Podcasts

Episode 18 - Decoding AQ with Ross Thornley Feat. Jason Slater - Driving Innovation and adaptability at the United Nations

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Intro

Hi, and welcome to Decoding AQ, helping you to learn the tools, mindsets, and actions to thrive in an ever-changing world.

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Ross  

Hi, and welcome to the next episode of Decoding AQ, I have a very good friend Jason Slater, who's joining us today.

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Jason  

Good afternoon.

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Ross  

Hi. It's great to see your face. For those that are watching this on YouTube. We'll see it as well. But Jason, you are the head of Financial Management at UNIDO, there is your current guise at UNIDO, because we'll get into it a bit more of your journey, which as I understand, is it 19 years today?

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Jason  

19 years almost to the day Ross. Yes.

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Ross  

Fantastic. So why don't you give us just a little bit of background, because we first met actually, when you were in a different role at UNIDO in the communications department. 

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But your time goes further back than that. So give us a little bit of your background from your perspective of what's got you here.=

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Jason  

Sure. Yeah. Thanks a lot. Thanks for having me today. And yeah, my career started way back actually in the Nuclear Industry. Back in the UK, I spent nearly nine years working in mainly in the finance department. And then I moved into a small relative, well relatively small, outside IT company Norwegian-based as a management consultant. And I worked with them for three years. And while I’ve mainly looking after the public sector, and basically helping organizations change in a way to introduce new business processes, predominantly around finance, logistics, HR, etc.

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And it just transpired that one of our clients was the UN, based here in Vienna. I was always very keen to explore and to get myself outside of the UK. So I was asked if I would be interested to come and support them. So myself and three others joined. Joined  the team here and we spent a couple of years basically commuting from Vienna and myself back home. And it was around the time as you may recall that the Euro was being introduced. So it was quite interesting that the UN at the time was one of the first to adopt the euro as its actual reporting currency. And that's the area that we supported them on.

So I came here for a few years as a management consultant, as the UN as my client. But then, as a client, they approached me for various reasons. And I decided to come for six months. And as you just mentioned, here we are 19 years down the road.

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Ross  

Yeep, two decades down the road. You shouldn't have been that good, Jason. And then maybe, you wouldn't have been approached, you know?

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Jason  

Yes. So here we are now 19 years down the road, having kind of long journey through working in IT being the head of systems, then a very interesting role after that, which was basically working in overseeing a huge implementation of a change management, but also implementing an ERP or Enterprise Resource Planning System, which 10 years ago was really the thing to do, particularly in the UN.

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Ross  

Yeah, beast of a project, I bet.

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Jason  

Huge. Yeah, yeah, we did. I was responsible for overseeing the largest integrated implementation of an ERP within the smallest budget and the tightest timeframe. And I'm proud to say that we need or succeeded or both of those, we did it on time. And we did it considerably less than the resources that were given to us by our member states. But that led me into business transformation, change management, so took me in a slightly different direction from the finance. 

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So I manage that head of business transformation for three to four years. And then when myself and you got introduced, I was requested to take on the role of Head of Communications. But with a very specific mandate, which was, obviously was to expand UNIDO's outreach, but that was at the time where digital transformation was just coming into its form. Social media, use of you know, how do you get yourself out there and tell the story on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, further afield looking at China, WeChat, Viber, etc. 

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So extremely fascinating couple of years in my career, one that I never anticipated, but having no look back, understanding people like yourself more, you know that rather than the numbers but also there's a story that needs to be told. And that now brings me to where I am now, which is yeah heading our financial management theory here at UNIDO, which is primarily about providing financial management support to our 860 projects in 120 countries, predominate those that are in very poor developing countries, which is about helping them with industrial development aligned to the global goals. So yeah, that's my 19 years within the company yeah.

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Ross

Within the company. It’s fascinating when you look back, and what is it that actually burnt on the mind? What do you remember of these sort of key transitions or key events? And often it's so, when you're in it, it's just incredibly overwhelming and equal levels of stress and excitement. Then when you look back and you see the achievements of you and the organization of being able to take on such large projects with limited resources and still be alive at the end and still be smiling, is real testament to you as a character, but also as an organization in what is possible. When given the ambition to do something, and that they can do incredible things, which is amazing. I mean, what was perhaps some of the hardest challenges in that big project that you mentioned of implementing an ERP piece? What were some of the highlight challenges that you faced?

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Jason  

The technical side of it was actually the area that became the most straightforward, the largest challenge and that was the change management aspects of it. And that was, I think then we talked very much about cultural change. When we're talking about an era where certainly within the UN, I don't say in the private sector, where things like electronic approvals workflow, four-eyes principle, people being able to see bringing a level of transparency to what people are actually doing in their daily work.

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So that for me was one of the biggest challenges and from that was getting a level of engagement and understanding that engagement, we say it's great, you have top management support, but it's got to be from top all the way down to those people are actually the ones I would say, really doing the day to day tasks and work. So that, for me was one of the challenges that I would say, getting it done on time within budgets, that's heads down get on with it. But you've got to, if people don't come along with you on that journey, you're not going to succeed.

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And I'll be very open, I reflect on it now we'll look at lessons learned. The aftermath, the ripple effects of what we did back then, it took us two to three years, to calm that situation down. Because you've brought a lot in, very quickly. You've got people with you, but to really, really institutionalize that, that change that you brought about, it took quite some time. So I would say that was one of the by far for me. And I think that is consistent for whatever you do. The technology is there, and you can embrace it. And some of us got a handful of it. But if you want that to be something that's mainstream within your organization, or within your company, then clearly the people aspect of it is critical.

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Ross  

It's a tough one. And it's that forming, storming and norming kind of process, isn't it? And as you mentioned, the ripple effect on people that might do it through compliance, but then is it sustainable afterwards? Does it become the normal way of doing things that way?

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Jason  

I always say also, if I may, just on this. I always look, if I look at myself, I'd see my career has took mainly two aspects, there is the finance side, and there is the IT. So which is straightforward. There is money in, money out. And if it's IT it’s primarily binary, it's pretty straightforward. But there's a totally different aspect to it when it comes to people and managing and working with people, etc. Then that is the challenge and there’s also some impact of it as well.

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Ross  

And I guess from your experience of coming from binary, right wrong stuff, finance, IT, and then dealing with these strange beings that aren't binary, that have so many levels of complexity, that what was wrong yesterday can be right today and vice versa. And just the mindsets, behaviors, beliefs. And then when you multiply that by each component of each unit, each person bringing its own bit and then the dynamics of teams and organizations becomes a really complex, challenging beast to deal with.

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Jason  

Completely and really underestimated, certainly back then, nearly 10 years ago, and I don't just talk about what we did here in UNIDO, but at the time, actually, not very long after that, I became the Chair of a UN-wide special interest group and so UNICEF, the Secretariat, all of the people who've done this, and it was one of the biggest consensus that we came to is, “How on earth to get everybody aligned?”. I mean today, and that's one of our own relationship that we've had over the last few years. People are much more at the front looking at, you sit and say, “Have you got a team that's adaptable?” for example.

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It's not something you even came into your, it was not even on your radar 10 years ago. Change management, yeah, make sure that people are trained, make sure we adjust job description, a lot. But it still is on the technical side of it, the soft aspect, I think was grossly underestimated. And that probably is why there was a huge, huge price tag. I can say openly that the figures are out there, that the UN when they  implemented all of these large enterprise resource planning systems invested over a billion. A billion that is a phenomenal investment. That the human aspect of it was something that was grossly underplayed throughout. But yeah, we learned from them.

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Ross  

We do. And I think that's the aspect of better forward. That when we reengage on things, it’s that we understand what do we leave behind and what do we take forward. And the aspect of dealing with human beings and how this is now shaped your career of lots of these moments of where you as an individual, have adapted to new environments. New roles, new tasks, new projects, new objectives. But then also your learnings of now, from what might be easier to project manage, easier to deal with binary aspects to then more complex of people. 

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So how in terms of the organizations are preparing for the sort of pace of change, so that project probably was a took a long time, and lots of projects historically take a long time to deal with. The larger they are consequently, it would be a long time to look at them. What we've been noticing is how so much pressure is to do more with less, more with less resource, less time to do those things. Where are you seeing organizations either within UNIDO, or within your projects or clients that you're working with, that's really doing that well at speed?

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Jason  

We have a few specific things that we're trying to do now around innovation. But within the UN itself is we have what is referred to as the UN Innovation Network. Which is also a very informal network, it is those of us whatever level you are from managing to being the people who are being at the very detailed operational level, that you can join this to understand better, how you can embrace certain innovation and I think as you just mentioned, is working together for a network, enabling you to move much faster than you'd ever done before and also allow you to fail, but also fail very quickly, so that you can then move on. 

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And this is a totally different direction than what I have experienced in the past. I mean, also breaking down silos of working with, I know working now on a blockchain project, and I always know they can go to WFP, I can go to UNICEF who are also two to three years down the line. They've been there done it, they've took those risks, and they're prepared to share what they've done so that we can then advance at a much faster pace. I mean, that's one of the things that I'm seeing now is this collaboration between us and taking risks with certain innovation, to see whether it can work for you, and if you can, how can you ensure that you do it with less resources? What is less resources mean? It means that you have to take risk and that you have to adapt to certain standard practices. 

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Do I have to be so different? Does my sorry, if I give a quite a back office example, is my payroll so different in the UN than what's going on? Do I need to invest so much time, efforts and resources? Or do I start looking at how there are short services out there that can even do that service for me.

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Ross  

Fast systems, technology systems.

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Jason  

Exactly. All those kinds of things, they are totally different way that we have to now look at the solutions that are in front of us. And because of this, what is your function to do now, particularly in finances, the massive data that we're collecting, but we don't have the skills to drill the data, to analyze the data, to present the data in a way, actually back to the communication side in it, that tells a story, you know.

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So those are the things that I see. And I think there are some great examples out there. I see what UNICEF have been doing around innovation, I was very, very lucky that last year, I was invited to the first-ever UN Innovation Network boot camp, UNIDO presented its project. We've learned a lot from it. But the people that I saw next to be some of the examples of the tools that are being brought to developing countries, QR codes to help when you're when in Burkina Faso, for UN FPA, when children are born so that they have an identity, they have a digital identity. You might question, “Really do you want to give a baby a digital identity?”. Well if they have an identity now and what that then helps and all the subsequent services that they can receive. These are some small, great examples that I have seen.

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Ross  

I want to pick up on a couple of bits there. So this thinking of how to innovate faster is it looking with others, collaborating with others, so that we can learn from and so being open to share. Whereas historically, innovation was about gaining a competitive advantage. It was about building something internally, that then your R&D was maximized for a commercial activity because nobody else knew it or what you were doing. Whereas I think now that shifted a lot in terms of your advantage is to share more, to collaborate more. And when we talk about risk, the risk to take a new thing on and to innovate, is the equal risk of to do nothing. 

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Jason  

Absolutely.

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Ross  

I mean in a slow-moving world to do nothing, the knock-on effect of that is delayed. In a fast-paced world to do nothing is maybe an even higher risk for organizations and teams and individuals.

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Jason  

Absolutely, absolutely. So I have behind me the global goals, the 17 global goals. And my organization's mandate is aligned very closely to SDG9 Industrial Development, inclusive sustainable development. But my favorite goal is number 17 because 17 without that, without collaboration, without partnerships, without people accepting that you can step in and help others. I don't believe we've got any chance of achieving goals or even just fulfilling our day jobs in the next one to three years. It's such a pace. I mean, we'll come on to but I can give you again some specific examples of this from my own experiences as we go along.

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Ross  

And it's a different way of thinking, isn't it? From the traditional kind of transactional service, “Here's a brief, here's exactly what I'm looking for, can you meet those specs, and we'll engage”. To a partnership that's orientated around the result, “This is what we're looking for but we don't yet necessarily know how we're going to achieve it”.

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I remember the example of one of the first projects we were doing together. And it was a communications piece. And it was out to member states. And you were looking at introducing VR as a way to introduce the opportunity for member states to see the real work that's going on in remote areas. Which traditionally was through photographs and text be that in a brochure or a web. 

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Jason  

Yeah, yeah. 

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Ross  

And this sense of at the beginning, this sort of trepidation for breaking the norm, you know, to then “Oh, it's not a brochure or VR, isn't that something you experienced at the circus?”, to then having the courage to do it, put it in the hands and eyes of some of the member states to then just be blown away with how much that engaged them to be connected to that story and emotionally, that then led to positive outcomes. But it takes courage to do things differently, right?

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Jason  

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. No, that's a very good example that you picked up on there. I mean, I feel in that I was just a facilitator that I just allowed the team that I had around me to say, “Go ahead, take a risk. I believe in it”.

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Ross  

Yeah. And it was with partnerships.

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Jason  

Exactly it was in partnership with the donor, it was with the European Union. They were the ones who actually provided some of the funding and took the risk and said, “Let's do community. Let's try this in a talkative way”. We were working with one of the local universities here in Vienna, and also with the governments of Armenia, because that's the specific VR that we did, actually with some local farmers. We realized that just producing the local produce but if they came together more of a set conglomerate, that ultimately they could bring their goods to wider a distribution markets, etc.

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And it was a very interesting piece. And I think if we can just maybe, it might be interesting for people to listen to this and tell the full stories that from the project, from what we've done, from what been invested, we managed to show film, see, and actually sit and be with those people that we've supported. Seeing the outcome, so see the delivery of the actual goods to where it goes from, from the farm in this particular case, and then bringing that all the way back into a very formal General Conference, like the UN GA setting, member states of donors, etc. And then putting them on their goggles, and some of those very member states and turning and saying, “Can we do this on our projects?”, this is such a fascinating way, I can feel I can touch what's going on, I don't have to… Yes, it's nice to have my brochure, etc, but to really be fully embraced. 

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And if you recall, at the very end of it, we actually took it one step further and we organized for our member states to speak to the actual recipients of the support that had been given through our donor, the European Union, etc.

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Ross  

It's a great story, and I…

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Jason  

It is, it is yeah.

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Ross  

And I had two decades of brand and marketing stuff, I couldn't even imagine that kind of result from somebody reading a brochure, sometimes video really helps because you get that emotional connection of a storytelling for somebody going, “Ah I now feel a relationship with that entity, that person, that company, that family, and I'd like to meet or connect”. But just the immersive nature of that and for the UN, for many who aren't inside the system see it in a different eye, of whether it's advanced, not advanced, relevant, not relevant. But there's pockets of such innovations, such amazing work going on. And this challenge of being open to experimentation, being aware of maybe these new skills and these new opportunities, whether that's software as a system, or it's VR, it's a technological piece, or whether it's the way in which someone changed the ways they're thinking. I remember first introducing the concept of moonshot thinking, and to UNIDO and some of the executive leadership team there.

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Jason

And the Director-General himself. I still remember to the day, our Director General's quote, “I want to be one of those crazy people”. 

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Ross  

Exactly. 

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Jason  

I wanna take the risks.

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Ross  

So out of character. I'd been led to see this individual and this character through the eyes of the people that were around him. And I often, on my thigh bit here, it's actually on my mouse mat, and I'll read it out and it says, “Once destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things. I go with my eyes wide open, to unite, inspire and accelerate the best of all humanity”. And so I remember thinking about that, “Okay, I'm going in with my eyes open with this particular character”. And it was a big risk, you and I both took.

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Jason  

I was more nervous, than you were.

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Ross  

You were probably more nervous, I mean, you had more to lose, I guess you were inside there. I'm coming in. I had a bit of history of knowing how it has affected other clients that we'd work with in this particular fashion of driving innovation. And the concept of moonshot thinking, being crazy until it's a breakthrough. And a lot of this I got from Peter Diamandis and Singularity University and all of these areas. And introducing it into places where it's totally unexpected. 

And it could have gone a few ways, right? It could have been thrown out the room. And, we haven't talked again, or when, thankfully, in a way that's inspired, I think not just you, but many within your teams, to have a different mindset, to think very differently about how to deal with change, and how to invoke the type of change they want.

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So tell us a little bit about your experience in Vienna of the crisis, in terms of going to remote working as an organization and then coming back and how did the work that we were involved in, looking at adaptability dealing with those things of the teams. How did that impact you and your people in dealing with it?

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Jason  

Yeah we went into lockdown on the 16th of March. I'm here in Vienna, and it was done within a few, literally Friday was notified, by Monday you're working from home. And so to put that into context, we have five and a half thousand UN workers here in Vienna, we are in a compound and it’s a sealed-off compound. It is a number of UN agencies but of course...

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Ross  

Describe it a little bit for people who've never been inside what that looks like, you got five and a half thousand. And this doesn't look like your corporate environment.

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Jason  

Not at all. No, no. 

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Ross  

So give us what it looks like, what it feels like. 

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Jason  

Well okay yeah, we all have our own offices. And typically, your offices and your windows are almost attached as well to your seniority. So I sit here with five windows that is a slightly larger office than others.

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Ross  

It’s the corner office with the windows that people are getting into.

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Jason  

Yeah yeah, people fight for the corner one, because on the corner one, you're allowed to actually request for our logistical support to allow you to open a window. Yeah, this is a building that is a series of, I don't know how to describe but circular type buildings coming to…

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Ross  

Some sort of Horseshoe. 

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Jason 

Central rotunda with everybody basically having their own office. So you're taking people five and a half thousand from in their own office. And you know, your interaction in your office is a meeting. There's not a lot of…

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Ross  

Siloed meeting. And then everybody together in terms of the cafeteria? 

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Jason  

Yeah. 

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Ross  

And that's more open plan. But in terms of the general offices is an office with a door, knock, bow as you go in, come and sit, and have your meeting.

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Jason  

There is a strong element, we try and some of us more than others have tried. I know even actually the days of implementing the UGRP, I decided to introduce open plan for the first time in our organization. And people were asking me, “Why are you sitting with the implementing partner project manager?” and I said, “Because if I'm sat alone in my office I don't know what he's doing and he doesn't know what I'm doing and we need to speak”, and so I think…

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Ross  

And that’s given us a visual of the environment. So the call came in 16th, we're all working from home now. 

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Jason  

Once small as visual though is all the elevators are bright, the most brightest orange you could ever imagine. So you should wear sunglasses in the elevator. 

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Ross  

Maybe my yellow glasses. 

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Jason  

Lockdown scenario. So how are you going to get, you've got to of course adapt yourself in such a way of how are we going to communicate the team, with our clients, our clients are being internal project managers, Member States external. We would, this is the part of the year, perhaps my least favorite parts of the year. But anyway we have to do it, where we have to produce what we call banks, like statements for all of our member states, hundreds of them. And hundreds of them that are typically stamped, signed, officially sent to an embassy, going into things called pitch. 

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And also everything is about touch. It is people needing to speak, people need to leave things. So we have gone from that environment to suddenly we are wherever we are, in our apartments or houses, whatever. We've got kids around and stuff so we quickly put in place. Actually, within 24 hours of the lockdown, we in the Department of Finance have issued a set of standard operating procedures so that everybody had an understanding of how now you can operate.

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Ross  

Was that adapted from existing? Or was that created from scratch? 

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Jason  

Scratch. 

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Ross  

From scratch 24 hours, here's our new SOP's. Wow.

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Jason  

I mean, you have your foundation and that have you, but we decided because you asked me a question there us about how did we learn certain things about adapting and there were certain elements that we quickly said, “Let's use this opportunity to leverage some change”, to allow ourselves, hey are we work to adapt, but also importantly, our stakeholders how we interact with them. So we did do this. We took a few risks here and then.

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Ross  

You could write some new rules.

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Jason  

Yeah, yeah. I mean, this may not be something new to people who are listening in, particularly private sector. 

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Ross  

Certainly was for you guys.

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Jason  

Remember what I just said, official sale signatures. We move to complete electronic communication with all of our member states and the embassies. We move to something similar to a kind of a Dropbox type so that we were sending out statements where they could just pick them up. So official letters, statements, etc. 

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So we moved so quickly into that environment, we suddenly, we needed to engage with our internal stakeholders. So obvious things get Zoom up and running, start scheduling briefing sessions, team no longer communicate through formal email channels, telephone, etc. Move everything to social media type.

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Ross  

Platforms.

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Jason  

WhatsApp, Slack, whatever. So we quickly quickly moved into a different way of working, but also to keep ourselves engaged, also tracking what we were doing through COVID-19 in the lockdown, because you've also got to demonstrate your level of productivity. What is the impact, not just so also measuring that, we quickly put that in place, so that I can tell you now, it may not mean nothing to an external audience, but I know that my team was always doing 200 consistent tasks per week, on certain areas. So we also managed to collect a lot of data. 

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So very, very interesting period and I have been back here now in the office for near on six weeks. What have I noticed the benefit, two major things that we've managed to continue. And I have to thank my director for the support on this, that all electronic communication we will maintain with our members that will remain. 

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Ross  

So it wasn't just, “We have to do this because we can't do what we're used to”, you've now established a new and better way because of this.

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Jason  

In ours, the new normal is a good normal in certain areas. You know when people refer to post lockdown, there are some very, very positive things. The way that we interact with our colleagues, I mean no video conferencing, use of Zoom and other tools is now becoming by de facto of the norm. And they've done it much at a much quicker pace than sitting in a meeting room for two to three hours. Things are going into becoming much more, we're becoming much more results orientated and what we want to get out of those interactions. So I think a lot of positive things so far have been coming up. Our overall productivity as an organization has also not been, considering we are an agency that relies heavily on traveling. And of course, we're not traveling at the moment, our overall productivity is only 10% down or what it was 12 months ago, that is not so bad. When you're heavily reliant on a couple of hundred people getting on planes going out there to the countries and implement it, because they've all they put in new techniques. 

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Ross  

Yeah, do you think that's given people have permission to think differently, that it might be possible, that maybe I don't need to go there, I might choose to for other reasons to travel because of an added benefit of being in their physical. But for many of the situations, it's not a required necessity, if we can use technology to do that. And how many more things can we do? How many more people could we support, if we're not in that downtime of the travel?

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Jason  

And I think also, what we've moved into is an environment of much stronger trust. Trust with the people that surround us, to empower them to do and to get on with certain things. So this instance now, moving to introducing new tools so that our field operations can move much quicker giving, empowering them to do some of those things that you may well have relied upon in the past for somebody to fly in from Vienna or whatever. So yeah, overall coming out of it, I feel for my own personal area that I'm responsible for. If we used it is an opportunity and to break certain things, to change certain things and let that become in our eyes, the new normal in a positive sense. 

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Ross  

And when we see any event whatever it is good or bad, to look at it as a, instead of happened to us, but happened for us. And that gift to be able to allow new invention, new reimagination of things and almost like, it's very interesting, it was a small point. But on the SOP’s, in terms of your operating procedures, did you adapt and amend what was there? Or did you say “No, we're going to start from scratch”. What a difference that made in your thinking to say we're only putting in things now with the lens of what is needed not because it existed there before on paragraph one way.

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Jason  

What is critical now for your operations? What is essential? Strip out what’s not and wow, we could really maintain a level of not only productivity, but also bringing in certain innovation and not only are we adapting as an organization, but our stakeholders, member states having… I was having regular Zoom calls with member states to go through the statements that I've sent to them electronically. And they said, very openly when things come through the post and they go into, we are pigeonholed still, there's still these you know…

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Ross  

I read about it, Jason. Yeah, I read about them. I saw it in a black and white film one time. 

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Jason  

Yeah. Well, they're still here. 

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Ross  

Yeah. Yeah.

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Jason  

And people don't go to those, it's incredible. Small, small things here and there made a huge, huge positive impact, so yeah.

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Ross  

And I think the thing for our listeners to think about is, where is your pigeonhole? If we think about that as just a metaphor, that it's a thing that was helpful yesterday, in an era before. Whether that's a particular piece of software you have, a particular process you have or a particular mindset and belief that, “No, we can't collaborate with our competitor, because they're our competitor”. 

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And what difference would it make? If we said, “Oh no, that's pigeonhole thinking”, of post going into there, nobody uses that anymore. How radically different would that be if we looked for a partnership that co-elevated. Was that before a sense of weakness, and it was a sense of loss of control, to now it's an opportunity. And the only difference is the way we tell ourselves the story you know? And our mindsets of approaching that. 

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In terms of, the kind of tips for you in your role, and what you've done of embracing these, you've lived and breathed change programs for a long time. And you've built up incredible muscles of thinking of skills to be able to rally change, drive change, inspire change, ensure it's sustainable. And often you can't see it in yourself. But this balance that I've observed of you between, absolute clarity and direction for people to then openness, for collaboration of how they might solve something.

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And I think that's really strong leadership of the balance of knowing when somebody needs to go, “No, there's a fire, the exit is this way, we're not going to collaborate and decide 10 different ways. We're going out the building, we're going that way”. And other times, “Ah, there's a new thing here, we're gonna look at inventing it and collaborate there”.

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I think that's one key aspect is knowing the different dynamics of leadership in different change environments and circumstances are important. In terms of other tips that you might have of what you've seen in your own team or some of the, you've talked lots about the member states or other organizations. What things would you recommend or suggest people could do to help them adapt in this new, very fast-paced level of change?

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Jason  

When I look now at what we are trying to achieve, I haven't even, we haven't even spoke about this bit yet, this project we started was that, I really believe that you've got to set yourself a clear vision, you have to have, we talked in with us our moonshot. You’ve got to make sure that's beyond what you can touch. So it's something you really, really, really strive for. Get yourself on that, you'll find quickly that when you have that, because it is something that is what most people will aspire to, when you communicate. 

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Ross  

Must be compelling, it really…

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Jason  

You know, you gain momentum, you will have people that will want to join you on that journey. We see that in most things, when you're looking at when people set these aspirations. And the people that join you, you've got to give them some trust, you've got to give them some trust around you. You mentioned something before about giving a direction. You've got to do that as a leader, but you've got to also allow your team to embrace what is the end.

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Ross  

The squiggly route to there.

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Jason  

Yeah. You know I once saw, somebody show me something, and they called it the route sphere, and I had no clue but they showed this tree and these routes and I thought, what is this? We have processes and it goes like this and processes have, they follow a certain sequence. And they said, “A tree with its roots will always find a way. It'll always find a way to grow”. The difference is how do you plant that tree? Where do you want it to grow? So that's the thing that I learned from that aspect is that, you can tell people this is the direction and you go along it but you will not necessarily succeed and I think that gaining consensus and having a team around you, the trust in their own ability, they can have a trust in you to guide them. But also in the team members, you can make a major, major difference.

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That's the thing that that I feel that I would pass on to anybody is and where we are going now with the level of change that's coming at us for what we could perhaps absorb, you have to do that, collectively. You cannot sustain that on your own, or even on your own in teams, so that is the thing that I and today, one of my moonshots that I talked about after I work with you a few years ago. And when I came into finance, I kept that in my mind that and I'm linking it back to member states and efficiency saving differences. My vision, my moonshot is, in four years to five years from now, my entire reporting to our member states is tokenized on blockchain. Now, starting with that, now here today, we will hopefully in the next one, two months sign a partnership with some innovators from Germany, including the government. I don't pay for the software, it's open-source, because they want to collaborate with us. 

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Ross  

Exactly right.

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Jason  

So you're giving very, very specific examples to what you're referring to. But some of the things that you can, you find that by that collaboration, that there are like-minded people who do want to step in, who do want to support you, my vision, I believe will, I don't say will achieve for the four or five, but I'll still give it a go. But it's great to know now that not only within us here, within our ecosystem that going outside, bringing in additional partners, they want to support us. And how do we engage? How are we going to formalize this arrangement? Let's write a letter. You know, let's have a letter and we'll work together on it. 

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Ross  

It's so refreshing, isn't it? To a lot of organizations and companies that have been looked looking at how do they exploit the assets they currently have? How do they increase the value, time and curve for that? Which is different to what we're talking about here of imagining something that doesn't exist yet. And then that becomes a magnet and a beacon for people who care about that same thing, you can come with their capability to the course. 

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And that is a, for some, it's a really enriching, energizing experience. But on the same side, for others, that's incredibly scary and different and difficult. You know, those that can do this imagination stuff that allows this collaboration that with just a letter, you can get going whereas before, the amount of, “No, we need the specs, we need the protocol, we need everything lined up before we say yes”. 

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And how do those two worlds exist? Can they exist? Or do they need separate playgrounds, separate environments to thrive in a wider system of movement of all? What's your view on that kind of structure and organizational structure for radical innovation?

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Jason  

This is my very much own personal view is that I'm a believer that in order to, you should allow innovation to thrive, you should if, and I know this from experience. ERP, huge, bringing in an elephant, trying to get everybody on board, I said to you three, four, five years, you're still working with it. I'm a great believer that if you can isolate and let something thrive, let it grow, almost take it as if it's a startup, even within your organization. Let them not worry about the institutional structure, etc. And just give them that playground to work and to try and to see if something can. If it can, once you piloted it, you look, you bring it in, can I scale it? How can I scale it? Let's maybe target one group of team, one country, whatever, that so I would see that you take this from the seed. Let the seed grow. Let it have the confidence of knowing that…

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Ross  

Dream big, start small. And don't get hot head up about how to scale until you've even proved that the seed works.

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Jason  

Yeah, don't worry about that. Don't worry about it. And that's the conversation I had this morning when I run a workshop with our German counterparts. We agreed, let's just work together closely. Five people, that's it. Then we go here, then we go here and then eventually, you know.

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Ross  

It's that confidence. You have the courage, small little teams and it ripples out. I've got last couple of bits before we wrap up. And it kind of links to a lot of what we've been talking about of, I've been fascinated around innovation and adaptability for some time and what motivates different people to do that, to innovate to adapt. In terms of you as an individual or whether it's your team or organization, what is it that's driving that motivation to innovate and adapt? What is it for you?

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Jason  

I would say, I can talk on behalf of most of my colleagues, friends, acquaintances within my environment is for us, it's very clear that we want to make a difference. And that difference is something that's far-reaching and extremely positive. You don't leave the private sector or management consultancy because you're joining the UN to have a career of becoming a CEO or whatever. You come here because, you with a bunch of like minded people who really have certain things in their mind that they want to change. I have behind me the 17 goals, something that was adopted. These are the things that motivates us, these are the things that we strive towards, as individuals, as teams, as an organization. 

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Outside of the organization we see that there are people also have that same drive, we're moving, I hope, we're moving into a way of thinking in terms of more sustainable, we have to rethink even our economic models, we've seen that after what's going on in COVID-19. We have to rethink, we that's I mean we…

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Ross  

The collective.

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Jason  

Yeah. And interestingly, you know that you think you may want to make a difference, particularly within the UN Environment. But then you start reaching out to the private sector, there's a common theme across. And I think we all have that now that we've all reached a point now where we want to leverage what is there, whether it be through innovation, or our ability to adapt. But actually, we're striving for a common goal. Really, that's what I see at the moment. 

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Ross  

It's the moonshots. It's the global goal. It is the innovation and adapting that are just the roots.

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Jason  

And we might not achieve those by 2030. But I still think it's like a moonshot, it might be that we were shooting for 2050, but will be a dumb way along the line by 2032. Making and putting in place a lot of those changes for the next generations that are coming, because they…

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Ross  

But we've moved the needle. 

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Jason  

Yeah, exactly but significantly.

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Ross  

On the things that matter, significantly. 

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Jason  

Yeah. Hopefully.

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Ross  

That's great. And in terms of anyone who's listening, who hasn't come across UNIDO'S work, but they might be in their networks, in their connections that thinking, “Oh, I'm curious about that”, of what is it you actually do of supporting these developing countries that are evolving their industrial models. And you mentioned about the farmer, the cheese farmers and things and helping them scale.

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How can people engage with UNIDO that might never have done something like that. But are now curious, maybe a little bit interested? What's the routine? If any of our audience are curious to find out more, what's the best way? And I want to better answer, Jason than just visit our website, is there a specific bit in there that you can navigate with insider knowledge of where this is where you might need to start to see if it's relevant, and there might be an opportunity?

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Jason  

Sure. Yeah. I mean beyond visiting our website. 

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Ross  

Yeah, that's the traditional answer.

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Jason  

No, well we actually do have a partnership team, we have a partnership team that is actually in place, I'm assuming most of the audience out there may be coming from being startups, entrepreneurs, working in the private sector, etc. We have a partnership team in place that can explain how you can get yourself involved with us as an organization, and not only looking to work with us in industrial development, in terms of, you come and work along our side, but how we can then put you in contact as well with our beneficiaries that you might want to provide some support to.

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Ross  

There are some amazing capabilities in there of years and years worth of data and statistics. I remember back getting these big, fat, annual statistic books that you guys have been keeping for years and years and years. And all of these things that exist, whether it's capabilities, connections, Member States, there's a wealth of opportunity in there, it just takes some curiosity to go and have conversations and go and discover. 

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Jason  

Yeah, absolutely.

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Ross  

And from my experience, the collaborations, the removal of some of the red tape and barriers if you find the right people, you can get some stuff done. And that's exciting.

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Jason  

We have Ross, we have some very, very exciting partnerships that we've had in place with people in the private sector. And you’ll be very surprised from working with Volvo for a number of years working, working with Hewlett-Packard, working with illycaffè and all different types of areas and what have you from different levels. 

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And our role here as a specialized agency is, it's ultimately about creation of jobs, I would say. Green jobs so it's looking at doing things in a different way, because the industrialization can have some very negative connotations to those of us. Certainly people like myself born in Manchester from the first. You know it's a different world that we're operating in now.

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And so working with contacting us, reaching out to myself for example, I'm more than happy to pass on anybody it to our partnerships team. And they can give you some very specific ways that you can either work with us or not, but we can put you in contact with people in those countries that you may feel that you want to help and pass on some of your own expertise and your own knowledge that can help them, ultimately.

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Ross  

I think, the mandate just to wrap it up of creating jobs, there is a future of a huge requirement of that, as we all are transforming and transitioning where we need reskilling and upskilling to an entirely different world. And every industry, every organization is going to be feeling that pressure of the restructuring and how do they shift that and from my own personal experience of the UN, how I saw it before I went inside was different to then going inside. 

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And if I can encourage people to relook and help reimagine, and under the guise of partnerships, I'm certainly looking forward to us continuing Jason and some great things can be achieved. And if we move UNIDO, each person just a little bit, the end result will be significant. 

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Jason  

Absolutely. Yeah. 

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Ross  

It's been a real pleasure.

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Jason  

Thank you. Thanks a lot, Ross.

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Ross  

Thank you. Bye bye. 

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Voiceover  

Do you have the level of adaptability to survive and thrive in the rapid changes ahead? Has your resilience got more comeback than a yo-yo? Do you have the ability to unlearn in order to reskill, upskill, and break through? Find out today and uncover your adaptability profile and score your AQ visit "AQai.io" To gain your personalized report across 15 scientifically validated dimensions of adaptability for limited time enter code "Podcast65" for a complimentary AQ me assessment. AQ AI transforming the way people, teams, and organizations navigate change.

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Outro

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