Leading Excellence in Innovation: Deliberate Optimism Creates Value

Leading Excellence in Innovation:  Deliberate optimism turns possibility into value
A commentary by Victor Perton

“Deliberate optimism.”

That is the inscription on a pen carried by Dona Tantirimudalige, the new Chair of Intelligent Water Networks. It was a gift from her brother-in-law and a fitting symbol for the 2026 IWN Members Conference.

Jason Cotton, IWN’s Program Director, reinforced the organisation’s recognition of optimism when he introduced me to chair “Leading Excellence in Innovation”. He spoke of optimism as underpinning innovation and invention, and sustaining the resilience and persistence needed to carry promising ideas through setbacks and into practice.

Jo Murdoch, the retiring Chair of Intelligent Water Networks and Managing Director of North East Water, then gave that connection memorable expression:

“Excellence and innovation start with optimism. If we are not optimistic about the future, then you can forget about being innovative.”

The transition from Jo to Dona carried a fitting continuity: optimism as both the foundation for innovation and a deliberate leadership practice.

It also confirmed that optimism was not simply a theme I brought to the conference. Intelligent Water Networks recognises its practical value. Innovation rarely travels in a straight line. It requires people who can face reality, remain curious, learn, adapt and persist. It requires infectiously optimistic leaders who help others see possibility and find the confidence to have a go.

The panel featured Jo Murdoch; Shaun Cumming, Managing Director of Barwon Water; Damian Wells, Managing Director of Coliban Water; Dr Dale Andrea, General Manager, Service Futures at Yarra Valley Water; and Nick Mumford, Executive Manager, Infrastructure at GWMWater.

Each brought a different perspective, but together they offered a practical account of how optimistic leaders create the conditions for innovation, carry people through uncertainty and turn promising ideas into operational and customer value.

Jo Murdoch: Optimism opens the future

Jo’s declaration that excellence and innovation start with optimism was more than an encouraging opening line. It identified the mindset that enables innovation.

True optimism faces reality, sees possibility and strengthens action. It does not pretend that every idea will work or that every challenge will be easily overcome. It gives us the confidence to examine reality honestly while continuing to ask: What could be improved? What could we do differently? What capability do we already have? What is now possible?

The water sector faces real pressures, including climate change, population growth, ageing infrastructure, financial constraints, customer hardship, contaminants of concern and rapidly changing technology. True optimism neither denies nor diminishes them. It helps people see that difficulty is not destiny and that practical action can create a better future.

Jo illustrated this through North East Water’s approach to transforming its largest wastewater treatment plant in Wodonga into a resource recovery hub.  Instead of treating a conventional upgrade as the only option, its people looked for opportunities to recover energy, reduce emissions, make better use of biosolids and prepare for future growth.

The possibilities emerged largely from operational people who understood the site and asked why it had to be done the usual way when a different approach could create greater value.

That is the leadership significance of Jo’s words. Optimism does not provide every answer. It creates the belief that better answers can be found and gives people permission to look for them.

This is also why optimistic leadership can become infectious. When leaders display genuine belief in their people, remain curious when something goes wrong and give others permission to explore, that optimism spreads. People become more willing to contribute ideas, test assumptions, learn from setbacks and encourage one another.

Shaun Cumming: Innovation is an investment in value

When budgets are tight, innovation can be treated as an optional extra. Shaun Cumming offered a better formulation:

“Innovation is an investment in value, not a cost.”

That distinction matters.

A narrow focus on immediate cost can discourage experimentation and lock organisations into existing systems, even when those systems will become more expensive or less effective over time. Strategic leadership considers not only the cost of trying something new, but also the cost of standing still.

Water corporations manage far more than a water cycle. They interact with cycles of energy, organics, nutrients, nature and data. Enormous value passes through their systems every day. Innovation helps us recognise, capture and share more of that value.

Shaun pointed to Barwon Water’s work on heat from sewers, renewable organics networks, biochar and artificial intelligence. These are not isolated technological curiosities. They are ways of connecting environmental purpose, customer value, organisational productivity and new sources of income.

Shaun also raised the importance of “strategic courage”. Constraints can inhibit innovation, but they can also force it. Tight guardrails may require people to think differently and find better ways of delivering value.

His metaphor of dormant seeds was especially powerful. At a restored site, regeneration can emerge from seeds already present in the soil. In the same way, leaders do not need to originate every innovative idea. Their role is to establish the conditions in which the ideas, knowledge and creativity already present among their people can grow.

Shaun described this as “360-degree leadership”. Boards establish ambition and risk appetite. Executives create space and remove barriers. Managers connect ideas with resources. Operators and frontline employees often see possibilities first because they work with the systems and serve customers every day.

Leadership for innovation therefore operates in every direction and at every level. The leader does not necessarily look like the person at the top of the organisational chart. The leader looks like the person in your mirror.

That is the invitation of infectiously optimistic leadership. Each of us can help another person see possibility, find the confidence to have a go and take the next wise step.

Damian Wells: Ask what is now possible

Damian Wells brought optimism, leadership and innovation together in one of the panel’s useful questions: “What is now possible?”

It is a deceptively powerful question. It can be asked when a new technology emerges, when a partnership becomes available, when circumstances change or even when an experiment does not work.

Damian added another memorable formulation:

“You either win or you learn.”

Neither statement excuses poor judgement or weak accountability. Innovation still requires discipline, evidence, clear objectives and responsible governance. But when a well-designed initiative falls short, the leader’s task is to extract the learning and improve the next attempt.

Damian stressed that leaders must be honest with boards and stakeholders about where a project sits on the spectrum between established practice and experimentation. Boards and executives need to agree on the purpose, risk appetite and guardrails before difficulties arise.

Leadership is revealed not simply by what we say about innovation, but by how we behave when an initiative is not going well.

People notice that behaviour. If leaders proclaim their support for innovation but respond to every setback with blame, disappointment or public distancing, employees quickly learn not to take risks.

I recalled an innovation proposal considered during my time on the Yarra Valley Water board. When someone raised the prospect of failure and adverse media coverage, I said that the board had understood and accepted the risk and would take responsibility. A year later, one of the people involved told me how empowering that had been.

On another occasion, an expensive innovation did fail. The chair’s first question was not, “Who is to blame?” It was:

“What have we learned?”

That is optimistic leadership in practice. It faces the failure, protects accountability, extracts the learning and strengthens the next attempt.

Damian also showed how partnerships can unlock innovation. Coliban Water’s approach to the Castlemaine Water Reclamation Plant uses procurement and early contractor involvement to bring private-sector knowledge into the process, share risk and generate new thinking.   Leaders do not always have to invent or fund every solution themselves. Sometimes their most important contribution is to bring the right people together and create a fair structure in which they can collaborate.

Dale Andrea: Adoption is a human process

Dr Dale Andrea focused attention on what happens after the idea and the trial.

A new technology cannot simply be attached to an old organisation and expected to transform it. Real adoption may require changes to systems, responsibilities, skills, incentives, relationships and everyday working practices.

Dale identified a deeply human question that often sits beneath resistance to innovation:

“Will I still be relevant in this new world?”

Leaders should take that question seriously. Experienced employees possess operational knowledge essential to successful innovation. Change imposed on them can generate understandable resistance and cause the loss of the very expertise needed to make the innovation work.

Optimistic leadership respects people enough to involve them. It rewards the curiosity of those proposing the innovation and the practical wisdom of those who will own, operate and improve it.

Dale also drew a valuable distinction between confidence in a particular solution and confidence in the process of discovery. Innovation leaders do not pretend that every unproven idea will work. Instead, they bring optimism and curiosity to experimentation, empowering people to try new approaches and to accept failure when it yields genuine learning.

Drawing on Alexander Fleming’s discovery of penicillin following an unexpected result in his laboratory, Dale reminded us that experimentation can reveal possibilities no one set out to find. Leadership means giving people the confidence to investigate those insights, not merely directing them towards solutions that have already been proven.

Dale described Yarra Valley Water’s approach to artificial intelligence in three words:

“Amplify, connect and compound.”

Each word carries a leadership lesson.

Amplify good ideas so they do not remain invisible. Connect them with the people, systems and purposes that can make them useful. Compound their value by applying the learning repeatedly across the organisation.

That moves innovation beyond the heroic idea of one brilliant inventor. It becomes a shared organisational capability in which people learn from one another, and improvements accumulate.

Dale’s contribution reinforced the connection between optimism and curiosity. Optimism creates openness to the possibility that something useful may emerge, even when the result is uncertain. Curiosity prompts us to investigate what we have observed. Leadership gives people the confidence, permission and support to act on that curiosity.

People are also more likely to support innovation when they can see how it will improve their work, strengthen their contribution and create better outcomes for customers and communities.

Nick Mumford: Necessity can drive practical innovation

Nick Mumford brought the perspective of a regional water corporation, where extensive infrastructure, smaller customer bases and practical constraints make innovation essential.

“We need to innovate. We have to be innovative to maintain almost the status quo.”

That is a clear-eyed statement of reality. Productivity expectations continue, but existing systems can only be stretched so far. At some point, organisations must do something differently.

Nick’s account of GWMWater’s off-grid water treatment plant at Elmhurst showed what this looks like in practice. A conventional electricity connection was neither cost-effective nor environmentally attractive, so the organisation had to look beyond the conventional solution.

“We innovated out of necessity.”

Necessity alone, however, does not guarantee successful innovation. Leadership was required to assess the alternatives, establish appropriate safeguards and help people understand why a different approach was needed.

Nick stressed the importance of taking operational employees on the journey. They must understand both the “why” and the “how” of a new system. If they are excluded or poorly supported, they may become its strongest detractors. When their knowledge is respected and they are involved from the beginning, they can become its greatest champions.

This is where innovation meets operational reality. An award-winning trial or project is not enough. Someone must operate it safely, maintain it, improve it and rely on it every day.

Nick’s example demonstrated a distinctive strength of regional water corporations. Constraints can encourage agility, ingenuity and a close focus on whether an idea will work in practice for the communities being served.

A trial is not yet innovation

Running through all five contributions was the distinction between an idea, a trial and an adopted innovation.

Jason Cotton defines innovation as:

“A good idea implemented that adds or creates value.”

Every word matters. A good idea is not enough. A successful trial is not enough. Innovation occurs when the idea is implemented, adopted and creates value.

The pathway is:

idea → trial → implementation → operational adoption → member value → customer value

Trials remain essential. They allow organisations to explore an idea, test assumptions, build evidence and reduce risk. But they are a step towards innovation, not the final destination.

This is one of the great leadership challenges for the water sector. Too many promising trials stall before they enter standard operations, asset plans, procurement systems or capital programs.

Leaders must therefore pay as much attention to the path to adoption as they do to the excitement of the initial idea.

Leaders clear the path

The panel identified several barriers to adoption: limited time, constrained funding, regulation, organisational habits, complex approval processes and differing attitudes towards risk.

Shaun nominated “headspace” as an essential but scarce resource. People overwhelmed by daily demands have little room for creativity. Artificial intelligence may itself help innovation by reducing repetitive work and creating more time for judgement, relationships and invention.

Jo described North East Water’s work to establish an innovation seed fund and draw on expertise from both within and beyond the water sector. A modest amount of early support can help people test an idea and develop a credible business case.

Damian described leaders as the plumbers who sometimes need to unblock the innovation pipeline. That may mean securing board support, aligning risk appetites, redesigning a process or connecting people with the right partner.

Dale reminded us that leaders must cultivate confidence in learning and discovery, not simply confidence in familiar solutions. They must also attend to the human implications of change, not just its technical merits.

Nick showed the importance of practical implementation and the involvement of operators.

Together, the five perspectives suggest a useful governance discipline: boards should receive regular reports not only on innovations adopted, but also on promising ideas that were rejected or stalled and the reasons why.

The strength of the Victorian water ecosystem

A final question from Chris Edwards of Inside Water asked why regional water corporations appear to be such hotbeds of innovation.

Regional corporations often face metropolitan-scale challenges with smaller customer bases, extensive infrastructure and tighter budgets. Necessity encourages ingenuity and a practical can-do attitude. Their leaders and employees are also closely connected to their communities, so an innovation must work not only technically but socially and operationally.

Yet the panel resisted a simple regional-versus-metropolitan distinction. The Victorian water sector is an ecosystem in which corporations can learn from one another, combine their strengths and build on each other’s work.

That is one of Intelligent Water Networks’ great strengths.

Its strategic plan expresses its work through four priorities: drive, create, connect and share.

IWN drives the exploration, trialling and adoption of innovative approaches, thinking and technologies. It creates opportunities that foster emerging leadership talent. It connects industry, research and government to build a trusted and collaborative innovation ecosystem. It shares insights from trials to help address industry challenges and opportunities.

In this way, IWN provides practical innovation infrastructure. It connects organisations, reduces duplication and risk, develops capability and helps innovations move from successful trials to wider adoption.

Its strategic plan also keeps the purpose of innovation in view. Driving innovation should create member value. Developing people builds capability. Connecting the ecosystem strengthens partnerships. Sharing knowledge creates customer value.

A leadership spirit that continued throughout the day

As the conference continued, the same spirit remained evident throughout the day. A hall full of passionate, optimistic innovation leaders reminded me of the brilliant panel I wrote about last year in “Secret Sauce of Successful Transformation: Intelligent Water Networks”.

That earlier panel produced a memorable formula:

Successful transformation = optimism + people focus + bravery + clear vision + learning + joy + policy support

The 2026 conference showed that these were not ingredients of a single successful conversation. They remain part of the culture and practical strength of Intelligent Water Networks.

During the “Future Resilience and Future Innovations” panel, David Snadden of Barwon Water urged participants:

“Have a crack, be ambitious.”

He later brought ambition, challenge and optimism together:

“Be ambitious and optimistic for the future, but challenge yourself and challenge the organisation to be better and do better.”

Jason Cotton reinforced that call to action by recalling the words of Aurecon Group CEO Louise Adams:

“Optimism is contagious.”

Jason urged us to connect growth mindsets, lean into challenges, remain curious and spread a healthy dose of optimism. Optimism, he said, is no longer a luxury or a nice-to-have. It is a necessity.

Nick Raffaele, one of the IWN Champions and a brilliant co-MC of the conference, offered another clear expression of the connection between leadership and innovation:

“Excellence in leadership is creating an environment where people feel trusted, challenged and supported to do their best work. Innovation is about having the curiosity and courage to continually improve the way we work and creating more value for our people, our customers and the communities we serve.”

Nick’s words bring the argument together beautifully. Excellent leaders create the environment. Curious and courageous people improve the work. Innovation creates value.

Nick’s words bring the argument together beautifully. Excellent leaders create the environment. Curious and courageous people improve the work. Innovation creates value.

Gus Thiele of StormHarvester added another important quality: the ability to hold strong opinions lightly.

“When it comes to innovation, I like the idea of a diverse group of voices ‘holding strong opinions, lightly’. By that, I mean hearing from a room of different people who are happy to share their own ‘why’, but prepared to change their perspective based on the wider group.”

This is not indecision. It is confident curiosity: contributing a well-considered view while remaining open to evidence, experience and the wisdom of others. It is also one of the reasons networks such as IWN are so valuable. They bring diverse voices together and create the trust needed for people to test assumptions, learn and improve.

Michael Webster of Wannon Water describes himself as a “pragmatic optimist” and connected that outlook with inclusive leadership:

“I am a cup half full person and describe myself as a pragmatic optimist. It certainly makes life much more pleasant. Excellence in leadership which brings forth innovation is to allow the knowledge, understanding and experience that has been brought to bear on an issue to bring about outcomes that are greater than the sum of the parts.”

Michael added that making room for the quietest voice can reveal profound insight. People may hold knowledge derived from experience, history or perspectives beyond the leader’s own understanding. Excellence in leadership means creating the conditions in which that knowledge can be heard, combined and turned into better outcomes.

His reflection reinforces Gus Thiele’s call to hold strong opinions lightly. Innovation benefits from people who contribute their knowledge confidently, listen seriously and remain willing to change their view. This is also central to IWN’s value as a trusted and collaborative innovation network.

Commenting on the conference outcomes, my Chairman Robert Masters AM captured the strategic importance of optimism:  “Leadership without optimism becomes management of the present. Leadership with optimism creates the future. It is the cornerstone of strategic vision that informs strong policy decisions and sustains the determination needed to transform initiatives into measurable outcomes.”

His formulation extends the argument beyond individual projects. Optimism helps leaders imagine a better future, make the policy and strategic decisions needed to pursue it, and sustain action until initiatives produce measurable value.

Dr Arash Zamyadi, Senior Lecturer in Civil and Environmental Engineering at Monash University, grounded that proposition in the urgent challenge of PFAS:

“For me, excellence in leadership is about inspiring people to tackle the problems that matter most. In our case, PFAS is an emerging contaminant with major public health and environmental impacts.

“Excellence in innovation is about turning scientific curiosity into solutions that create lasting value for society. In our case, that means using a novel combination of advanced treatment processes to remove very high PFAS concentrations under real-world Victorian conditions.

“The greatest innovations happen when researchers, industry and communities work together to transform knowledge into real-world impact.”

Arash’s words reflect IWN’s strategic priorities in practice: create leadership capability, connect researchers and industry, drive the exploration and trialling of promising technologies, and share the knowledge needed to produce wider value.

These were not calls for reckless experimentation or comfortable positivity. They expressed the practical spirit of true optimism: face reality, see possibility, aim higher and strengthen action.

These were not calls for reckless experimentation or comfortable positivity. They expressed the practical spirit of true optimism: face reality, see possibility, aim higher and strengthen action.

Looking around the conference hall, I saw passionate, optimistic innovation leaders. Some held formal leadership positions, and many did not. All had the capacity to lead because the leader looks like the person in your mirror.

From true optimism to customer value

“Deliberate optimism” is a fitting description of what I saw at the IWN Members Conference.

Jo Murdoch showed that optimism opens the future to innovation.

Shaun Cumming showed that strategic courage turns innovation into an investment in value.

Damian Wells showed that leaders create safe guardrails, learn from setbacks and keep asking what is now possible.

Dale Andrea showed that innovation requires optimism, curiosity, and confidence in discovery, while adoption depends on respecting people, connecting ideas, and compounding organisational learning.

Nick Mumford showed how necessity, operational knowledge and practical leadership turn unconventional ideas into working infrastructure.

Their perspectives were different, but the message was coherent.

True optimism faces reality, sees possibility and strengthens action. Curiosity leads us to explore that possibility. Leadership gives people the confidence and permission to act. Innovation turns good ideas into value. Trials reduce uncertainty, but adoption delivers the benefit.

Infectiously optimistic leadership spreads this spirit from person to person and organisation to organisation. It helps people believe that their ideas matter, that setbacks can produce learning and that better outcomes are possible through shared effort.

That is also the promise of Intelligent Water Networks. Its priorities to drive, create, connect and share provide a practical pathway through which optimism strengthens leadership, leadership enables innovation, and adopted innovation creates member and customer value.

The next wise step is to make the journey from idea to customer value as deliberate as the optimism that begins it.

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