In July, I had the privilege of sitting down to interview Lynn Warneke. At the time of interview Lynn Warneke was the Deputy Chief Digital Officer and Executive Director Channels & Platforms at Deakin University, working at the nexus of digital and emerging technologies, business transformation, and customer experience.
Lynn designed and advanced Deakin’s technology-enabled transformation agenda across three interlinked strategic domains of Smart Campus, Digital Experience Innovation, and Foundation Enabler Platforms. Her Smart Campus strategy and roadmap won Deakin a 2017 place in the Digital Edge 50, honouring just fifty organisations globally for significant and complex digital transformation initiatives.
In 2018 Deakin once again made this prestigious list for Genie, the University’s new AI-enabled virtual assistant for all 58,000+ students. Lynn has had a long and successful career in technology and related fields, across a wide range of organisations and industry sectors. In August she takes up the role of CIO at the Victorian Department of Premier & Cabinet.
Matthew Cossens (MC) – Tell us about yourself, who is Lynn?
Lynn Warneke (LW) – Let’s leave the personal out, and go straight to the professional Lynn: currently (though for not much longer) I have an exciting role at Deakin University where my remit includes working with emerging technologies to engage and help educate the next generation of digital students.
Before that I’ve had a long and pretty successful career across IT and Digital - long before we called it ‘Digital’, when it was still Web and Online. I’ve worked over my career in a wide range of sectors from Banking and Finance, Professional Services, to Publishing, Media and now Education. I’ve worked in a huge range of organisations over that time as well, from tech startup to major enterprise.
One of the defining characteristics of my career of the last 10-15 years has been working with organisations that have been experiencing some sort of profound digital disruption. You could say everyone is now, but back in the day when I was in publishing it was the early stages of digital disruption – that’s an experience I have really valued and enjoyed.
Having been described as such by a colleague I sometimes think of myself as a bit of a ‘rare bird’ for a couple of reasons:
‘Rare’ because I am still one of too few women in leadership in ICT – although I think we have seen some positive signs of change there, which is great.
And ‘rare’ because while I work in the technology sector, my particular interests and skills have always been around the human aspect of technology: user experience has always been a focus of my work, long before it has the currency it has today.
(MC) – You’ve touched on this briefly, but can you talk us through what you are working on at the moment? I understand there may be some confidentiality about some of the things you are working on but you can talk to us about some of the products you are working on at Deakin and what is exciting?
(LW) – Actually, you have caught me in transition. At the moment I’m working on handing over to my staff, in advance of my imminent departure from Deakin. I’m moving on to the role of CIO and Director of Corporate Operations at the Department of Premier and Cabinet (DPC).
However, the exciting work I have been doing at Deakin, particularly over the last couple of years, includes:
1) Working with a virtual smart personal assistant (Deakin Genie) which has just launched this year and is currently being rolled out in Trimester 2 to all of our 58,000+ students and counting. That’s certainly exciting. There is a lot of work going on, not only to ensure a robust launch to that massive population but also to continue to enhance and develop Genie and its Artificial Intelligence (AI) engine.
2) On another front the team is working in our Smart Campus (IoT) domain, which is a large scale strategic framework that I’ve developed, essentially ‘digitising our physical campus environment’ to improve the experience for all campus users. We’ve just launched Deakin Scout which is our proximity-aware and location enhanced wayfinding experience on campus. In addition to guided wayfinding both outdoors and indoors inside our complex building environment across our 4 campuses, Scout will also offer heatmaps of quiet and busy spaces on campus, location-aware push notifications to your phone, (depending on zones you are in) and areas of interest you have subscribed to as a user.
These are the two big products that we are launching now in 2018, just as I say farewell to Deakin!
Deakin Genie
Deakin Scout
In due course, as part of the products’ roadmaps, Deakin will look at how to bring the two apps’ functionality together, with Genie becoming the primary focus to deliver an end to end, digitally enabled experience for all our students throughout their life at Deakin. While Scout functionality will be incorporated into Genie in due course for Deakin students, I expect a public version of Scout will remain available for other campus users and visitors.
MC – Certainly a big differentiator for the sector, from what I have seen in the market
LW – Very much so! And we have had some fantastic feedback from students. For example, one student told us that he had studied at 3 different universities over the course of his education and Genie is by far the best university app that he has ever used. While we are delivering as intended, offering real value early on, we have big plans for growing Genie’s functionality and features over time.
MC – You’ve also won many awards already, very exciting indeed! So looking at yourself personally, what habits or rituals do you think drive your success?
LW – I probably have the somewhat unconscious or instinctive habits of kindness and authenticity. I hope that doesn’t sound too affected, but those two characteristics are really important to me as a leader. But that’s an interesting question because, otherwise, I would consider myself ‘anti-habit’.
MC – Interesting…
LW – I am very predisposed to change by nature and I do chafe at routine. I know what you are getting at with the reference to ‘rituals’ but I probably recoil a bit at the word ‘habit’. In all seriousness though, I think my predisposition to change has been a good thing in this role at Deakin and over my career.
What’s that saying? Drive the change or the change will drive you. I like to be a driver of change. So not a creature of habit.
MC – Could that be a habit in itself though? The whole change piece or comfort with change? I find a lot of people have change fatigue and recently have had many conversations with leaders about change fatigue. I think there are people like yourself who don’t fatigue quickly from a change perspective or indeed look for change?
LW – That’s an interesting insight
MC – Just my two cents that I have been thinking about recently about those comfortable with change vs those who aren’t. Is it that they are not comfortable with change or do they just fatigue quickly? (In a heavy change environment)
LW – Or is it something to do with the scale and the speed of change that we are all experiencing currently? It’s true I have my moments, as we all do, as we seem to reel from massive social change to major technology disruption. In terms of being change ready or comfortable with change, I’d say some of that probably also comes with having ownership and the ability to actually drive change.
I think these are really important and profound questions when you are responsible for leading a change or a digital transformation agenda. Leading change involves requiring change of others. Being aware of people’s change fatigue and readiness, and getting the speed right, is a critical leadership quality today.
But for myself both personally and professionally – I like a lot of change!
MC – That’s good. What would you consider your most significant career accomplishments? We have spoken about Deakin and the journey and you have had a long career prior to that, what do you think is the most significant?
LW – It’s not just because it is my most recent, but has to be my time at Deakin. And specifically in that period, whilst I am very, very proud of the tangible products that I have talked to you about, the one thing I immediately think of when you ask me that question Matt is the extraordinary team that I have built here. Very high performing, multi-disciplinary, incredibly engaged and committed. That’s what has enabled us, as a collective, to deliver this outstanding transformation outcomes. Overall that focus we have had as a group on ‘experience’ over technology or product. That’s what I am proudest of, that team, my biggest career achievement to date.
MC – Fantastic. Looking now at sacrifices; what sacrifices have you made, or have had to make to be a successful leader?
LW – Umm, I’ve never done canteen duty at my kids school?! In all seriousness, sacrifice is one of those words (like habit) that I am probably reacting to because I think I have been extraordinarily lucky and privileged in my career, and I think it is important for me to acknowledge the privilege I have had. ‘Sacrifice’ – that’s a big word and I don’t think I have had to sacrifice a great deal to reach this point in my career. I’ve had to work extremely hard of course, but many of us do. I’ll turn it around and not quite answer your question by saying it comes back to our conversation about habit and kindness/authenticity. Recognising the luck and the privilege that I have had, it is important to me to practice gratitude and to create space as much as possible for other people to also succeed. So it hasn’t been a sacrifice when I look at it that way, its actually been extraordinary.
MC – I love that mindset, that’s great. I know you have touched on your team and I don’t want to lead your answer here but to what do you attribute your success? If I can pull the team out of it as I know it is going to be a huge part of your response.
LW – Do you have to? It has to be people! That’s absolutely my focus, you’re not leading me at all. It really is and I don’t know how to answer you with anything else! I talked earlier about the focus I have had as a practitioner on customer experience and delivering experience over product or platform, and that’s also true for the way I try to work as a leader. I focus on people more than outcomes and structure. Getting the balance right is important.
Another really critical career success factor has been networking, building and maintaining professional networks and relationships. And recognising that it’s a two-way exchange. Putting the effort in when called on to speak on leadership, or to mentor up-and-comers and younger women is also important.
Sorry Matt, it’s all a variation on people.
MC – So true, so true. What’s the biggest lesson then that you have learnt either professionally or personally?
LW – It’s a philosophical lesson – it’s to back myself, to trust my capability and be confident that I can do it, whatever ‘it’ might be.
MC – looking at inspiration then, who is your biggest inspiration? Or a group of people that inspire you?
LW – I always struggle with these questions when I have to focus on just one or two. I have such a broad range of influences and inspiration. So I’m going to be really corny and just say my kids, groan.
MC – nothing corny about that!
LW – No? Good, well thank you!
MC – very acceptable answer 😊
LW – I have two mid-teenage children, a son and a daughter, and they inspire me in very real ways in the work that I do. I joke that I have given birth to a couple of digital natives of my own, very good for primary research purposes; but watching them navigate this Brave New World has been really inspiring. Watching them navigate the world of education, now secondary, soon to be tertiary for my son (presumably). Watching them deal with some of the big social movements and change we have talked about already has been incredibly insightful and inspiring. Watching them having to deal with massive change to the future of work – that arguably you and I don’t have to contemplate – at their age has been an ongoing exercise in inspiration. That is really corny but it is true.
MC – I think there is so much you can learn from your kids. It is a different world we are living in these days!
LW – Yours are younger and will be even more steeped in digital…
MC – It’s crazy. My youngest from the age of 2-3 could play with a phone or tablet, find what she needed to do and now everything is digital. It is such a different world (to ours growing up). I’d like to think I am closer to being a digital native (not quite) but equally it’s a different level of mindset.
LW – Mindset yes, my daughter is a bit older than your girls but watching her work through the social media context, friendships and relationships and online bullying … everything that is playing out in the media is playing out around my dining table on a regular basis!
MC – Excluding the company you work for at the moment, what companies do you look to as a benchmark or a source of inspiration?
LW – There is no one in particular, but I admire a number that inspire me for different reasons.
I’m attracted to businesses that are galvanised by a purposeful mission. Businesses like:
Work180 (https://www.work180.com.au/) – a digital job board with a difference. Founded by a couple of fantastic young women, Gemma Lloyd and Valeria Ignatieva. They had some venture capital from Kim Jackson, the wife of one of the Atlassian founders, who has been in the media recently having started her own VC business. Also admirable, love to see women making it in traditionally male-dominated industries. Anyway, Work180 pre-screen all of the employers that want to advertise on their jobs board for things like parental leave, family friendly work practices, flexible workplaces and other criteria. It’s only when the employer meets their benchmarks that they come onto the site. As somebody looking for work you can go onto that job board and know that you are searching for jobs across employers that are guaranteed to offer the flexibility that we know women, and increasingly all millennials and younger generations, are looking for in their working life.
I admire others for what they stand for on key matters that are important to me.
Atlassian are rightly often cited for the business they are and what the founders have achieved, their success on a global scale. But I admire how they are tackling the diversity issue in a visible and meaningful way. Along those lines, Mike Cannon-Brookes did a TED talk on the Imposter Syndrome…
MC – I haven’t seen that particular TED Talk.
LW – It’s brilliant! Successful women will sometimes confess to feeling like a fraud and talk about the impact of the imposter syndrome, so it’s brilliant when men – and men at that level, with the visibility and reputation of someone like Mike – get up and speak authentically on the subject from their own experience. That’s one of the reasons I admire Atlassian.
I’m also interested more broadly in the emergence of ‘platforms and marketplace’ businesses.
Apple of course is the stand-out there, but Envato (https://envato.com/) is another great example, and what Melanie Perkins has achieved globally with her local start-up success story Canva (https://www.canva.com/en_au/) is very admirable.
MC – if you could meet one person in history who would it be and why?
LW – Because I just read Julia Baird’s amazing book (Victoria: The Queen: An Intimate Biography of the Woman Who Ruled an Empire), I’ll say Queen Victoria. Not a subject I would normally read an entire non-fiction book about, but Julia Baird is an incredible writer and I try to read everything that she produces. So yes, I’ll say that I would like to meet Queen Victoria – not because I’m interested in queens or that era of history necessarily, but to explore why Victoria was on public record as saying that women are not suited to public life or a public role, and yet spent several decades in that position herself.
MC – as the longest reigning monarch!
LW – Exactly! Demanding an influential place in the world for herself. That’s a dichotomy that I would be interested to unpack – of course, if Queen Victoria would to speak to me, which I very much doubt.
MC – Looking at books, what’s either you favourite business related book or just favourite book of all time?
LW – That’s like asking me to choose a favourite child Matt! 😊 I just can’t, it’s impossible. I am a voracious reader and I can’t pick a favourite. It changes overtime, anyway.
I primarily read literary fiction. I know that these days we are all supposed to read inspiring non-fiction, business books particularly, but I think fiction has taught me an enormous amount, particularly about people. Fiction has built my emotional intelligence and empathy, and collectively all those novels have made me understand – much more than any non-fiction book I have read – how people behave and interact, and what motivates and drives different people.
In the business sphere I read more articles than I do books, but one book I found inspiring when I first read it, and I come back to, is Simon Sinek’s Start With Why. I do come back to his ‘golden circle’ a lot. If you are looking for a concentrated dose of inspiration he has a recent book out (2016) called Together Is Better, A Little Book of Inspiration. It’s quirky but has some interesting messages and one in particular that resonates (which I realise now has been a theme of our conversation today) is that real human relationships really matter, in the professional sphere as well as the personal.
I will also give a shout out to one I am reading now, called I Am The Problem (a confronting title?) by a local success story and female leader, Soozey Johnson (http://iamtheproblem.com.au/). She has some interesting insights, now that I think about it Matt, into ‘habits’ along with many other things that both constrain and enable good leadership. Highly recommended.
MC – If you had a chance to start over your career, what would you do differently?
LW – The answer to this relates back to the question about my biggest learning. I think of myself as a late bloomer to be honest, and I took far too long to back myself! To believe in my capabilities and to allow myself to have ambition. To be fair, that probably wasn’t all that usual an expectation for young women, when I was coming up through my early-stage career. But one thing I would do differently if I could is acknowledge that ambition much earlier and allow it to breathe. Self-confidence and self-belief are key things that I am trying to instill not only in my children (and my daughter particularly) but also my team and other young women that I see from time to time suffering from the self-editing and lack of confidence that I also suffered from early in my career.
MC – If you were conducting the interview what question would you ask yourself?
LW – This is a really interesting question. I’ll go a bit dark with: “What keeps you awake at night?”
It’s not necessarily a bad thing, that keeps me awake due to worry, but what keeps me awake at night is thinking as far ahead as I can about where all this change, these ongoing waves of tech disruption are taking us. Looking at areas like the future of work – what is the future of work in the near term, the timeframe of my kids’ careers? What are some of the big social changes we are going to see as a result of “digital everything”? AI infusing our workplaces and our societies? I give a lot of thought to that, sometimes even in the middle of the night.
MC – certainly an interesting time ahead. I wanted to have a chat with you if we have time around diversity and how we attract more females to the STEM area? How do we grow and develop in this space? It’s an area I am passionate about as a male and I believe it should be on everyone’s agenda. As a strong female leader in IT how do you think we can improve, or go on the journey. How do we address this glaring issue?
LW – It’s one of the biggest questions of our time. We face key issue around equality, equity and diversity and not just gender but all forms of diversity. But gender is a very glaring issue as you rightly point out. I think it’s a big and complex question and issue…
MC – …Indeed a question we could discuss all day.
LW – Yes we could! I think it requires attention at all stages of the employee lifecycle. In fact one of the things I have been working on at Deakin, and I am handing over now, is a plan for greater diversity, with an initial focus on gender equity for eSolutions. But that is in the context of some truly great work Deakin has done as a whole, across the equity and diversity spectrum. My work is focused on a plan for eSolutions, and it’s been looking at broadly 3 stages in the employee lifecycle. From attraction and recruitment, to retention, and through to reward and remuneration. There is work that can be done at each phase. We talk a lot about younger women coming through, the ‘attraction and recruitment’ phase, and how to start early, building young girls’ interest in STEM fields and mitigating the unfortunate stereotypes that have grown around IT being geeky, unattractive, and very, very male which can be off-putting to young women.
But other than the pipeline, there are many different activities and initiatives which can be considered at other stages of the employee lifecycle. We know that women leave the IT industry at double the rate of men. So there is work to be done in retaining talent, at all levels of the organizational hierarchy, including reward/remuneration – and not just equal pay, but how we identify leadership potential and promote it in a more equitable way.
The overall issue is complex but what I have tried to do in the Deakin eSolutions plan is break it down into a series of tangible actions that we can start now. I attend a lot of diversity forums, breakfasts and meetings and I hear over and over again a variation on the theme that ‘this is a marathon and not a sprint’. Perhaps I would have to agree with that overall, on the evidence, but can be off-putting for those of us who are not marathon runners! I wouldn’t mind a bit of a sprint occasionally! I hope we don’t inadvertently disempower or demoralize those of us seeking reasonable change at a reasonable pace by giving too much of an airing to this notion that we have a long, long haul ahead of us, and we can’t really expect substantial change in our lifetime. I prefer to be optimistic that big change is possible and that’s something to aspire to; let’s not get too satisfied with ‘small’ incremental changes.
I also want to acknowledge both you Matt, and the team at Aurec, because one of the elephants in the room in gender diversity in IT is the recruitment industry. I think it’s brilliant when recruitment firms, such as yours, really tackle this issue in a meaningful way. It’s one thing to pursue gender diversity within organisations, but for those of us who rely on recruitment firms/headhunters, if we are not seeing engagement with the issue from our partners then that is a constant drag on progress.
MC – Thank you, I totally agree with the need to sprint, in the marathon. I don’t think it is one or the other but a mix of the two and about creating momentum. On our side of the coin, its more than just advocating diversity. It’s picking up on both the big and little things particularly in the technology sector. The team and I just last week were talking about taking job briefs and picking up small things like language. Constant use of the word he. He will have this, he will have that. And challenging our clients. Are you only looking for a male? And of course they are not. They are unaware of their language and often embarrassed when it is called out (but it brings about change of thinking) and equally they are all looking for diversity in their teams. But when you point out the language or the unconscious bias it is quite powerful and opens the right types of conversation and can start a change. It seems ‘small’ but little things like that can snowball particularly if that kind of unconscious bias is occurring around the boardroom table!
LW – Yes, that’s great! And they are examples of the things we call ‘small’, but they’re extremely powerful indicators of change. You’ve talked about unconscious bias and many companies are doing awareness training and work in that area, which is a good thing. But there are many other things that need to be done.
MC – Certainly! It’s about actions and not just words. I’ve also sat in some breakfasts and events that have been great but the thing that frustrates me is there is a lot of talk and I think we need a lot of talk and advocacy (and conversations) but I enjoyed the last event I went through by Deakin Prime with Anelli Blundell which really spoke to actions and not words and what can we actually execute on and create momentum. The conversation is important but I don’t think we want to be sitting in a year in the same position because we have actioned anything! So I love that you have a clear plan for Deakin and moving forward.
LW – Yes, exactly. I will give a call out at this point to a foundation that I am a committee member of, called #TechDiversity. The founders initiated an annual awards program to highlight achievements in diversity and inclusion initiatives – in fact we are in awards mode right now, calling for nominations. What we are driven by is not just the handing out of awards for action and achievement, but we are about building an evidence base and gallery of initiatives, success ‘stories’ that can help organisations who do want to get started, but don’t quite know where to begin or don’t know what type of initiatives can work or have worked. One of the requirements of submitting is that you allow your submission to be published on the #TechDiversity website (https://techdiversityawards.com/) so that others can read and learn by example. I think that is a really powerful resource, and acknowledgement of achievement that matters. I’m all for awards, since they help build awareness and buy-in to the journey towards greater workplace diversity.
MC – Thanks very much for your time Lynn, I really appreciate it.
LW – Thank you Matt.
#leadershipseries #leadership #womeninleadership #motivation #success #digital #digitaltransformation #emergingtech
This article is originally published at www.matthewcossens.com/blog/
Subscribe to our newsletter and regular updates at www.matthewcossens.com/
Follow me and engage on LinkedIn at
Or follow the Facebook page at:
Comments