The Systems Innovator

Danny Davis, Managing Director of LINK Community & Transport, is a systemic innovator, champion of Enhanced Governance for Creation of Sustained Financial and Social Value, and believer that better practices in better organisations can lead to positive human outcomes for real people. He is this week’s Changemaker.

A self-made career as successful technology entrepreneur, building a high-growth $30m IT business seems a strange entry point to social sector leadership. But Danny’s journey has been rich and varied and given him a huge pallet of skills to draw on. He’s making good use of these skills now.

Following selling off his own company, Danny provided innovation focused executive mentoring and change implementation projects for entrepreneurial CEOs, government executives and innovation investment advisory to the boards of some of Australia’s largest companies. Danny’s thought leadership and advisory helped to accelerate positive systemic change in large complex organisations, and across complex networks of organisations in the private, government and community sector.

Having been brought in by an ASX titan as “the recognised global expert in the cross-over between innovation and governance” around their $20Bn investment in a portfolio of transformational change, Danny decided to undertake his own PhD research to give greater rigour to his thinking and advice.

The practices he developed in his research champion the idea of “Future Fiduciary”, being the ability for boards to engage and assure the question “Are we optimally invested in our own future?”

This work shows boards how to lead a culture of continuous systemic high-performance innovation. It shows how Governance of Sustained Value Creation enables a board to lead the development of the capacity for an organisation to accelerate their financial and non-financial value creation (social, environmental, etc) sustained over the longer term. 

The practice enables government to apply stewardship principles to determine the multi-factor social impact of activity happening across a diverse sector, and to guide and influence that to better achieve determined social and economic outcomes.

Danny serves as Visiting Fellow at the University of Technology Sydney, Institute of Public Policy and Governance, and as an Australian representative on development of International ISO Standards for corporate governance, IT Governance, AI Governance, Cybersecurity, and Systemic Innovation. 

He tells us that he gets the biggest buzz out of the practical application of these skills in the real world.

How did you get into the job you’re in now?

I was initially recruited onto LINK’s board as an agent of change. Directors at the time recognised there were significant shifts happening in the sector, and not enough skills around the table to drive the necessary response. As the board engaged the issues confronting the sector, I took on the mantle as Chair, and helped focus the team on the potential ahead of us. 

The board developed high aspirations for LINK. We knew what community needed from us, and the huge value of the public asset that had been built by prior generations of LINK’s leadership. We recognised our role of stewards of this magnificent asset and public purpose and felt the weight of responsibility to do the best we could to take that further.

The board could see that we were ideally positioned to make a significant impact on how supporting community services were conceived, accessed and delivered to improve the wellbeing of vulnerable people living in their own homes – as a response to large-scale Care at Home Strategies coming out of Aged, Disability and Health Care programs.

But, faced with the reality of a series of CEOs who couldn’t or wouldn’t deliver on the board’s vision, we were faced with a stark decision – to give up on the goals, or double down on its delivery. We chose the latter.

As a result, I stepped forward earlier this year to take hands on leadership as Managing Director to transform the organisation and maximise its ability to achieve its potential.

 What does a typical day look like for you? 

Every day involves driving transformational change for the organisation on all levels – both within the organisation, with its partners and collaborators, and across the sector.

This can involve working with Ministers and senior bureaucrats across Departments at Commonwealth, State and Local Government, through to cultivating change in grassroots behaviours and communications with clients and volunteers. In parallel, we’re driving a raft of technology upgrades, service offerings and team growth leaving no part of the organisation untouched.

No part of the organisation gets to stop its continuous learning and continuous improvement. We are all working to improve our maturity of practice in everything we do. We use every step we take to discover, share and drive improvements. Every day. 

What was a run-of-the-mill NFP culture has reawakened to feel like a thriving start-up. There is a tangible buzz in the organisation, as people learn and teach, and gather spontaneously in small groups to find solutions to client problems and develop better ways of working. Everyone is looking after everyone else, contributing ideas, and sharing solutions.

It means that my days can be unstructured, as I respond and participate in these groups where they need to escalate complex issues, seek guidance, and to re-enforce the application of organisational principles to specific challenges.

I also get to set the example in how I treat people and respond to issues and demonstrate by my behaviour how others can work within the culture. I get to lead the outreach to our clients and partners in service delivery to demonstrate LINK’s newfound flexibility and commitment to find new ways to bring value to community.

LINK operates in a sector that needs significant innovation and change. We can’t meet client needs by doing things the same, and we have demonstrated time and again that LINK is willing to step up as a valuable and innovative partner and participant in that change. And we’re not shy of getting on the front foot to describe and demonstrate what that innovative change can look like.

Living that attitude and setting that culture pretty much dictates what my days look like.

What are some of the challenges working in NFPs generally?

Sadly, the not-for-profit sector frequently comes with lack of expectation about what is possible. People don’t necessarily understand that you need to drive your own change. We often find that people, and organisations, who have been in the sector for a long time have attitudes and expectations that change is not possible and shouldn’t be tried.

But NFP organisations need to come to terms with the fact that they are not immune to the massive change that is happening in the world. 

Society is changing. Systems, governments, communities and generations are changing. The clients we deal with, and their families are changing. They are part of a new world of behaviours. If anything COVID accelerated that change and broke down old patterns of behaviours. Its up to us to set new patterns on community sector response that have their place in a modern and moving society.

Other sectors are much more aware of the use of disruptive thinking, transformational methods and improved ways of working. We need to follow suit. 

LINK is finding that our younger employees are delighted to discover their place in an environment that has an open and innovative attitude at its core. And, mostly our older employees, while they are more likely to find it surprising, are enthusiastic to come on board and find their mojo for rejuvenation.

Another problem in the sector is fragmentation and silos. Most NFP organisations have designed themselves to response to one or two funding programs. And that’s what they do. It means they answer the phones to clients with “Hello, are you eligible for the funding we administer? No, sorry, goodbye”.  Without meaning to, this unspoken organisational design sends clients from place to place to place trying to find services and support. And the organisations don’t even know they are doing it. I refer to it as “the ghost in the machine”.

The future needs to be a more integrated service where we are responding to client needs. It means that NFP organisations will need to learn to work more closely with each other, as I put it inside LINK, we are “embracing the complexity” so the client doesn’t have to.

What is your proudest achievement?

I’m hugely proud of the transformation we’ve seen in LINK already. We’ve moved from a traditional NFP to express a more intimate client directed experience. We’ve rebuilt a fantastic team coming out of COVID lockdowns where client value comes first.

It’s expressed in the way services are designed. In how we communicate. In how we behave. And, in how we work with partner organisations. We’ve brought the energy and good will of a startup to focus on the wellbeing of individual clients and community as a whole. And the buzz and the enthusiasm is electric.

The change is embodied in our change of name. LINK Community Transport changed its name to become LINK Community & Transport – opening us up to a wide world of client care and community activation.

LINK has become a joyful place to work and this is reflected in the clients’ experience. 

It’s fabulous to see the faces of clients enjoying their interactions with us every day. And, its great to see the faces of interns and volunteers and long term LINK staff as we make real positive impact on people’s lives.

We’ve built a team that shares a view of client wellbeing and is willing to take an active part in that journey.

What do you think are some of the challenges being faced by the sector going forward?

Change in the sector is only just starting. There is a long journey to go. 

Change is going to be a constant… and many parts of the sector are going to struggle to reinvent themselves to find their niche in the operations of new systems, and to stay relevant to clients and community.

Organisations are going to have to tackle financial pressures, systems and technology, and changing patterns of service and quality care. It’s not going to be a smooth ride, and merely responding to the dictates of a single funding program as it is rolled out is not going to be enough. Organisations are going to have to get themselves ahead of the curve. 

Like LINK has done, they will need to know where they are going, and what their meaningful and valuable purpose is within changing echo systems.

Part of this challenge will be to embrace a new era of honest and open purposeful collaboration with other players in the system – responding together to this inevitable change.

What do you do when you’re not at work?

I love the creativity of cooking and the joy of participating in my own little community. 

When I’m not at work I’m likely as not to be hosting open house dinners along with my family – fuelling a house full of happy noisy people, feeding them and sharing in their lives and experiences.

What do you want to achieve by the time you retire?

Right now there is a huge opportunity to making a significant difference in the way society engages and supports older people. I don’t think it is a journey that will be finished in my lifetime, but I think we can make significant inroads in the short term.

The large systems of Aged Care, Disability Care and Health Care are in flux right now. The patterns of behaviour we put in place together today will have a huge influence on how this operates into the future.

I’m enjoying the process of laying down the foundations of this future at LINK, and seeing the early wins come through. There is much more to do. Much more fun to be had.