Service Design and mentors many business leaders internationally. 

For weekly updates and to hear about the latest episodes, please subscribe to The Company Road Podcast at https://companyroad.co/podcast/

Transcript

[00:00:07] Chris Hudson: Hey everyone. Welcome to the Company Road podcast. In today's episode, I really want to break out of some of the stereotypes and delve into the deeper world of technology. And it's really no secret that tech is evolving at an alarming rate. And although many of the tools out there are getting simpler to pick up and use, and there's tons of stuff coming in. Not all UX, not all products and digital are created equal. I've had the fortune of working with many great leaders in technology, spanning multiple digital products, services, and websites, apps, smart spaces. And another bits and pieces in between.

But I have to say it's been really rare that you find tech people that work well with everybody else. I'm going to call it out. I'm going to say that, and our guest today is that tech and product genius that you really need and want in your team for his knowledge, for his approachability, for his maneuverability when it comes to solving for complex problems.

So Charlie, first of all, welcome to the show.

[00:00:56] Charlie Carpinteri: Thanks, Chris. It's really great to be here. I'm really excited. I must say this is the first time I've done this. So, hopefully it works out alright.

[00:01:04] Chris Hudson: Let's see. So you're a bit of a tech entrepreneur turned intrapreneur, but you're always doing something interesting. So I'd love to just hear your story and maybe let's go back to what sparked the interest in technology for you and when you started to work with it.

[00:01:16] Charlie Carpinteri: Oh, geez. We'd be going back quite a ways. I won't bore you too much with the detail, but back in my younger days, in my teenage years, when my parents made the big investment to buy a 386 PC, if you're old enough to know what that is, great. Anyway, it was a computer and I actually found myself pulling that thing to pieces.

So, grew up on a farm so we were pretty, handy with building things and creating, whatever we needed to create to do our work. But with this new computer on the desk at home one of the things I used to try to do is pull to pieces and put it back together before my dad got home. That got me really interested in technology and I think initially my thoughts, moving into high school, I really enjoyed working with computers, obviously, and I had a vision of working in that field. But it wasn't until I had a careers conversation, where the person said, you want to be a technician, don't you want to be the person that helps build, like design these things?

And I was like, oh what is that? And engineering was introduced to me at that time. So, from then on it's history. That's the path I took through high school into into university and onwards.

[00:02:22] Chris Hudson: And what are some of the things that it led you to do, I mean, if you can describe some of the tech projects or some of the things that stand out as being really big things that you're involved in, but also really interesting from your own development and learning point of view as well. 

[00:02:35] Charlie Carpinteri: Sort of fast forward through into uni now... Swinburne is where I studied and they had a program called Industry Based Learning IVL, and it basically lets you study for two and a half years and then you get placed into the real world for a year and then you come back and finish.

So the first two and a half years is all about making sure that you're on the right path, on the path that you want to be on. So there's many different engineering fields. So making sure you're in the right field for you and then getting enough theory and study under your belt to then go out in the real world and try and apply it somehow.

I was lucky enough to land at a little sort of startup company called Redflex in Melbourne. It was trying to build the world's first digital speed camera, which is probably not a popular product. I must say. But for a budding engineer like myself, it was really cool. It was all cutting edge stuff because at the time, today we're very spoiled with technology that you can buy off the shelf.

But back then, digital cameras were extremely expensive and certainly not purpose built for the, what we were trying to apply it to. So we had to build our own camera, our own interfaces, our own software. So so much of it was built in house and we're a small team, and very cutting edge technology.

And so I remember, typical sort of start up. We faked it till we made it. We sold the technology to some clients in the US. We hadn't built it yet, so we're under the pump obviously. I remember, we finally got a crappy black and white image out of the camera on a Saturday.

We got a color image on a Sunday and we're on a plane on Monday to go and fly over and start implementing this thing to the States. It was really exciting for an engineer, budding engineer like myself. Fast forward I was actually at that company for quite a while. I moved to the US actually, after I finished my studies and helped establish the technology practice there and then grow it out, to what it became. So I guess from a technical perspective, that was very much more embedded engineering initially moving into systems engineering. Then software engineering, and then more broader technology in itself.

So I was able to make those progressions in that one company, which was really amazing. It was a great ride. And then 12 years in I finally got the courage to move on to a different business, different industry. It took a lot to take that on, I must say. But I've got to tell you, after the first week of doing it, I landed in a, again, a small company, a startup company that won a $130 million grant from the government to build out an electric vehicle charging network in the US, both residential and commercial and again all cutting edge stuff. It was so exciting. That was my first exposure to consumer facing products rather than more B2B, which is where I came from. Like I said, after that first week, I was so excited about the decision I made because I was, starting to learn so much more again.

So it was rebooting my career, reinvigorating my interest in tech and getting that consumer exposure and everything that comes with it, was really exciting for me. So those were sort of some big moments in my career. And then I've progressed into different industries, like the FinTech space, NFT space. I guess, rag tech the clothing industry for a bit as well. So very interesting applications for a technologist like myself. 

[00:05:40] Chris Hudson: So the first thing you ended up doing was the speed cameras. Was that the technology that then led us to be able to have our speed check more easily by people, the police, the cameras in the back of the cars that you see, is that kind of thing that it's now being used? 

[00:05:52] Charlie Carpinteri: So at the time, the technology that was used was film. It was all film based. So, there's, reels of film that would take pictures of vehicles and then have to be processed. It was a bit expensive and took a long time. We came along with, we're going to make this digital, which streamlined the whole back office operations.

Number one, reducing a lot of costs as well. it opened the door for future applications, like, those that got the tickets could actually go and see their actual images that were taken so that there is proof that this is you driving, et cetera. Those were some of the bigger drivers for the technology at the time.

It was speed, quality, reducing the cost, et cetera, et cetera.

So the first thing that I built at that company was actually a mobile speed camera. So it was the type of stuff that you see on the side of the road today. And it was the first digital one in the world.

So it was pretty exciting. 

[00:06:39] Chris Hudson: That's really cool. Love to hear more about some of the other things that you've done. Rag tech. Not heard it called that before, but that's good. What have you been doing in the fashion industry?

[00:06:48] Charlie Carpinteri: It doesn't sound great, I think. But anyway I landed in a role to somewhat transform the business in terms of its, technology and digital capability and how it services its customers and how it interacts with customers. And that's what the pitch was.

But it grew into a broader transformational culture sort of role and strategy and that was real exciting as well. 

[00:07:07] Chris Hudson: Yeah. Transformation. It's always been around, but it feels like since the first time, in the world that you were describing where things were just becoming digital to begin with and now it's just become an ever growing theme. It's a bit of a beast when you think of transformation and that's, it's another word like innovation that people don't often really understand.

So what's been your experience of transformation over the years and where do you think it's landed now?

[00:07:29] Charlie Carpinteri: Yeah, look, I totally agree that. These are words that are used quite broadly, and transformation really can mean different things to different companies, different leadership teams, different strategies, if I was to look through a bit of a technical lens, perhaps transformation and the opportunities that I've had to help, drive is in and around moving from really old under invested in technology as well as the people that support that technology as well.

So you've got customer demand for self service and experience and, the expectation of our, even our B2B customers to have that consumer experience, like, pressing a button in Uber and magically a car appears, right? So, I think to me, gone are the days where B2B businesses had the luxury of making excuses for a poor experience like that.

These days it's expected and there's a transformation in how businesses think about it. And that also means the leadership of the business as well, so transformation to me is like taking a lot of people on a journey, in terms of re- imagining what that experience might look like.

And probably putting the customer more at the center of what's happening at the business rather than. Things like profit.

[00:08:41] Chris Hudson: Yeah it's definitely different. Cause technology was once, it's a niche pursuit in and around engineering. And there'd be a team of people that had to do that. But obviously since then, you know, particularly in your career path, you've transitioned from, I guess, more of that creator builder space and state to one way you're leading transformation and it's not just, people that know tech that are involved. So how have you found that experience?

[00:09:03] Charlie Carpinteri: Yeah so I think if I think about the experience that I've been on, and this is probably similar to a lot of people and or technologists out there. I think back in the day, technology people were probably far removed from the customer itself. We were people cutting code or building stuff in a bit of a vacuum.

Fast forward to today, those people are getting closer to the customer and therefore are understanding what they're building and why they're building it. A lot better than perhaps in the past, and I think the transition for leadership, for example, because I think this is a big part of it is to enable and empower those people to have that access to the visibility for the customer to be at the center. So that the really smart people that are building these things don't necessarily get pushed down a particular path that may not be the best path. There might be a better way, there might be a faster way, there might be a cheaper way. And so it's been really exciting, I think, if I look back to my own career, to see that sort of transition happen.

It does happen at different paces at different companies, like I said. But for me personally, I find it quite rewarding to come into a business or be presented with a challenge where that's part of it. And that's part of the transformation, it's shifting that mindset to being more customer led.

Customer led is probably another term that gets used quite a bit. But for good reason, 

[00:10:25] Chris Hudson: Can you explain, not everyone will know the, importance of that within the digital context, but what's your take on why customer led is such a driver for transformation digital adoption within an organization? 

[00:10:38] Charlie Carpinteri: Yeah so customer led to me is again, putting the customer at the center of what you're doing and why. So, I've come into businesses where the customers probably the last thing that gets thought about. What is the customer actually experiencing? Can you put yourself in the shoes of a customer?

Have you talked to a customer? All of those things that we might take for granted today, or particularly in businesses or that had that way of working perhaps or that mindset. But yeah, I think to me, being customer led is really putting the customer at the center of everything you're doing and having really good visibility, what that experience is like for the customer so that you're understanding that journey end to end when you're asking the customer to complete a task or buy something or, whatever it is that they're doing and you're looking for, how can I make that better? How can I make that easier for the customer? 

[00:11:29] Chris Hudson: Digital technology, user experiences, it's designed in a very granular way now, from the difference it was, going back a few years where, like you say, you create the shell of a digital product or a website or an app, you pretty much do that, you know, in a very insular way.

Now it's much more about designing around the needs because you've got the data and you've got the things that can actually lead you to a better outcome, but that world has changed. And I think through that, it feels like a lot of organizations have had to adapt their work streams and ways of working with it to make that possible. So it's not just sitting within one team. Customer experience isn't just a team. It's owned by a lot of teams and a lot of individuals contribute to that in one way or another. So I guess the question may be around how you found and experienced the transition from being subject matter expert in tech to still needing to be subject matter expert in tech, but also having to take on the responsibility for all of these other things that might be happening in the business, whether it be business strategy or operations or something relating to customer experience. How have you found that?

[00:12:31] Charlie Carpinteri: I've really enjoyed it to be honest. The technology that has come to market has made a lot of those things a lot simpler for to make that sort of transition or take on those additional roles. But personally I really enjoy being if I'm in a big company, and being that mini CEO or that intrapreneur internally and having the access to or the responsibilities for, shipping something to a customer end to end that's really rewarding for me personally.

And I love the challenge of getting the right balance between the customer and the business, and the technology, really.

[00:13:05] Chris Hudson: Yeah. And I think the interesting thing is that not all tech people or people that work in tech are equal, from that point of view, because you get this blended skill set now where you may be aware of technology, but you're also in charge of other parts.

So you might be working in a tech company, but you're not in a tech role. And so you're aware of the technology, but you're focusing on products, or you're looking at pricing strategy, or you're running research, or you're doing design. So you've got to have a bigger awareness of tech. So it doesn't come naturally to everybody.

I guess is the point that I'm trying to make because not everyone gets tech. It's another one of these words that's like, okay, how deep do you want to go and how much do I need to know? So, a lot of the listeners on this show will be thinking, well technology is there.

I'm naturally aware of it because I know that the world is changing around me. The business I work in is using it a lot. But how much do people need to know these days for it to be possible for them to, I guess, work with technology, understand it, apply it sensibly? These are some of the questions I'm thinking about. 

[00:14:01] Charlie Carpinteri: I think awareness of technology these days is pretty much a given, I would say. I can't think of a, an industry that doesn't have a technology, some sort of application of technology. So if I think about everyone from, even leadership, and even to boards for that perspective, particularly with the ramp up of cyber incidents or cyber security and what have you having those skills as part of your leadership as part of your board are really important.

But if you boil it down to, lots of different types of roles. Do you need to be an expert in the technology? No, I don't think you need to be an expert in the technology to be able to speak to it and understand it. But I do think you do need to have some comfort and exposure to it and not be afraid of it. I have been in scenarios and been in businesses where people may not be so, or have adapted to the trends of technology, giving them the opportunity to experiment with it, play with it, learn it, has been really successful for the people to help understand it and get more comfortable with it as well.

I think a scenario that I can think of was even, obviously we've come through a pandemic. A change in how managers manage people has been thrusted upon managers that have had the luxury of managing in a certain way. People physically at a location, physically visible, et cetera, et cetera.

And then overnight that's changed to something completely different. So some of us probably had a much easier transition to that way of working full time, than others. And that was something, at a role during that time that was very front of mind for me. And I found myself being an advocate for that change and helping our HR teams to, help our leadership and our team members to make that transition. But it was an interesting transition. Like, the sorts of things that I heard during that were, challenging to work through, but nonetheless majority of people made it through. So that was good.

[00:15:52] Chris Hudson: Yeah, what were some of those challenges that you're coming across? And maybe more, a broader question around adoption to technology because obviously you can only at a certain speed, but the adoption needs to be there. So what are the themes that you always see come up?

[00:16:05] Charlie Carpinteri: I think that, okay. So the blanket theme that comes up obviously is change. There's friction a lot of the times with change. So sometimes you are forced to change like a pandemic and other times you change and you were asked to change because of it could be things like new technology being introduced or adopted or phased out or in, and so there's different parts, obviously, and different ways to resist, right?

So, I learned a lot about change management and appreciation for change management over the last, particularly over the last 5 to 6 years for those reasons and how to transition or make that transition a lot more smoother for a lot of people so that, reducing that resistance to change, but things like the pandemic, the technology team was introducing Microsoft teams to the business. This was pre-pandemic. And so, I went on a bit of a road show with, running some sessions with leadership, and trying to get them comfortable with the technology number one, but also how to use it, efficiently with their team members. I think the resistance that had started there was purely, I'm not used to managing this way.

I don't want to manage this way. I prefer to manage, I prefer to see my team physically and so we worked through a lot of that. We encouraged experiments and things like that. And then came the pandemic. And everyone was thrusted into that.

But to be honest, I think in that particular case the technology team was. considered a bit of a savior in that sense, because the transition that part had already started. And so I was really proud of the team and what they've achieved to get the organization to where it was, because had it been done after the pandemic had started, it would have been a whole lot different.

I think so that's some of the experiences that come to mind in that sense.

[00:17:44] Chris Hudson: Yeah. Yeah. I remember, obviously it was fairly recently, so we'll remember it well from our own points of view, but it felt like everyone was suddenly thrust into this new way of interacting within work, within the work context, and that has, just changed behavior, within the corporate context.

Probably forever now, but it accelerated so many organizations at a point where they weren't ready to change without that catalyst coming in and actually making people do it really. And it's brought out a different adoption, and behaviors from it as a result. And some people really loved it to begin with and other people, they loved it or they never loved it all along.

And then they've gone back so we're in this sort of split world of some lovers and haters and some just accepted it's there, but it's there to change. Do you see anything there that we'll still need to change based on what you're observing the adoption to that technology as having been?

[00:18:31] Charlie Carpinteri: That sort of blanket.. Right everyone back to the office. I just don't think that's going to fly anymore. I think it's taken a pandemic to be that catalyst, to shift the mindset and prove that, you don't have to be physically at a particular location to be, efficient and do your work. So one thing that, came to mind as you were speaking was trust. Trust was a, is it's a big challenge for some to establish that trust in a different way of working or a different way of leading. That's not only between online manager and an employee, for example, but that's also at a team level.

So, I think call it whatever you will call it, hybrid, call it work remote, home, whatever. I don't think the traditional sense that we were used to prior to the pandemic is going to be the same. I really do believe that there's now an expectation of talent to be able to work wherever they are, wherever they can be and have that flexibility.

And so I think there will be ripples of particularly larger businesses. And you can read about banks that have or larger corporates. I won't just single out banks, but larger corporates that are mandating back to office. policies or what have you, I think there will be quite a bit of resistance there, and there's always a risk of losing talent as a result.

So those that really embrace it, I think are the ones that will win in the end. 

[00:19:48] Chris Hudson: Your mind's automatically drawn to some of the collaboration tools that we've been needing to use around teams or Miro or any of the ones that are more popular. But it just feels like taking a step back from that. There's an opportunity for anyone in an organization or within a leadership role within that organization to think about what the needs of the people are and, from a cultural standpoint, how to bring some of that change about in a way that could be supported by technology.

And I think there's thousands and thousands of obviously applications of technology that you could use. Somewhere in the world people are thinking about what those niche cases and supports could be for people in exactly that situation and if it isn't there already, then because of the speed of change, somebody is going to pop up and try and do it in any case, I remember before the pandemic and there was a bit of a, almost like a split in culture sometimes where the people that preferred to work in this way, on zoom or whatever would do that and particularly in very digital, I guess more introverted corporate settings where people would be much more happy to just Slack message, this and this, then jump onto a chat and have a face to face conversation like you and I are having now. And so it comes down to preference and probably productivity within the context of that preference.

And then how do you bring about the right conditions that are right for your workforce? And I think there's definitely something in that that says looking past the obvious tech tools, what else could really supplement or really, turbocharge your organization in some way.

So, who do you think should play the role of doing that for their companies, do you believe?

[00:21:23] Charlie Carpinteri: Everyone. I think it starts from the top two, right? So, I believe that we don't need to be telling smart people how to do their job. I know that's been said by many people. Okay. So I'm not coining that phrase by any means, but I really believe in that. Right. That is very relevant here in my opinion as well.

So giving team members tools to allow them to do their job, and let the smart people that we hire do their job the best way that they can as a team. I think allowing culturally allowing for that space and that freedom to do that is going to be really important.

And I think businesses are at different sort of points in that journey. Because of many other different reasons. Historically how they work, historically how they've been led, the technology that they might have available to them. There's lots of different, things there.

But I think the reality is to implement these capabilities in today's world is so much easier than it was 5, 10 years ago, like to be able to establish or provide those tools to an organization in a short amount of time at low cost, for example, is so much easier than it was back in the day, because of technology as well.

Right? So cloud technology, for example, back in the day, we had very expensive conference room setups and what have you with very expensive, network lines running, point to point and systems were closed and that systems didn't talk to the other system.

And a lot of that's gone now, right? So, to be able to have a teams call or a zoom call or a Google Meet or whatever else is out there or a Slack. It's super easy to do now and I can do it from anywhere. I can do it from my phone. I can do it from my laptop.

So the ability to adopt those capabilities has completely changed, to the point where I don't feel like businesses have an excuse anymore to have those capabilities. So I think that's a, that's an interesting point to consider here as well. The ability to adopt these tools. These tools have completely transformed over the last 5, 10 years.

And, there should be no excuses for the ability to work this way. 

[00:23:22] Chris Hudson: I mean, adoption is a really interesting area. You talked about trust, but I believe there's another big one that we probably need to talk about, which is around control. And particularly within an organizational setting, the first technologies like you were saying, tech and IT, help desk, boardrooms, server rooms, like all of that stuff from a governance point of view was set up and controlled in a very tight fashion.

And all of a sudden now we're shifting to a point where people can have 120 apps on their phone and still link that to the work environment and work with it because it's on their mobile and it's on device. So I'm just thinking that a lot of organizations now in the way that their operations work aren't able to embrace the change and allow for the people to work in the way that they want to because it's still behind a load of policies and procedures.

Compliance obviously plays a big role. Risk comes in. You're thinking about how to set things up in a way that can let it organically grow with the technology, but without putting the blockers up around, okay, well, if we haven't got a BYOD, bring your own device policy, then people can't use their mobiles yet.

And we're going to have that in next year because we've got all these other things to do. So I think some organizations just, not being too restrictive. Others are being that we still need to control it because we're a big, we're a bank or we were in a big organization. How do you think people should be navigating that?

Because it just feels like there's always an excuse to make it feel like it's either the right thing to do or that it's a more secure thing to do. There are a lot of blockers when it comes to technology as well, from what I see.

[00:24:48] Charlie Carpinteri: I think there's probably two parts to that. There's definitely mindset and I'll put my it hat on here for a sec. Back in the day, back in the day it was quite rigid, right? The first answer you'd get usually from it is no. Do you, can I use my Mac? No. Can I use my phone? No. Can I log in? No, and part of that was probably mindset, and the other part was certainly, the governance that you would typically, expect perhaps is the word I'd use if I'm thinking about a large corp. I think technologists, IT peeps for example, they probably get a bit of a bad rap. Because they're trying to do the right thing as well, right?

They're trying to maintain controls around data, like personal information, all those important things that need to be have controls around them to protect customers, the business, et cetera. Which usually means you can't do anything any which way you like, that's the reality, because otherwise there's no controls.

And so getting that balance it's definitely shifted over time and I think you could probably attribute the shift again, back to consumer technology and being more customer led as well. Customer led in the sense of being thinking about employee experience and making that very important within business.

So I think over time, there has been a better balance of what you can and can't do, with technology in a corporate sense. I'm doing, quite a bit of work with ANZ at the moment, I can work anywhere. I've got a laptop, I have, to your point before, I can deploy apps to my phone and it's controlled.

It has the right controls around them. There's definitely mindset and then there's the technology has advanced to the point where that's so much easier now. If I just use mobile as an example back in the day, corporates would have to issue a device in order for someone to be able to do things remotely.

Because of the, the controls didn't exist, but now apps can be contained within, and protected and encrypted in isolated pieces on any device. And so those abilities have transformed how we use technology and how employees get to use their own devices and do things from, anywhere they are.

So, yeah, I think, like I said, I think it's mindset and it has definitely been mindset and a mindset shift to be more employee in this case, employee experience focused. How can I make it a better experience for our employees to do things themselves, to work from anywhere, but do it securely.

[00:27:10] Chris Hudson: Yeah, I think the from a technology point of view, technology is the great enabler that sits between your work life and your personal life, and it's probably all the same thing now, and I think that's probably the part that a lot of organizations have struggled with, because if they're trying to keep it as focused solely on the organization without almost taking into account the personal aspect to it and what it enables you to do across personal and business life, you're just going to be creating a wall really and in some cases that's obviously necessary but now, if I think about it, a while back this is going back quite a while now, but I was helping companies figure out how they would set up social media.

And manage social media, within their company and teams. So who would get to do it? Who'd have permission to post all of these kind of controls that you set up around engagement? What kind of content could you post? What are the guidelines around that? That kind of thing. And then you fast forward to now where all of a sudden you've got AI and it's just accelerating at such a rate that you can't really put your pin on exactly what it can do at any given time or the use case of it because it's evolving and every time people use it, it feels like it's pushing into new areas.

So it's hard to flip from that control state to one of enablement in a way that still allows people to do what they want to do is try it out. The speed of change is something I don't think many organizations now are really set up for because it's always been quite reactive, you know, there's a problem so we'll fix it with a policy. But if now the problem is that the speed of these possibilities coming up, it's just always going to be there. Then how do organizations best solve for that? 

[00:28:40] Charlie Carpinteri: Really good point and certainly challenge nonetheless. Blanket policies can get put into place, but then stifle innovation as well. Right. So I think at the end of the day, as an employee of a business and within a company. Regardless of your role, I think it's going to be, it's really important for technologists to help people have an understanding and an appreciation for why things are the way they are.

Why can't we use chat GPT, at the office? Why not? Like everyone else is doing it. Why can't I do it? That's where technology definitely plays a role in terms of education. As to why things are done in a certain way, rather than just a note.

And I think that again, that comes back to what I was saying before that mindset shift to being more employee experience focused has helped with that because, rather than just no, you can't do it, it's here's the challenge. Here's the problem that we're facing into. This is the technology. And these are the pros and cons of that.

Therefore, this is how we need to manage it and use it and not, or not use it or whatever. And it's awareness, it's train, it's like development of that awareness and the training associated with it. So, I think the role of technology has broadened more than just doing the real techie stuff and answering support emails and things like that.

It's awareness training. It's staying abreast of these technologies as rapidly as they're changing and trying to keep the organization moving along in the right direction but keeping it safe as well.

[00:30:07] Chris Hudson: The point that comes to mind is really around the fact that if you're a technologist, then you're a subject matter expert and like you would be if you're working data or design or you had a particular skill set in pricing or research or whatever it was. So by that very nature, it's splitting the camp already because some people know about it.

Some people don't know about it. And then you're then thinking, okay, well, who within that set. So your fellow technologists, how are they behaving? And within an organization, there'll be those that are really quite comfortable in stating their case and evangelizing a little bit around what the technology is and what people should be doing and getting people motivated.

And there'll be probably the majority of those that are, not comfortable with that. They're having to, probably just work on the tools, wouldn't really want to be leading the change. Happy to manage a little bit maybe but definitely a little bit more introverted and not as comfortable with that level of change that, that would need to happen.

So I guess I was thinking about it from the point of view of our listeners who are thinking, well, if I'm wondering for myself, how I can make changes from the point of view of subject matter expert within my organization. And I'm a technologist, I'm a designer, I'm a this, I'm a that, how best do I affect change?

What would be your take on that? Because you've obviously been successful in doing that. So yeah, we'd just love to hear your perspective on it.

[00:31:27] Charlie Carpinteri: Yep, you're absolutely right. Some people, as you said, they would rather just stay at their desk and do their work and not do the work do the other important things like interacting with other parts of the organization or getting up and doing a presentation or, that sort of thing.

So there's definitely, those that are more comfortable. And those aren't when it comes to those, I think about this as change, right? So how have I had success in this? It's taking the team on the journey, but then finding those, call them change champions or what have you, there are those people that are willing to give it a crack or it's seen as a development opportunity for themselves.

And so, finding those people I've found has been really important and successful when it comes to delivering change, because, those people that are embedded in different parts of the, not just technology, but different parts of the organization as well. They really become super important when it comes to delivering a change because they are closer to the people that are being affected.

For example, there's a different level of trust being established there. It doesn't feel like it's all top down. So I think engaging, obviously it's all about taking people on the journey. Some are more comfortable to go on that journey in a different way, but finding those important change champs within your organization, I think is really important when trying to deliver that change.

[00:32:50] Chris Hudson: Yeah, that's great. I've done some mentoring around this space as well. I think that the diversity of your team and being aware of it. And being tuned into it is really important. So if you know who your allies are and who can be the person that would speak up or the person that would back you up or the person that could bring the subject matter expertise in, it's assembling the right pieces.

So the formula for change is there but you've got to manage that and orchestrate it a little bit. Otherwise it doesn't just appear. You've got to bring the right people in the right time and having a bit of a, I guess a bit of a game plan. It doesn't have to be as grand as that but knowing who to bring into the room when. 

[00:33:24] Charlie Carpinteri: And lots of people who might be listening and have either been part of or have had changed to them where things were introduced to the business and it was a complete failure, like how many times you hear about failed CRM implementations, for example, that, CRM is introduced to the business, but nobody uses it or it's a glorified contact manager or something like that, right?

So, one of the things that I've learned through my career is you can't just force change on people. You do have to take them on that journey if they don't understand the value of this change themselves. How is it going to make their lives better? How's it going to help them make customers lives better or what have you?

Then you're going to have so much resistance that, that 2, 3, 4, 10 million dollar investment that you may, for example, just sits there and collects dust. And I think if I think about it from a technology perspective, and I'll use my own sort of lens on this, I don't consider a successful implementation of just delivering something and ticking a box.

I think it's really important for people to think about when they're thinking about delivering change that they're thinking about rather than just ticking a box to say, yes, it's done. How do you measure success? What are the measures of success? It could be employee adoption experience.

Different sorts of measures. I've really challenged and I have challenged many times. Particularly those that I've had the pleasure of helping or assisting or advising or have you or myself is finding those different ways to measure success rather than just tick a box and say, yeah, it's done. Because that doesn't necessarily mean you've introduced that impact that you were looking for.

Yeah. 

[00:35:00] Chris Hudson: And your measure of success doesn't translate to somebody else's measure of success unless you make the link, usually. And there's so much success isolation, I want to call it, within the corporate setting because everyone's measured on different things and those don't, yeah, they don't correlate. They don't always add up to the same goal. So it's really important to be aware of. I think there's another one around probably just the awareness of what everyone else is doing and where they're aiming. And from the point of view of inclusivity, you're actually thinking, well, what would benefit us all?

How would you take the problem, boil it down to something very simple that everyone can agree they need to get behind and solve for as well. And then applying technology is almost the enabler to create that solution. If you can hook it into a problem, if it's custom problem, if it's an internal operational problem, front stage backstage doesn't really matter, but you're trying to justify it every time.

As if you, if you present the solution like technology platform without any context and without the problem that it's solving or the results that it's had from solving certain problems, then it's just. It's just a technology solution, but actually bringing it to life in terms of what it has done and what it could do is often important, do you think?

[00:36:06] Charlie Carpinteri: A role in recent times where I was helping to drive a particular change, but very quickly realized that, the technology, which is clearly an enabler of a lot of different things was so under invested in, that it was going to take a massive amount of time to get it to a point where it was able to move with the organization and really shift the experience that we were, aspiring to deal, that's not an easy thing to come in to say that we need to invest heavily over here, but that's not going to really shift the dial on customer experience right now. So trying to convince we need more budget, we need more time, because this needs to be done in order to achieve that was definitely a challenge I took on, and yeah, it was, that was a hard one to be honest, because there's expectations that you're trying to, manage across right across the board, every leadership, managing directors, a whole bunch of all the way down to people that say, I want this feature. Yesterday, and I think I use the analogy of public transport here in Melbourne. Now there's tunnels being dug under the ground. And it's been going on for years, it's costing a fortune, but we're still like sardines on a train today, right? There's no immediate, relief or improvement to that travel experience. There's a lot of tunnels that are being dug in order to achieve that uplifting experience.

And so I use that as a bit of an analogy to try and explain, we're digging ourselves tunnels right now, and it's going to be very similar for a while, but those tunnels need to be built. And, I think it was successful in most scenarios, but trying to find something where you can boil it down to make it relatable, I think, and not just about the technology is really important when you're trying to deliver a massive change like that.

[00:37:48] Chris Hudson: Yeah. Really important. And it comes back to a storytelling theme that has come up in, in previous episodes as well, where you're really trying to make, you make the connection between what you're putting forward in the person, how they feel and what they value essentially.

So, so yeah, really important. My own experience of Melbourne public transport has been very good, in to other cities, mainly compared to London, where I was from and the tunnels that were built, 150 years ago, whenever it was. They've been around forever, but obviously it's more than more about, what do you do to maintain those tunnels and which tunnels do we keep or get rid of and how does it evolve?

And I think, with technology, there is a lot that is built and created and there's a lot of a hoo ha around, what the possibility of technology is. And then when it comes in, it's almost like you get either technology fatigue or there's some disappointment. Or there's a lack of adoption, so it can swing the other way.

You can set up the stage, you can say like, we're all ready to go. We've got this amazing thing coming, but then it doesn't actually transpire into something that people really value. And I think for a long time that has been the case at great expense of many of the companies that have tried to implement things, you know, CRM's classic example, but there have been so, so many other instances and the kind of, I guess, the aggregation of that at the snowballing of the fact that if you're running say, one of the clients that I used to work with was running 22 different brands and they all had different technology stacks or different websites. So there was nothing talking to each other. It was all run in separate teams. And all of a sudden, if you think about how to bring about your own transformation as an organization, you can't do that without breaking some bits.

And like you're saying about the computer at the start, putting it back together again. So, it's a hard place. It's a hard one to navigate, what do you groom and caretake and invest all of your time into doing, even with the risks that some people might think that's excessive, what do you drop and leave behind?

How have you managed some of that decisioning?

[00:39:36] Charlie Carpinteri: Well, can I say that? There's no one size fits all approach either. Like, people have certainly been successful in implementing things. I can say that myself as well. But just because I implemented it in a certain way at one business doesn't mean that same magical formula is going to work at a different one.

There's so many different, like you said there's lots of different technology, challenges. But then culture, ways of working, there's a whole bunch of leadership styles. There's a whole bunch of things that have to be considered when you choose your path on how you're going to deliver your change, whether that's technology or whatever else really.

So I think my approach is definitely been, yeah, absolutely take the learnings of what you've done in the past. But don't assume that you're just going to apply this playbook that you've done before and it will magically work. Setting yourself up for failure there,. So there's definitely a lot of, particularly when you're coming into a new business, there's a lot of learning and understanding of how things really do work and click and what the true problems are before you start thinking about a way forward. 

[00:40:38] Chris Hudson: No, it's a really good one. I think if you've got an experience firsthand of technology that you've either brought in or that you've had to adapt to and you've had to use, then that's your comfort zone, then your familiarity. I prefer certain things over teams, Microsoft teams because I found it creates clutter where I don't want it, you know, but other people really love it. And it was the same, like back in the day, the first adopters of a technology, say software, like, office or anything that it would just end up on your resume because you'd say you could do it.

And that was something to be proud of. So automatically you're going to take forward a knowledge of, based on some experience that you've had already, particularly if you've had to implement a new technology. But then you don't know if you've invested in one, whether there's something else that's better, that it could be adjacent, could be done by Adobe or one of the other companies, but you'll shut off from that a lot of the time.

So comparison, I think, is sometimes difficult. And then with comparison, there is obviously hesitation. There's anxiety, bit of fear. And people don't like the things that are unfamiliar. So you're trying to change a system that's 30 years old because it was done back in the day in Oracle. And all of a sudden it now needs to modernize.

It's hard for people to move with. And other than actually creating some of the things that you've been talking about, so creating the right conditions, is there anything else that springs to mind around how to make that a safe space for people to get to know new technologies? 

[00:41:57] Charlie Carpinteri: So one thing that popped into my head as you were speaking there was, if you're a technologist, for example, being technology agnostic is I have found in my personal career being really important because of a lot of the reasons you just mentioned. So, not necessarily again, not necessarily just coming into.

A business or a problem, with a playbook of tools or what have you that you've had experience with in the past and you know that they work and you're they've worked for you in the past, et cetera, et cetera. It's somewhat limiting to just bring those to the table and just say, let's do this. Rather than, evaluate other options.

And sometimes you got to take a pragmatic approach. You don't have the budgets that you had at different places as well, right? So, there's a lot of different things to, factor in when you're making those sorts of decisions. I have found being outcome focused is really important, which therefore doesn't particularly drive a particular technology, for example, and that, to me, is something.

I think worth mentioning because rather than being outcome focused, doesn't necessarily, define your path to get there. Right. And that could be from a technology perspective as well, or a particular technology. So, being outcome focused, let's you have or and giving your team or your company or, however you're set up to work, ability to explore different ways to get to that outcome. And that in the sense that we're talking about right now, it could be, different technologies, of different calibers and price points and capabilities and what have you. So

I think to me, it's setting up that environment and giving the people the opportunity to actually, navigate accordingly.

[00:43:32] Chris Hudson: Yeah, I like that. Because actually if you set the goal, the outcome, then what you do in between is up to you really. And then you can build out either, points at which you can assess whether it's right or wrong. You can adapt, you can pivot. You can do whatever. It doesn't really matter.

But as long as you get to the outcome, that's the important thing. I've been wanting to ask you this. I don't know if it's going to lead to anything interesting, but I'd love to know whether anything about technology scares you in one way or another.

[00:43:55] Charlie Carpinteri: No, I think it's exciting. Like, I know there's a lot of people that are worried about AI, for example, you can't avoid a conversation without AI being inserted into it one way or another, and there's lots of people that are being, you know, that fear, they might fear for their job, for example, I think the reality is jobs are going to change. The way we do our jobs going to change and one term that I've heard and I really like it's and this is not all cases by any means, but for a lot of cases or a lot of roles, AI is not going to take your job.

It's people that are using AI that are going to take your job. And I think that's a really interesting distinction there. I think humans still have a leg up right now because. AI doesn't think like, like humans. AI learns from what has already been done or already been thought of. If you think of it that way now over time, that's going to change, no doubt.

But I think it's exciting to be honest, when you think about what's coming. And things like ChatGPT have allowed most people to experience it. And if you haven't, I would strongly recommend you do, because it's actually quite interesting, to experience, ask it questions, and see what it comes back with.

So get comfortable with the technology and then start to think about, well, how can it help me do things. And so I've asked it questions for, when I'm presented with something I need to do for work, for example, and mind you, I would obviously do this carefully, but I have found that technology is like, I can get you, you know, like 70 percent like 70 percent to completing your task and then you come in and finish it up. So it doesn't replace me, but it's made me do my job a whole lot faster and simpler. So, I'm probably one of those that aren't afraid of technology. I think it's exciting times and I'm excited to see how it gets applied in many different aspects.

But, I think that the cool thing is that the reason why it's blown up is because really smart people and companies have figured out ways to make it simple for most people to come in and use it. So the adoption of like chatGPT, for example, has been immense. The short amount of time to get to, a million users was, I can't remember the the stat, but it was ridiculous. 

[00:46:04] Chris Hudson: Yeah. It's insane. Yeah. 

[00:46:05] Charlie Carpinteri: My advice is give it a go, ask it lots of different things and it'll start to open your mind to how it can, play a role in your work and personal life for that matter. 

[00:46:16] Chris Hudson: That's a really good answer. I thought you might tell another story about what scared you the most, because I remember one that you told me about your experience of an autonomous vehicle driving experience. And I wondered if you'd talk about that when you jumped into the Tesla and you handed over the controls down the freeway. 

[00:46:32] Charlie Carpinteri: Well, that was the first time I gave autopilot a crack. I hired a Tesla and. I figured out how to turn the autopilot on and just try to sit back and let it do its thing. It doesn't, it's not fully autonomous, but I, I'm not going to do it justice probably Tesla listeners that have would pick through exactly what I'm saying, but the reality is it's not to the point where it's driving all by itself yet.

It's enough to give you an idea of what that experience looks like. There's a massive amount of trust that has to transpire here, because I think what you're talking about or what you're referring to is it made some really shitty decisions and it freaked me out a bit. And so, it was quite eye opening. It kind of underscored that it's not quite there yet. But it'll get there eventually. And then there's, we used to talk about this a long time ago, like the very early stages, there's conversations about, well, there's lots of things to be tried out in court and stuff like that, unfortunately, I think when it comes to human life, if your Tesla is driving along a road and a human steps out in front of it.

In front of the car. What does it do? Does it try to avoid hitting that person and potentially killing the occupant? Or does it protect the occupant? But there's some moral things that have to be sorted through, I think, as well. It's a really really interesting space. That's a very simple example.

Obviously the circumstance is not great for either way. But still, what is it going to do and who gets the blame for what happens? It's just an interesting time. And I think the cool thing is that we're gonna actually be around to see how it transpires. So not quite ready for full autonomous driving yet, out in the streets of Melbourne, I think was my experience.

[00:48:15] Chris Hudson: So that scared you a little bit. 

[00:48:16] Charlie Carpinteri: Yeah, a little bit. Not enough to either want a Tesla or want to do it again. But and I turned it back on after it did its kind of weird thing. And it was fine after that, it well you didn't 

[00:48:25] Chris Hudson: knock any people down, It didn't protect you over somebody else.

[00:48:29] Charlie Carpinteri: No thankfully it didn't. It was basically starting to accelerate when you'd expect it to not. And then it just aborted abruptly. I think for someone that hadn't experienced that before, that was quite an experience for sure. 

[00:48:40] Chris Hudson: I seem to remember doing that to one of my parents just after I passed my driving test as well. They didn't like it either. 

[00:48:45] Charlie Carpinteri: That's 

[00:48:45] Chris Hudson: right. 

[00:48:46] Charlie Carpinteri: 

Yeah. 

Yeah. 

[00:48:47] Chris Hudson: Charlie, I want to wrap there. Thank you. Thank you very much for your time today. I really appreciate our chat and love just unpicking technology and what it means for individuals, but also for what it means for the organizations that they work in, how we can navigate some of this change that is just- It's present and it's never going away.

So, yeah, I really appreciate your thoughts around that and thank you very much for your time. Thank you.

[00:49:08] Charlie Carpinteri: You're welcome. Thanks. Thanks, Chris. Thanks, everyone.

[00:49:11] Chris Hudson: Okay, so that's it for this episode. If you're hearing this message, you've listened all the way to the end. So thank you very much. We hope you enjoyed the show. We'd love to hear your feedback. So please leave us a review and share this episode with your friends, team members, leaders if you think it'll make a difference.

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