Why do so many clear strategies still fail?
Charles Lee, CEO of Ideation, reveals why innovation and strategy execution break down inside organizations, and what business owners, CEOs, executives, and team leaders can do to turn great ideas into measurable results.
In this episode, you will learn how to close communication gaps, create team alignment, simplify priorities, and build accountability without micromanagement. Charles also shares how leaders can spot early warning signs of a stalled strategy before it derails growth.
You will discover:
• Why many innovation projects fail and how to avoid the same mistakes
• The people challenges that sabotage strategy execution
• How to create clear priorities your team can actually execute
• How to build accountability without pressure or fear
• Why curiosity and continuous learning matter in leadership
• How to create a culture of experimentation, safety, and adaptability
Key leadership takeaways:
• Start small, learn fast, and adapt quickly
• Create psychological safety and permission to experiment
• Simplify priorities and make success visible
• Align your team around execution, not just ideas
This conversation is for business owners, CEOs, executives, HR leaders, sales managers, and team leaders who want better execution, stronger leadership, and sustainable business growth.
Charles Lee:
Website: https://designyourgoodlife.com
Mason Duchatschek:
Website: https://masonduchatschek.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/masonduchatschek/
Connect With Workforce Alchemy:
Website: https://workforcealchemy.com/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@workforcealchemy
Podcast Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLaGSQcRH4ChwjjPLD9FN6r2IvuBp5PPbg
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ReverseRiskConsulting
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/workforcealchemy/
X / Twitter: https://x.com/WorkAlchemist
Rumble: https://rumble.com/user/WorkforceAlchemy
Dailymotion: https://www.dailymotion.com/WorkforceAlchemy
Subscribe for more conversations on leadership, strategy execution, workplace culture, employee engagement, and business growth.
#StrategyExecution #Leadership #BusinessGrowth #Innovation #TeamManagement #ChangeManagement #CEO #Entrepreneurship #OrganizationalCulture
Charles Lee, CEO of Ideation, reveals why innovation and strategy execution break down inside organizations, and what business owners, CEOs, executives, and team leaders can do to turn great ideas into measurable results.
In this episode, you will learn how to close communication gaps, create team alignment, simplify priorities, and build accountability without micromanagement. Charles also shares how leaders can spot early warning signs of a stalled strategy before it derails growth.
You will discover:
• Why many innovation projects fail and how to avoid the same mistakes
• The people challenges that sabotage strategy execution
• How to create clear priorities your team can actually execute
• How to build accountability without pressure or fear
• Why curiosity and continuous learning matter in leadership
• How to create a culture of experimentation, safety, and adaptability
Key leadership takeaways:
• Start small, learn fast, and adapt quickly
• Create psychological safety and permission to experiment
• Simplify priorities and make success visible
• Align your team around execution, not just ideas
This conversation is for business owners, CEOs, executives, HR leaders, sales managers, and team leaders who want better execution, stronger leadership, and sustainable business growth.
Charles Lee:
Website: https://designyourgoodlife.com
Mason Duchatschek:
Website: https://masonduchatschek.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/masonduchatschek/
Connect With Workforce Alchemy:
Website: https://workforcealchemy.com/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@workforcealchemy
Podcast Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLaGSQcRH4ChwjjPLD9FN6r2IvuBp5PPbg
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ReverseRiskConsulting
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/workforcealchemy/
X / Twitter: https://x.com/WorkAlchemist
Rumble: https://rumble.com/user/WorkforceAlchemy
Dailymotion: https://www.dailymotion.com/WorkforceAlchemy
Subscribe for more conversations on leadership, strategy execution, workplace culture, employee engagement, and business growth.
#StrategyExecution #Leadership #BusinessGrowth #Innovation #TeamManagement #ChangeManagement #CEO #Entrepreneurship #OrganizationalCulture
Category
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LifestyleTranscript
00:05welcome to the mason dukacheck show and before we jump in this episode is brought to you by
00:12workforcealchemy.com helping leaders uncover hidden profit leaks inside their workforce
00:17today's guest is charles lee ceo of ideation who has worked alongside leaders at companies like
00:25google toyota and vanguard to solve one of the toughest challenges in business and that's turning
00:32strategy into consistent execution he's also the founder of the ideation conference and author of
00:39the upcoming wiley book design your good life charles helps leaders close the gap between great
00:45ideas and real results welcome to the show thanks for having me mason it's a real pleasure so i know
00:50you've worked with some of the most respected organizations in the world what is the most
00:55common reason that strategy fails once it leaves the boardroom yeah that's a great question i think
01:00it's it's kind of interesting because sometimes strategy doesn't fail because of the idea it's
01:05really often sometimes some of the relational challenges and tensions of who's all on board
01:11it may be limited by systems or standards of practice and so you know it's not just the idea
01:19but everything else that surrounds the idea that allows it and then some ideas you know a good
01:24example is i was talking with an executive and how they would assign projects that may last two three
01:31years to somebody to be in charge but by year two sometimes that person will transition to a different
01:37department for example and it's just kind of a practical reality that then the project stalls a little
01:43bit or sometimes this project never sees the light of day and it's no wonder that they say like i
01:48think
01:48over 90 of innovation projects actually fail within businesses why do you think that is i mean you've
01:53talked a little bit about systems and whatnot but and people let's get in the weeds there what do you
01:58think i mean 90 is a lot and i don't doubt it what what's your take yeah i think some
02:05of that is once
02:06again all of the various transitioning that happens i think strategic priorities can become reactive to
02:12what's happening in the market or what's happening in the business and that constant reshuffling often
02:17causes delays or significant detours from what a project had originally intended to be so what do you
02:25think about the the people aspect yeah i was having a conversation with bill cates c-a-t-e-s
02:33and he wrote a book
02:34and our conversation was about radical relevancy we were talking about the benefits of the benefit like
02:41when if you go to a company and you're trying to sell a product or service a lot of people
02:44like oh
02:44you can make more profit or you can reduce your costs if you're talking to the owner or the ceo
02:49that
02:49makes sense but if you're talking to everyone else who's involved in that project they're asking well
02:53what does that mean to me because that means no more pay but a lot more hours or a lot
02:58more stress
02:59or a lot more time away from my family by traveling then i'm not so interested in this and they
03:05don't
03:05become champions of that new idea and that's why i could see if you have a team of people trying
03:12to
03:12get an idea executed absolutely and the person leading that team doesn't have a good grasp on
03:18what the benefits of the benefits are what does this proposed change mean on a personal level to each
03:25of these people if they don't take that stuff into consideration you may have nothing but obstacles
03:30and roadblocks to getting that idea i'm not even saying having help i'm saying you got people
03:34are getting in the way to try to make sure this this new idea doesn't see the light of day
03:39i'm sure
03:39you deal with this all the time can you give us a couple examples of of some of those you've
03:43seen
03:43come to life yeah i think because by nature people who are in executive positions are thinking big vision
03:51trying to look way ahead into the future value creation of the business that it's it's possible that
03:57in the handoff and delegation a lot of assumptions are in play the assumption that people have capacity
04:03like you just mentioned that people have interest or clarity i think that's another thing is like
04:09leaders can have a general sense and it may be cloudy in their minds but then they delegate the task
04:15and it just gets even more murky for those underneath and people reacting adding and and you know
04:21depending on the culture of the business if people who are directly reporting have a culture where they
04:26have to say yes and have to kind of portray that hey we're all on the same quote-unquote team
04:31then it
04:32becomes very troubling and you can kind of tell in body languages i've sat in meetings with like
04:37managers where uh you know a leader will share a vision hey this is the direction we want to go
04:42and you
04:43could kind of see the eye rolling you could see a little bit of the stress confusion as to what's
04:48going to go you know what does this mean for everything i'm doing i already have five projects i have
04:53to
04:53work on and our teams already spent are you going to give us more budget to do this so and
04:58especially
04:58if because in most teams you have a lot of people who are focused on execution and those who are
05:03focused on execution are calculating like into the weeds into the details that often executive leaders
05:10aren't thinking about so without the proper comms or the communication or the continual reiteration of a
05:17new idea people may get excited initially but once they think about the work that's when you in the
05:23innovation curve you've probably seen you go into kind of the trough of disillusionment and frustration
05:28because this new reality is no longer a fun vision it just becomes a grind and even more of a
05:35burden
05:35into kind of day-to-day operations so i know you talk about a translation gap between ideas and execution
05:42yeah what does that actually look like inside a company on a day-to-day basis yeah i think i
05:48think it goes
05:48back to that communications point i think really that you know when you have something that you're
05:54launching for the first time or a new a way of doing work and maybe a new system and maybe
05:59a new
06:00business approach and maybe a new product is that you have to know kind of where your people are at
06:05when you're first giving the vision it's so important to reiterate more times than you think you ought to
06:10reiterate the sheer initial excitement will wean off and the shock will settle in as to what this new
06:16reality of a new product or service might be or new way of doing work and it's in those moments
06:22that
06:22people don't necessarily need necessarily more clarity about what you're doing you know clarity
06:26is always good but there are times in that process where you need more morale boosting reminding people
06:32why this new approach or a new system or a new product makes sense for the business as a whole
06:39and
06:39how to build morale and people are going to start to feel like well maybe i don't know how to
06:42do this
06:43new thing you just assigned me with and that's where leaders ought to focus on like professional
06:47development giving them the tools and resources and often the budgets to be able to actually
06:53execute on top of all their other responsibilities so that eventually people kind of get into what's
06:58often called like the plateau of productivity where you know they start to see that okay i can see
07:03how this is kind of integrated i feel a little bit not just motivated but equipped to do the work
07:09and i think it's just kind of navigating the ebbs and flows and being in continual contact with those
07:14you've delegated responsibilities to and then for those who are receiving this getting in the practice
07:20of communicating up right asking good questions maybe more questions than complaints right i think
07:26framing it in a question format and asking hey you might say i like the direction we're going in order
07:33for
07:33me to be successful in attaining this goal for our business would you help me in areas a b and
07:39c and i
07:39think really framing it that way it feels like we're still on the same boat and we're going to push
07:44forward but it's going to take some recalibrating i think and smart leaders know that people need
07:49time for change and i think that's part of the innovation process so what are the earliest signs
07:55that a strategy is going to stall before leadership even realizes it outside of the rolling eyes and
08:01the arms across the chest and the scowl yeah other than those what are some of the early signs yeah
08:08i think some of the early signs may include people's inability to articulate what is it that they're
08:13actually moving towards and that might be a basic sign but i think if i were a leader delegating new
08:18vision i would ask often as to what people understood the vision to be that's such a practical thing is
08:25because when when the direction is unclear when the actions are delegated but it doesn't come with
08:31clarity around what that actually means and you may not know exactly what it means but if there isn't an
08:37invitation to have a feedback loop throughout the process i think those are really red flags red flags
08:43for me and the second thing is if people feel like any significant initiative should feel as if people have
08:50ownership behind it so if they weren't built into the process at the early stages of even ideation with
08:56input expertise some maybe pre-planning before something launches those are all red flags for me
09:02in that either the leader just worked in isolation or just worked off a ton of assumptions based on
09:08previous experience so where do you think most leaders get stuck when they're trying to turn
09:12plans into executing the plans where do you think most of them get stuck yeah um that's that's a great
09:18question i mean it could be multiple areas but i think some of the common areas that common like
09:23moments i feel like they get stuck is like when a leader actually starts to get to the point of
09:29actually launching it you know i'm not sure if you or your listeners or you know viewers have read books
09:36like from stephen pressfield the war of art and he talks about like there's always this part of our
09:41brain that kicks in he calls it the lizard brain that before you actually launch something all these
09:47hypothetical reasons as to why your idea won't work will kind of uh bubble up all your insecurities
09:53will bubble up and i sometimes leaders kind of get stuck in perfection and i feel like sometimes as
09:59you're trying to roll out even leaders will pull back and make reasons why hey we're going to give it
10:04another three months or another six months because it's safer not to go out and do something it's
10:11actually uh it feels like a lot of risk but in actuality all those doubts behind an idea
10:16uh that you know causes someone to get stuck are really probably most of those reasons are not real
10:24they're not based in reality they're based in really our own insecurity and i see a lot of people kind
10:30of tripping over whether they're the ones executing the one who has vision and they'll come up with all
10:35kinds of reasons why we don't have the budget we don't have the time and some of those may be
10:38legitimate but a lot of those actually are not in each context it's it's fascinating to me to think
10:45about because i'm i'm reflecting right now as you talk about about these things on projects that i've
10:50been involved with and how some things just they do stall and you just want to tell the person leading
10:56that like excellent now is better than perfect never it doesn't have to be perfect yeah and all these
11:02fears that they start talking about all these concerns not that they're not legitimate but not that
11:06they're not legitimate or that they couldn't happen but yeah it's like you can't prepare for
11:10every single possibility sometimes you just gotta use your best judgment take action notice what's
11:15working what isn't and adjust quote to yeah tony robbins style yeah yeah i would even add to that
11:21like usually the idea you start with is rarely the idea you end up with and you won't even know
11:26which
11:26questions to really ask until you start that's just kind of the nature of innovation you don't know
11:32and the other thing that i find fascinating that i'm going to say this for the benefit of those
11:36listening at least based on my experience to piggyback on what you're saying is that there's a lot of
11:41ways to accomplish an outcome and you can remain flexible in your approach and if i've got a team
11:47of people and i know that this is the outcome i want and while i may pick avenue a they
11:54may all like
11:54avenue b or c and really if it can accomplish what we're trying to accomplish within the time that we
12:00have and within the resources that we've got available i'm okay with going with b and see if
12:04it's if i think it can work it may not work as well as i think or it doesn't have
12:08to be my idea
12:08is my point and when you start talking about getting the buy-in from those people that eliminates a lot
12:13of friction because now you're supporting their idea on how to achieve a group outcome and i know
12:19yeah i think you're alluding to something bigger than the idea itself is the importance of creating a
12:26culture of experimentation a culture of transparency and permission a culture of safety that allows
12:33people to feel like you know what you're giving me permission to try this i'm going to do my best
12:37i'm not just going to wing it i'm going to bring in my resources my knowledge but that you're with
12:42me
12:42in this as a leader to help me go pursue to try to work it out and i may not
12:47have all the answers
12:48but you're giving me permission and trust to do this and i think that's the culture that
12:53is needed because if you don't have that you're always going to be under so much stress
12:57and pressure and you may not even perform well under those set of circumstances because your brain
13:03may not function to its full creative capability and i'm going to be vulnerable here and share a time
13:09that that i didn't do that i picked my way and it didn't work and when it came time for
13:18the
13:18conversation with the owner i owned it i was like hey these guys we got together these guys told me
13:25they said this this this this and i based on my judgment i decided to override them and execute it
13:32a different way which did not work this is on me not them if i would have listened to them
13:38this we wouldn't have to rework this yeah and what i got was owner wasn't mad it was a delay
13:45so i mean
13:45not like he was happy but they but the support that i had from my team moving forward was way
13:53different it was an accelerant because i showed not by my words but by my deeds that i would own
14:00the mistakes give credit where it was due because they had a better idea take ownership of what didn't
14:06work that was on me but that was an accelerant with that team for all kinds of future projects
14:11because they knew they didn't have to fear being thrown under the bus or having someone else take
14:16credit for their good ideas or and they knew that i would be much more inclined to listen to next
14:20time
14:21because they were right and i wasn't so that was an accelerant for our our yeah i think i think
14:27that
14:27you're spot on yeah i think all the research supports that too people who feel psychological safety at work
14:32meaning that they they feel safety and you know trying out ideas working on innovative things
14:38are much more not only creative but productive and i think it helped that the person we were doing the
14:44project for understood that we were doing our best and it wasn't and we did what we could with what
14:50we
14:50had but their approach would have been better but it's still i ended up having an accelerant out of that
14:54when you see teams that execute at a high level are there some common themes or threads or or best
15:02practices that you typically see out of them that you don't see out of others yes definitely
15:07the objectives or the goal goals are clear and it's agreed upon at the start of something and then
15:15usually teams that do well allocate one or more actual project managers to it to keep everybody on
15:21course and then they have clear ways of organizing meetings where it's not just updates on everything
15:27but each meeting has a particular descriptor for example this is getting very tactical for what type of meeting
15:33that is and it allows people to get on you know quick sprints to achieve some objective there's high
15:41transparency when there's tension they have actually a protocol for disagreement already in place so
15:47that they can work through some of the tension the challenges of any project that's complex and then they
15:54continue work and then after the project is done usually within seven days there's some kind of debrief
15:59so those are some like common characteristics i've seen in effective teams that you know especially
16:05because as a company grows you're going to have to do interdepartmental collaboration and that's a
16:09little bit of a framework where there's clarity of objectives clarity of roles clarity of who's
16:15responsible for what who's going to keep the you know the train moving what check-ins look like what
16:21happens when there's disagreement and then ultimately like how do you debrief so that you can even do better
16:27next time before you move on to the next project so i've noticed a theme in your answers when you
16:32start talking about things like clarity you've mentioned that word a few times yeah i know a lot
16:36of executives feel buried in competing priorities and it's completely understandable how do you help
16:42them simplify get clarity and still have the ability to move forward when things are complex and there's a
16:49lot of competing priorities what advice or guidance do you have for folks in that kind of situation
16:53yeah this may sound like oversimplified answer but i i try to get our clients to write things down or
17:02whiteboard stuff out and it kind of forces like visualization and actually using it more senses in
17:08the way you're processing the idea whether it's writing speaking quoting yourself talking about it
17:14i found like does achieve a lot of clarity because you have to figure out a way to be in
17:18it and yet
17:18objective and so outside of like bringing in thought partners like myself for you and others
17:24is just the constant creating points of reference and i actually wrote about this in my first book years
17:30ago and in there just talks about the miracle of writing just the power of writing things down
17:37so that you are not just talking verbally about what's going on but you keep documenting because
17:44documentation allows for refinement and improvement so it may be very simple but clarity often comes
17:50when you can actually see your thoughts on paper and if you have the luxury of having a thought partner
17:58in the process which i would hope a lot of your listeners and viewers have is is to allocate time
18:04if you create time for it it's amazing how much clarity you can achieve even though you think you don't
18:09have
18:10time it actually saves you time in the long run similar to what you do with your team is when
18:14they
18:14can trust you it just accelerates the innovation the ability to execute so it's a simple idea but it's
18:21works pretty well no matter the size of the business i'm going to piggyback on what you're saying about
18:25the thought partner idea the because i can think of times where i've had ideas and i've thought things
18:31through and a blink of an eye what seems like a blink of an eye and years have gone by
18:37and a thought
18:37partner can come in and say hey i think you should consider doing x and i'm like oh i already
18:44thought
18:44of that before i already tried that well what i'm finding is that the same answer can be right or
18:50wrong
18:50at a different point in time yes and if you don't have someone to bounce ideas off of sometimes you
18:55will
18:55dismiss i can't say i will have dismissed ideas because oh i've already done that or i already thought
19:01about that or i've already decided why that wouldn't work but that might have been a ways back
19:05and the circumstances have shifted and things have changed to the point that what wasn't a good
19:10idea or wasn't a viable plan then is absolutely a great idea now and when someone else can come in
19:16and look at something objectively with a fresh set of eyes and say hey based on the circumstances
19:21going on right now you ought to consider this you ought to consider it yep i think that's with them
19:26yeah i think you're speaking wisdom uh to people like i think all of us need somebody
19:31or somebody's to come in and give us perspective and as long as you can you have enough trust in
19:38that person where they're gonna think about your like the best interest in mind that they are
19:43hopefully have some track record of thinking clearly themselves and aren't there just to say yes to
19:50everything that you're talking about i think that's really really good characteristics because you could
19:54all surround yourself with team members that have to answer to you and while their input is
19:59incredibly important at the same time when push comes to shove there may be areas where it'd be
20:04harder for them to be more direct and honest than say someone who's an outsider of the business very true
20:11so i'll be greatly in your opinion how do great leaders maintain big vision while also building
20:17discipline into the organization that they're running yeah um i don't know of a in my opinion you know i
20:24guess we could all define great leader differently but i don't know of a great leader that i would say
20:27is
20:28really good that doesn't make time to think about these things no matter how busy they are it may
20:33mean they wake up a lot earlier for some it may be going to bed more reflectively before they go
20:39to
20:39sleep but i think it's the constant practice of reflection which is seems so easy to do at one
20:45level but very difficult to practice but it's become part of their rhythm of like their ability to stop
20:52and reflect and now you know for example like um you know once read a great book about just kind
20:58of
20:58creative people and what they have in common is they write stuff down they go to places that are much
21:03larger than themselves in other words it might be the ocean or the mountains to kind of give them
21:07perspective about their own existence and then uh the third is like they they are open to new ideas put
21:13themselves in new environments stay curious in their life all those kinds of things and so for me i think
21:19great leaders that can do that and it doesn't mean that every time you take time for yourself to
21:24reflect has to be deep it could just be a simple stroll around the beach or you know you know
21:29walking
21:30in the hills walking in your park but allowing yourself the mental space to reflect is part it should
21:36be a part of a daily practice there may be seasons where i feel like certain people may have a
21:41pass for a
21:42short season of if you have young children it's i know it can get very chaotic but to the extent
21:47that
21:47we can control our schedule try to do that or i do this throughout the day if there's a appointment
21:53cancellation i don't jump up and try to fill that necessarily with something else at least for some
21:58of them if there's two cancellation maybe one i may refill with another meeting but the other one i may
22:03take that time to just kind of power down for a little bit and just kind of reflect if there's
22:08things
22:09i need to write down just do a brain dump so i have less things in my head while i'm
22:13even engaging
22:14other clients in meetings later in that day so i know that you've built a successful consultancy
22:20and a conference what lessons from your own journey translate directly to your clients i think the
22:26importance of developing others i mean developing relationships i feel like business flows through
22:31relationship i think ideas flow through relationships um and i think just the regular
22:36practice of staying curious like one thing i'll do that i encourage my clients to do is
22:42go to an event that's outside of your field every year once a year so i'll try to go to
22:47a conference
22:47where it's not my space i'm not trying to maximize my knowledge in a field all i'm trying to do
22:53is
22:53understand how people think how they solve problems how they view the world and it just allows me to think
23:00more broadly and i have the benefit of working across industries so i could take a lesson from one of
23:05our
23:06law firm clients and apply it to a museum and what i realize is often innovation is the result of
23:12two or
23:12more seemingly unrelated ideas that intersect where you have kind of that aha moment and so just
23:18continually encouraging others to say stay open because as you become better in what you do it's very
23:25possible that your curiosity levels will dip over time because you're going to bank on what's worked and
23:30most companies will encourage curiosity during the hiring process but statistically six months in
23:37and i write about this in my book six months in curiosity levels go way down because people start
23:42to conform into things that create incentives or reward and curiosity is a nice principle not as
23:50rewarded in most businesses so i i think just staying curious staying humble staying open to ideas has
23:57really helped build our business because ultimately you meet great people and you do you end up doing
24:02great work together and that's that's a power relationship well you you said something very very
24:07valuable there and you have me reflecting on things first book i wrote in 1999 and it only took me
24:12a few
24:12days and the reason it only took me a few days was because i used to work for a national
24:17sales trainer
24:17and he one of the first things he taught me he said your worst pin is better than your best
24:21memory
24:22always take notes and i was talking to business owners and executives in multiple industries and
24:28what i learned was that someone from industry a had figured out the solution to the problem that
24:33industry b is facing and someone in industry b had figured out a solution to the problem that someone
24:37in industry c had been dealing with and someone in c had figured out something that someone in industry
24:43d had been struggling with and the reason and the reality was i had notes on what all these people
24:47did to overcome these challenges and after a certain point in time they gave me all these amazing
24:52answers and i was able to assemble it into a book because i paid attention and i valued their time
24:57enough take good notes but i learned a lot so when you're talking about going to conferences in
25:01different industries or different perspective can you yeah i don't want to put you on the spot well
25:05maybe i do i'll put you on the spot can you share maybe one takeaway that you didn't expect that
25:09you
25:09would get from a conference that was outside of your industry or your niche that was something that you could
25:14apply or did apply yeah i would give a it's an adjacent industry we do some work in it on
25:21the
25:21creative side because our company has a consultancy as well as a creative studio so i went to a i
25:28am not
25:28a developer so i went to a developer conference and i was sitting in the room with like uh you
25:34know
25:34like that um at the time head of html5 for microsoft or you know people were starting like startups
25:41and new ways of coding new languages and what i took away from there is definitely engineers think
25:46about problems a lot differently i i assumed they would be a little bit more systematic and logical
25:52and their flow but i was really impressed by how some of them stayed so open to design concepts or
26:00ideas that maybe what i would deem more creative people would approach problem solving but they were so
26:06open they didn't hold to their ideas so sacredly as if like this is the right way to do it
26:12they kind
26:13of were trying to be intellectually honest enough to keep an open hand so that if they were developing
26:19something in a way that was not as efficient they have a spirit of this kind of collaboration this
26:25kind of open source collaboration this is probably why if you go online you know platforms like wordpress
26:29do so well it's because it's like an open platform where developers help each other out in developing
26:36code that makes sense for all these various use case scenarios so i was reminded that man even though
26:42i love my ideas and i feel justified in it i still need to hold my ideas like this versus
26:48grasping
26:49onto it because if the goal is to just make the idea better i have to welcome differing views
26:54differing perspectives to challenge it minimally and validate my idea or make it better by changing
27:00it so i i think that was kind of a key takeaway i got from them i had a conversation
27:05recently with john
27:06malora he was on the podcast and he was a engineer worked on that project called nasa and he was
27:12talking
27:13about and it's not a mentality that i had because i've always been like you do your best you make
27:17your
27:17best better and his thing from an engineer perspective was he said if the requirement is that a
27:24piece can hold 50 pounds then you move on once you get it to that you don't find it's not
27:30like oh let's
27:30make it 60 let's make it 70 because anything above what's required in his world is wasteful
27:37and counterproductive and it causes exponential delays and exponential increases in in cost and in
27:45the world that i typically grew up in it's like we're not going to do the minimums required we're going
27:49to do better better better yeah but he's like if this is what is required it's written into the
27:54specifications and all of the engineers and all of the scientists have figured out that this is
27:59exactly what we need no more no less but this is exactly what we need then it was helpful for
28:05me to
28:05be around someone who thought differently because i was like in that so good set of circumstances he's
28:11right yeah yeah so i love that i appreciate your your willingness to step outside of your comfort zone
28:18and to maintain your curiosity so how do you create real accountability on a team without turning it
28:24into a pressure cooker or causing micromanagement to occur yeah i think uh really defining what the
28:30purpose of that accountability is it is not just a grade right it is to keep us on course remind
28:37us of
28:37our north star and remind us of like the fact that everyone's time and resources are valuable and i think
28:43it's respecting each other and when accountability is kind of framed in that kind of spirit then it
28:49becomes a helpful tool through which you can achieve more together versus it being some type of like
28:56grading that happens at the end of like a test or things of that nature so we we try to
29:02view
29:02accountability as part of the process not so much like the end score cool so can you share a few
29:08key
29:08points from your new book and tell us why you wrote it yeah um years ago i wrote a book
29:14called good idea
29:15now what and that was all about idea execution this time around i wanted to expand it beyond you know
29:22of
29:22course it talks a lot to a lot of a lot of things that happen in the professional world from
29:27like
29:27curiosity to ideation moving from a proof of concept to proof of value behind the work that you do
29:34but i wanted to expand it all the way into areas of like influence so it does talk about like
29:39you know
29:40discovering your purpose and it's a framework i'm not trying to provide a formula just a framework of
29:45getting like the three phases or spark you know for those who are curious and feel like something's
29:50on the horizon i talk about things like curiosity ideation get to a place where you have a sense of
29:55direction but people may already have that i have a second phase in the book called actualize and it's all
30:01about implementation and creating value so that when you enter a room you actually have proof of
30:07value that you provide the person you're talking with so you can be more confident you can be more
30:12secure about what is it that i'm actually bringing to the table and then the last phase is for people
30:17who already have had some success and have actually executed well where i i try to challenge individuals
30:23including myself to say hey if you've had success you're probably in a place where you can exert some
30:29positive influence in the world so it's moving from being the best in the world in something to be
30:35the best for the world in something and it's just kind of that shift of like hey how do we
30:40curate our
30:41relationships and our resources to create more lasting impact in the world so that when you do all of
30:46that you end up with what whatever you deem your good life is my suspicion is your good life will
30:51include some sense of purpose some alignment with your values and your passions and that the outcome will
30:57not only benefit you but benefit others as well and so the book tries to bring in a little bit
31:02more
31:02holistically both our personal and professional lives and so i'm really proud of the project it's
31:07it's undergirded in a ton of research and all of these various areas certain mindsets you need skill
31:12sets you need but it's meant to be sort of a guide and i wrote each chapter so that there's
31:17personal
31:18stories there's research and at the end there's questions and exercises and think you know exercises that you can go
31:25through to kind of walk you through a process and you could take it wherever you want it to go
31:30wonderful so if people listening want to know more about you and your work what's the best way for them
31:35to connect and where can they get your book yeah uh they can get my book pretty much anywhere all
31:40the
31:40book distributors as well as target walmart a lot of retail stores have have it as well but far as
31:46online you could either just go to designyourgoodlife.com or literally look up my name charles lee and our
31:52company ideation and you should be able to find me at any channel thank you so much for joining us
31:57it's really been a pleasure thank you so much mason for the opportunity appreciate it
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