Dr. David Ireland On Systems Innovation, Sustainability And Desirable Leadership Qualities
Dr. David Ireland is a diversified impact practitioner, playing the role of investor, consultant, advisor, board director and philanthropist.
He has worked for over 20 years across a range of sectors, including renewable energy, public health, ESG, agriculture, aquaculture, and financial services, where he has founded, invested in, and advised businesses, researchers, government, and not-for-profits as they attempt to solve some of the biggest challenges facing our planet.
David has also been invited to participate in various national and global forums, including judge of the X-Prize Water Abundance Challenge, USAID’s international development Tech-I program, and as Chair of the Australian Government’s Horizon Scanning Committee.
David currently holds several roles, including Governor of WWF-Australia, Director of Planet Ark Environmental Foundation, founder of The Growth Drivers and Radian Energy, and Honorary Professor at The Australian National University’s College of Engineering, Computing and Cybernetics. He holds a dual PhD in innovation and drug design, a Bachelor of Science (Honours) and Bachelor of Business Management from The University of Queensland, a Graduate Certificate in Executive Leadership from the Australian Graduate School of Management, is a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, and is a Stanford University Fulbright Fellow.
David discusses tackling complex problems through inclusive methods of systems change and the defining traits of the social entrepreneurs who will lead this positive impact.
Highlights from the interview (listen to the podcast for full details)
[Tom Allen] - To start off, could please share a bit about your background and what led to your passion in collaboration, creativity, design and connection to create impact?
[Dr. David Ireland] - I've always been curious, and not just curious, but probably more to the point interested in solving problems that matter. Even reflecting way back to my school days (which are more years ago than I'd like to admit), the subjects I excelled at were those about understanding the unknowns in the world around us and trying to develop solutions to them using chemistry, physics and whatnot.
After school, I went into science and business degrees, and I did a dual PhD where I was developing anti-cancer drugs and exploring how high-tech firms can grow. I was trying to work out how to improve the success rate of firms trying to develop cutting edge solutions for the big challenges facing society? I've worked in biotech firms, and even as an early undergraduate student driven by curiosity and chats, I was having with backpackers, I set up my first business helping backpackers get work in Brisbane. That was pre-widespread internet days, so it was a lot of connecting and collaborating with cafes, clubs, and hostels around Brisbane to try and connect people with work. But since then, I've worked in tech transfer and helped researchers license new technology, start new businesses, and test the viability of their IP’s. I worked at a national level through CSIRO, which is Australia's national science technology organisation. I was head of Innovation Policy and International Innovation Diplomacy there.
Probably over the last eight years or so, I've been focused on building my own businesses, and again, it’s partly based on curiosity and just opportunity realisation, where I've helped build businesses in renewable energy and public health. It's all been an interesting journey. It all started with this real interest in the tool set of innovation and how we can use them to validate problems, test solutions and then scale them to create lasting impact for people and planet? But today, more and more, that focus is not just on any opportunities, but is becoming much more focused on sustainability. How do we use those tools of innovation? With things like collaboration, creativity, design, and connection, how do we use all of that to help? Whether it's organisations, governments, researchers, or entrepreneurs, whoever they might be, [how do we] help solve some of the big complex problems that create significant and lasting value for themselves and the planet?
As a Co-Founder of The Growth Drivers, tell us a bit more about the work you're involved in right now?
The Growth Drivers started about 3-4 years ago, and it was off the back of doing quite a lot of work in developing and emerging economies.
I saw that there was a lot of money being invested by international aid, development agencies and other organisations from around the world, often being deployed by middle-aged white men. The solutions just weren't having any of the impact people were hoping for them to have.
I was working with a guy in Africa, and he said this profound statement of, “this is a museum of failed Western interventions.” That really stuck with me and made me think we're not doing enough.
The approach we're taking is just not enough. I got together with a couple of other guys, and we pondered on how to pull innovation, human-centered design, business model innovation and development, complex systems theory and a few other methods and approaches together so that we can improve the success rate of the things we develop and try to implement? That was the birth of the The Growth Drivers, and it's been an exciting journey since.
These days, we work with ambitious leaders to help them turn obstacles into impact that lasts. We do that across the spectrum, so we work from products to people and systems. By that, I mean we work with organisations to help them redesign their products and services to be more sustainable. As an example, we're developing some new ear tags for cattle that communicate via satellite to address some biosecurity challenges for Australia's red meat industry. We develop new strategies and cultures to help organisations transition to the changing challenges in the market. We've worked with large FMCG groups, helping them change. Then we work at the systems level, and by that, I mean helping governments and organisations redesign the systems they operate in. A good example of the work we've been doing in that space over the last couple of years has been up in South East Asia, where we've been working to help reduce the number of plastics entering the marine environment. To do that, we've brought researchers in communities, society, government, and industry, pretty much anybody who wants to participate together, to help them think about what a better future looks like? Then, what are all the things each of them can be doing to help create that future?
That might be investing in aligned research and development, changing supply chains to remove plastics, or providing new recycling options for people so they don't throw the plastics on the ground. It's this real system redesign type of work that we do which is super exciting and impactful. It's funny, as I say that now, I think that is almost the opposite to what I would be advising somebody to do if they were trying to set up a business! The breadth of our service offering is wide. It's a challenge, but it also gives us the opportunity to help governments, not-for-profits, start-ups and whoever else navigate some of those big, hairy challenges they're facing to create some lasting impact. We are constantly on that front line of challenges. People don't get consultants like me in to work on easy stuff, they only get us in to work on the stuff that they either can't do, or they don't have time to do. The challenges are always hard, but it's inspiring because a lot of the time the clients that we do work with are passionate about helping move their organisation along that ESG or sustainability continuum to do something better. Our job is to help them navigate some of those complexities along that journey.
What have you observed preventing some of the organisations you're working with from delivering strong outcomes and the impact they’re aiming for?
We see this emerging new type of leader. Or maybe a better way to put it, emerging requirements for a new type of leader. They must have the skills and the attitudes that gives them the ability to affect the type of change they need to affect. Traits include the ability to do systems thinking, strong collaboration skills, an inclination to collaborate, an ability to set a vision and the resilience and perseverance to deliver on that vision.
Sustainability initiatives don't happen overnight, they take a long time. Leaders need an ability to influence without authority and a strong ability to mobilise people to be part of that change.
When you think about it, our models of leadership haven't really changed for the last two decades since the introduction of the innovation leader, where we started trying to get leaders to be more agile or to not just do waterfall approaches to management. We all know the types of traits of innovation leaders, and I think that sustainability is just taking that another step forward. This is where we're seeing organisations commonly fall short of being able to create the lasting impact they want. While we perform dedicated sustainability leadership training, helping leaders build some of those traits and the skills that I mentioned before, we make sure that all our projects have the mantra of, “teach a man to fish, and he will feed himself for a lifetime.”
All our projects are designed to not just do it for the client, but to do it with the client, so they learn by doing as well. The idea is to design ourselves out of the process, so they have the skills to lead that type of project in the future.
It's about the patterns of that leadership and then the ability to see it through, and probably the last trait [and this again gets back to leaders] is being able to create institutional and leadership buy-in. In some cases, we've seen maybe those mid-level managers are passionate about seeing some type of sustainability or impact change come through, but they just can't get buy-in from the senior levels who might be more motivated or focused on the more traditional metrics. These include, “how is this going to increase our revenue,” or “how is this going to decrease our costs?” Maybe it doesn't initially, but over a slightly longer-term perspective, it builds a more resilient supply chain, or it's going to align more strongly with the changing consumer preference market. We're seeing some gradual changes in industry, which is great, but they're probably the main ones.
Where have you identified opportunities across Asia and Australia (Oceania) to tackle social, cultural, environmental problems? How might organisations better collaborate to see greater systems change?
Probably the obvious answer is that:
more organisations need to take a systems approach to creating systems change.
It's an old model, but it's called the Cynefin Framework, and it talks about the different types of challenges you face from simple to complicated, to complex and chaotic. A complex problem requires a complex approach to solving it, so you must lean into the complexity of the system. The challenges, problems and traits of that system are emerging and dynamic, and that's quite different to a simple or complicated system.
These systems can often take a bit more of a linear, step-by-step sequential type process to address. I see a lot of organisations trying to do a big thing, and I think this gets back to my earlier comment about failed Western interventions in these emerging economies. We're trying to do the right thing, we're trying to solve these big, complex, social, and environmental problems. But we're not respecting the complexity of the problem. We're trying to take a linear solution to it.
To take a systems approach, you must work across from the micro and macro levels. You must incorporate human-based qualitative approaches alongside data supported quantitative research. You must bring diverse stakeholders together to co-design futures, and that's hard, right?
That is not a skillset that people typically have, and it puts you outside your comfort zone when you start co-designing with people who are experiencing the problem as well. I think it's a fear of the unknown, it's a fear of this, "I can't see what the solution is going to look like yet," mentality. The solution might be different to the status quo, but what is that going to mean for us? This provides a bit of a barrier for people leaning into doing the systems-based approach to creating change.
One really concrete but old key to this is to be really open to different perspectives and points of view. It sounds so obvious, but in complex problems like the marine plastics example I mentioned before, you've got all these competing drivers of change and behaviour. None are right or wrong, they're just different. We rarely find someone who is intent on harming people or planet, it's just that we're all focused on maximising self-gains. We don't naturally piece together the complexity of the system that's behind us or see how those self-gains are impacting others. I might be throwing out lots of plastics because I get all single use plastics for detergents, food, salt and whatever else because that's all I can afford. From a comfortable seat in Australia, like a middle-aged white guy, I look at that and think, "stop buying single use plastics." But that person may not be able to afford to do anything else. You've got to look at perspectives, limitations and what people can do and really leave your bias out of it.
Take the time to understand what's driving people to behave like they are before you start trying to impose solutions on them.
What general advice would you give to purpose led entrepreneurs who are working to take their enterprises to the next level?
I don't want this to sound discouraging by any means, but I think you need to just be prepared for it to take longer and for it to be harder than you originally thought.
That doesn't mean it's not worth doing. On a simple level, we're all prone to thinking that because I see this problem exists, everybody must see this problem. We just know that's not true. It's the same thing (but it's amplified) when you try to start creating impact. If you're doing social enterprise for instance, it's just hard. You're trying to get people to stop doing whatever the status quo is, and helping people to change their behaviour is tricky. If you don't necessarily have access to some of those (dare I say capitalist) tools available to you, to go and reduce your costs by offshoring, using cheaper labour, or plastics instead of more renewable sources, then it’s going to be harder. If you're not doing those things and you're trying to be a sustainable organisation, then it's going to be harder. But the impact of your work is going to be higher, so stick with it.
For what it's worth, I get asked this question not infrequently, and I've never worked out how to give an answer eloquently, but I'll try it here anyway. I tend to take an ecology view to change.
When you think about it, systems settle at their lowest energy states, and to get them out of that requires an intense amount of energy to be inputted (or at least more energy than what it is to rest at that state).
If you think about a rainforest, that over 5-6,000 years has been degraded by people chopping down trees and putting cattle on it creating grassland, it is unreasonable to think that within a couple of years you can get that rainforest back. That's obvious. If it's taken 5-6,000 years for that change to happen, it's probably going to take close to 5-6,000 years to get that rainforest back, because you've got to rebuild a huge amount of ecology, microbiology, biology, and weather patterns which make a rainforest a rainforest.
It's the same thing in human systems. If you've had people who have been buying cheap goods and services, because they've been utilising fossil fuels, cheaper labour, plastics, and goodness knows what else, to get people to start to engage with something that could be a bit more expensive takes time. This is even if it's more sustainable, and so they might receive some bigger social value from it. You need to put in a similar amount of energy that you would if you were going to try to take a grassland back to a rainforest. Not an entirely eloquent answer for you, but hopefully the analogy works. You need to recognise that you are trying to do something hard, and it's just going to take a bit of time.
What inspiring projects or initiatives have you come across recently that you believe are creating some positive social change?
WWF has been running this Innovate to Regenerate program, which is about finding and supporting innovators to help regenerate Australia's land and seascapes. They've unearthed some amazing entrepreneurs and they're supporting some incredible projects that are having and will have a huge impact. Generally, I'm seeing more Indigenous and First Nations traditional approaches being integrated with modern technologies and businesses.
I really take so much energy and comfort from seeing Indigenous enterprises, because the moment you incorporate those values with business, you are instilling some fundamental sustainability, human focused and empathetic traits into whatever you're doing.
Additionally, the perspective on what growth is changes fundamentally. There's a company I'm working with now, it's in the agricultural space. They're taking some old Indigenous technologies around harnessing lightning to improve the growth rate of seeds and various crops, and it’s now revolutionary technology. [Rainstick] is utilising 60,000-year-old approaches, and the mind boggles when you start to think about that stuff, so that's good.
The last one I'll mention is another general observation. What I think is exciting is that we are seeing [enterprises] drive corporate behaviour. GDP, revenue, return to shareholder value type stuff is still dominating, but it is changing, and we're seeing organisations start reporting on various ESGs. Greenwashing and all those issues aside, while I accept those negative activities are happening, the fact we are seeing businesses taking steps towards reporting on those things and allowing them to guide corporate behaviour based on those metrics is great. The challenge is, are we doing enough fast enough? Time will tell, but five years ago, nobody was doing it, and now a lot of big businesses are reporting on that stuff. Partly I think that's because if you look at the droughts, floods, fires and COVID, this is not an esoteric future threat to future generations anymore. People are feeling the planet pushback today, so they must do something to look after themselves and their families right now. Whatever the driver, it's good we are seeing some change happening.
To finish off, what books, resources or podcasts would you recommend to our listeners?
One of the benefits of being cursed with some light insomnia is I get a lot of time to read! You've got to look for the positives in life! I read wide, so I love National Geographic. I just find that the diversity of information I get out of that, and their pictures is incredible. I get a lot of pleasure and knowledge from National Geographic. I think probably the last few books I've read, and again it gets back to that first question, are just led by curiosity. If I think about the last month or two, I've read a book about how we're losing the ability to focus as a society. Then, I've read about sustainability, regenerative agriculture, and the nature of pandemics. After that, I read a book on quantum computing, which I didn't understand, but I thought was interesting. The one I'm reading now is on the nature of the cell. The book is about how we don't really understand the proper inner mechanics of cells and all the stuff that is left to discover. It also talked about what that might mean for human health, what we can do to extend age and how we can get rid of diseases. I read interesting general knowledge stuff, and there are too many good books to read these days; that's the problem I'm experiencing!
