So many leaders have great ideas…that go absolutely nowhere. Charles Lee wants to change that. He helps companies and leaders turn ideas into reality.
Charles shares a proven path from idea to execution, and shares some of his early life watching his immigrant parents grow and scale businesses. His family helped bring Korean BBQ to America. Charles explains how seeing that much hard work made him realize much more is possible than most leaders think.
Welcome to Episode 274 of the podcast. Listen and access the show notes below or search for the Carey Nieuwhof Leadership Podcast on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts and listen for free.
Guest Links
Charles Lee | Theideation.com | Good Idea. Now What?
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The War of Art by Steven Pressfield
3 Insights from Charles
1. Don’t confuse competency with calling
Just because you are gifted at something, does not mean you should do it. There is a massive difference between doing what you are gifted at, and doing what you are called to do. You can be gifted at many things, but you are only called to do one thing.
Your gifting should always be used to support your calling, not the other way around. Charles had to learn this when he decided to leave ministry to start an organization called Ideation. When Charles first considered leaving ministry, he saw that he could have a much greater impact and he could help a lot more people if he used his gifting to help other people achieve their goals and turn their ideas into action. So, although he was heavily gifted for ministry, he pursued his calling of starting Ideation.
2. The most important thing you can do for turning an idea into action is writing it down
Ideas are just fun to think about, and that is great until you talk about an idea for months and never turn it into action. Charles has learned that the best way to turn an idea that you think and talk about into action is by writing it down. He recommends that when you get a great idea that actually solves a problem, you should write it down into a working document that you will improve over time.
When building out these ideas, bring this document with you to meetings where you will talk about the idea and add notes in throughout the conversation. This idea also works with action items from meetings. If you are in a meeting, you can start an “action items” email where you write down the action items during the meeting so that by the end, the email is already completed and you can just hit send. This saves you time and increases the chances that you act on the ideas you talk about in meetings.
3. A great idea always solves a problem for the customer
Good ideas boil down to whether or not they actually solve a real problem in the world. If an idea solves that real-world problem, it is actually a good idea. If it doesn’t solve a problem, it is not a great idea. This is a filter Charles runs all of his ideas through before he takes action on them.
Having this mindset changes how you approach coming up with ideas. The old-fashioned method of getting lots of people into a board room just doesn’t cut it for modern ideation. Charles would encourage anyone who is creating ideas to put themselves into a situation where they are “in the customer’s shoes” and experience empathy for the customer. When you establish empathy and feel what the customer feels, you will begin to have an idea of what they need.
Quotes from Episode 274
Sometimes our greatest strengths are in our blind spots because we assume everybody else knows how to do it. @charlestlee Click To Tweet Change is inevitable, progress is not. Focus on progress and stop worrying about change. @charlestlee Click To Tweet Ideas don't work, you do. @charlestlee Click To Tweet Good ideas boil down to whether or not it actually solves a real problem in the world. @charlestlee Click To TweetRead or Download the Transcript for Episode 274
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Read or download a free PDF transcript of this episode here.
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Next Episode: Drew Dyck
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