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S1E03 | One Great Question: What are the next steps? Turning Ideas
20 Plays5 months ago
Great ideas are easy to fall in love with. Turning them into something real is where most teams get stuck.
This episode explores the quiet tension between vision and execution, and why so many promising ideas either die too quickly or exhaust the people responsible for making them happen. We unpack a simple but powerful shift: treating ideas as possibilities, not mandates, and separating who you are from what you propose.
Through stories from leadership, songwriting, and real-world team dynamics, this conversation offers a clear framework for moving ideas from imagination to action without burning trust, energy, or morale. It’s about creating space where visionaries feel safe to share, implementers feel respected, and everyone knows what happens next.
If you’ve ever left a meeting wondering whether an idea actually mattered, this one is for you. Listen in. Stay curious.
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Transcript
Detaching Identity from Ideas
00:00:00
Speaker
All of life we've got this idea that, you know, the next great question can change everything. Well, that question typically sparks an idea. But somebody's got to kind of fill the gap between big lofty idea and how are we going to come together as a team to get it done. When it comes to ideas is this, your idea is not your identity, but a great idea will help other people find theirs. If I can make sure that my idea is not my identity, but I can put it in a container like these six steps, then the process of ideation can help everybody find their identity without being beholden to it.
Humor in Ideation
00:00:38
Speaker
i Well, here we are. The next question. On the next question. I have an idea. Okay. That's it. I just have an idea.
Steps in Ideation Process
00:00:49
Speaker
oh
00:00:52
Speaker
We're talking about ideation today. Okay. Yeah. One of my favorites. And the question that goes along with ideation, you have all these these tools with shapes, very mysterious black box thing. Very mysterious. thing And the question that goes along with ideation is what are the next steps?
00:01:11
Speaker
What does that mean? So I think, you know, in all of life, we've got this idea that, you know, the next great question can change everything. Well, that question typically sparks an idea. So you think about you and I, both very fortunate to be happily married, not to each other, but to other people. I'm sure our marriage would also be very They happy. It would have been very happy. could still be happy. Yeah, it could be. um But, you know, married to delightful women who are not the same person either. um But the idea at some point was, I wonder if she's single. And then, oh, I wonder what a relationship ah would be like. But there's always that, you know, we're, I guess, elder millennials. So back in the heyday of dating, it was always like, oh, I'm waiting for the DTR. the Yeah, totally. The kids don't know what that means anymore. Yeah. I think... oh So
Friendship Dynamics and Ideation
00:01:58
Speaker
pop quiz. So what does DTR mean to you? Determine the relationship. Yeah. I guess ours was define the relationship. Yeah. Okay. i We picked that up in college. Mm-hmm.
00:02:09
Speaker
And I shared to my with my wife once where I was like talking about a friend that I had fallen out with. Like, you know, we were talking about this earlier this morning with a group of guys. how men as they get older, maybe people in general, but men, especially, you know, like you've, you've got these great friends from high school, college, whatever you're at each other's weddings.
00:02:29
Speaker
Um, and then at some point you kind of drift apart, maybe it's busyness, maybe it's, you know, stages of life or lifestyle. Like at a certain point, you don't really know where you stand with an old friend, I think. And I said to me I was like, i I need to have, like, I know it sounds a little silly, but I need to have a DTR with this friend and like figure out like, are we friends that like connect once every six months and that's just what it is? or are we texting each other every week and trying to get our families together
Balancing Idea and Implementation
00:02:56
Speaker
once year? Like, what kind of friends are we? And she's like, what does DTR mean?
00:03:01
Speaker
And I was like, I don't know if we can even be married anymore to have a DTR.
00:03:08
Speaker
And I think what's so true about that in all facets of life is you're wondering what's the next step, right? We've been together, we've been hanging out, we've been doing a thing. Like, do you want as much from this as I want? Do I want as much as this as you want? um And it's so eerily similar with ideas. Because what'll happen is somebody goes, oh there's a problem. And if you are naturally an idea ideator,
00:03:31
Speaker
Before you even know what you're doing, you're like, you could do this or this or this or this, you're creating a possible new reality with possible solutions. And what I found, at least in the place where humans occupy the most time, which is at work, which is where I, you know, consult most is in the workplace and marketplace, is they have problems all the time.
Communication in Meetings
00:03:50
Speaker
And there there's this huge tension between an idea person and an implementation person because they don't know, well, what are the next steps? So you'll have an idea person who will just walk into a meeting, me, the chief of centers when it comes to this, and somebody's got a problem, be like, well, we could do this, well, we could do this, and we could do this.
00:04:09
Speaker
And it's very funny, about, I don't know, seven, eight years ago, i had my ah chief operating person comes into my office after a meeting. C-O-P. ah Well, yeah, I guess there they were the director of operations. Everybody's got an acronym for everything, right? so But this is she was the person who got everything done. like So if I had an idea, she got it done. And so we i had just finished up like an hour-long meeting, and I was feeling good about life. and And she goes, hey, can we talk? And I had an open-door policy. Come in any time you want. But this is one of the smartest people I've ever worked with. Used to be like high up at Kubota, like knew how to get stuff done. So when she asked for time, I was like, oh we're going to get some stuff done, which I liked. said, yeah, come on in. She closes the door and I'm like, doesn't ever close the door. was like, everything good? She's like, yeah, I've got to talk really honestly with you. said, shoot, you wore everybody in that meeting out. um
00:05:01
Speaker
And I was like, oh, no. And I love this person, so she could say anything to me and she knew I was going to lean in. We have that kind of relationship even still, even though we don't work together anymore. And I was like, what did I do? And she's like, you gave eight ideas in the course of 40 minutes and then walked out.
00:05:19
Speaker
And I was like, yeah, the meeting was over. She's like, but what you did to four of the people in that room is they didn't know, were those like things I have to do immediately?
00:05:30
Speaker
And I went, oh, in my idea, just here are possibilities of the future we could create with these eight possible solutions. And what they heard is, here are things I'm telling you should be done the next time we see each other.
Cataloging Ideas as Maybes
00:05:42
Speaker
And neither of us knew the next steps. right And this actually culminated recently in almost all ideas should be cataloged or communicated as maybes, not mandates.
00:05:54
Speaker
And if both people can do this, it gives this very curious experimental feel on an idea where the idea person is not afraid of being shot down and the implementation person isn't afraid of being worn out.
Team Roles and Synergy
00:06:06
Speaker
There's definitely, i mean, I think of it like... um I think I think of it through the lens of maybe Les McEwen's work. He's got a great book called The Synergist, and that book opens with a scene where the CEO comes into this meeting 15 minutes late. He's on his phone the whole time, and then he barks out some random ideas and then leaves 10 minutes before the meeting's over. Yeah, right. I've accidentally been that guy in that meeting. Yeah. It's a brilliant story because everybody's been in a meeting like that. They've been somebody in that room. There's the visionary, which in this case was the CEO, person who can see something that the rest of the room and team cannot actually envision.
00:06:50
Speaker
ah Then there are the process people who are typically the ones who have to figure out what are the steps to getting this done. ah And then there's another word. They're like the implementers. i can't remember that the term he uses, but the people who actually get it done.
00:07:07
Speaker
And then and in in any team, there's one of those three people. And the problem with those three people is they don't communicate with each other very well, meaning visionaries can't really communicate well with process people and ah implementers are just doing stuff all the time. And so you need kind of a fourth person who's the synergist who steps in and kind of brings all these pieces together.
00:07:30
Speaker
But I work with a processor and um anytime I throw out an idea, she takes it as a to-do. And so we always have to leave like five to 10 minutes of buffer at the end of a meeting where I go, hey,
00:07:47
Speaker
Based on what I shared with you, like, what do you need help with? And she usually needs like, what are the next steps? Break it down step by step. And if you give me the process, I'll complete it.
00:08:00
Speaker
Now, I, as a visionary, don't think that way. I go, here's me. Here's the end point. I will get there. You know, and it may not be efficient and it may not be pretty. Looks like that squiggly graph. But I will get there. And I i actually, it's it's a discipline for me to think, you know, step by step by step by step.
00:08:19
Speaker
And I think people, if you're an idea person, um
Six Thinking Hats Methodology
00:08:23
Speaker
ideas are just possibilities. They're sort of like questions in disguise almost like, ah you know. What if this could work? Yeah, right. Like, wouldn't it be cool? How fun would this be? If we did this?
00:08:34
Speaker
And i um I remember working with somebody who was more of a visionary than me years ago. This person was on my team. I was working as a marketing director as ah at a nonprofit when we met.
00:08:45
Speaker
And um this guy on the team just wanted to but be an idea person. And he just thought like that that was a job. And I think it can be a job, but it wasn't a job in our organization.
00:08:58
Speaker
At a small nonprofit. Yeah. I sat him down. i was like, hey, man, like I'm going to need you to like do some of these ideas, too. Because he just he literally just wanted to live an idea. yeah yeah Idea land his his whole day and then like have other people do them.
00:09:14
Speaker
And I love that. And usually a lot of people might love that. at thing Just say things and you get it done. yeah, yeah. That's best that. and um But somebody's got to kind of fill the gap between big lofty idea and how are we going to come together as a team to get it done. And this is kind of the problem I was up against, right? So last 20 years of leadership, there's always a good idea. There's never enough resources and the timeline's always too pressing.
00:09:42
Speaker
So how do you get an idea that might be really great to actually move from imaginary, cross the ether into reality and actually help? And I came across this idea called the six thinking caps or six thinking hats. right And so I was trying this idea out, but there wasn't any order to it. It was just like, hey, here are the six parts of any good idea.
00:10:03
Speaker
And they listed them out and they said, oh, when you are in this part, you know you put on the red hat or you do this, you put on the green hat. And so it was a really interesting idea. But i I noticed for us, at least in my context, it still wasn't getting the results. So I started to play and tweak with the idea a little bit.
00:10:19
Speaker
And what I noticed was idea people would typically get shot down. That was the negative side of bringing a new idea. Because you're you're going to fail. Like most ideas fail.
00:10:31
Speaker
Most songs fail. Most movies fail. Like they don't see the light of day. They don't see opening day. They don't see the album. This idea that you had at your team meeting doesn't actually move the needle on profit or product most of the time. It's just an idea of It's just an idea, so it gets shot down. And then on the other side of this, your implementation people, that process person that's getting the thing done, they get worn
Executing Ideas Effectively
00:10:51
Speaker
out.
00:10:51
Speaker
So the two greatest possibilities are the idea getting shot down or the implementer getting worn out. And so in terms of the six steps, I wanted to move those two things as far away from each other as possible.
00:11:04
Speaker
And so what I did is i then ordered the tool and I said, okay, if these are the six parts, I want them to go in order. And became kind of simple after that, because I noticed, well, what do you need after doing something really vulnerable and scary, like bringing something from the imaginary into the possible? You need a little bit of affirmation. So one of the parts of any good idea is benefits. What are the benefits of that? I said, okay, let me tuck that right next to the idea.
00:11:29
Speaker
And then after that, it was like, well, what's the gut reaction to this idea? And then parts four, five, and six were, what are the facts? Which means, what is this going to cost? Then it's the process, which is who, what, where, when, how, ah and what and why. Yeah.
00:11:45
Speaker
And then the last bit is just, okay, well, what's the caution on this? Where we most naturally go with new ideas is going, well, it won't work because of this, this, and this, and this. You need both those things. You need both the originality of the idea and the reality of the caution. the guardrails, but you can't put the guardrails right next to the jump or else you never get to take off.
00:12:06
Speaker
And so what I've seen now in the last five years of kind of putting those in what I consider the most effective, efficient order, um it's been fun to see both in my own personal life and businesses that they work because I will literally use this process in picking the restaurant for lunch.
00:12:24
Speaker
In the same way that I'll go, what's the budget for this large company in 2025?
Step-by-Step Implementation
00:12:28
Speaker
Right. I want you to walk through those again. Yeah. but But I liked that, like, Depending on what kind of room you're in, and there are all kinds of you know rooms to be in, but there is a certain room where person with the idea is immediately met with opposition. like That's the next thing. And that that's pretty common, I think. like I have an idea, and then, well, that could never happen because blank. Right. Yeah, we've never done it that way, or we've tried something that sounds vaguely similar, and it didn't work, so let's not even try that way.
00:12:59
Speaker
I worked with ah with a um like an intense visionary. ah He was my boss. Lived in ideas all the time. and So so in in one case, at that same job, I was working with somebody under me who was a visionary, and I was like, dude, you're 25. You don't get to be a professional idea a person. You've got to like...
00:13:21
Speaker
do something there with somebody who could be. elses and You just gotta to like, yeah you you don't get to like sit on high and just dispense the ideas. You're not at that level in your yeah career yet. My boss, however, was like, it's my job to come up with the ideas and I pay you to implement them.
00:13:37
Speaker
And if you don't implement them, I'm just going to start implementing them and I'm going to break. It's going to really bad. Yeah. um And i um i do remember once kind of like trying to go up the chain of command and say, hey, it would be really helpful to me if you would kind of like.
00:13:54
Speaker
break this up into a process instead of just sending me random emails throughout the day. And he was like, yeah, i totally get that. I'm never going to do that. He goes, ah I'm twice your age and it's going to be easier for you to adapt to me than it is going to be for me to adapt to you. Fascinating. Yeah. Whatever you think about that, it was a
Facilitators in Ideation Sessions
00:14:14
Speaker
good lesson to learn at 27 or however i old I was at the time. was probably about that. And I was like,
00:14:22
Speaker
okay, understood, got it. um it's now my i ma It's now my job to translate your ideas into projects. So you became the synergist in that moment. Yeah. Unbeknownst to you. Yeah, I didn't even know what that meant. um But I understood somebody's got to translate these ideas that are coming down from on high into practical application. Yeah.
00:14:46
Speaker
And I was in a meeting with this boss and then a peer. ah and And the boss is just like, vision, vision, vision. And the peer, the other person in the meeting, um she kept going, well, how are we going to do that? And that, like, we don't have a budget for that. Just like.
00:15:03
Speaker
All caution. No, no, no. All caution, which is at the of process, right? And he looked at her at one point and looks right in the eye and he stop saying no. Mm-hmm.
00:15:14
Speaker
And she got real quiet. And and i saw in that moment, because I had worked with this person a long time, I worked with my boss a long time, and I knew that he liked ideas and he wanted he wanted to be an environment where the ideas could breathe.
00:15:30
Speaker
And he knew that not every idea was going to make it. he didn't But he wanted to like give it a shot. And um i learned in that like pretty innovative environment, one,
00:15:45
Speaker
Ideas are basically worthless. Worthless. Yeah. People think, oh, like one great idea will change everything. Not really. No. I mean, it it it like it's just an idea. And without action, it stays an idea.
00:15:59
Speaker
um and And it is really, really hard to implement an idea. and And so, like, you don't really know if an idea is good. You may think it's great. And then you kind of start fumbling through it. And that's where you really get to see what this thing is.
00:16:17
Speaker
So I like the idea of sort of ordering that the six hats, is it? Yeah. so we And I call it now like the six steps of an idea because ah hats to me, I was like, ah people don't want to put on hats. Right. Yeah. yeah Why would you change hats? Yeah. yeah yeah ah you And I've watched some teams literally go and buy out different colored hats and be like we're in i was like, you don't need to do that. yeah and i don that None of your millennial Gen Z. Nobody wants to wear a hat. Wear the red hat. OK, so what what are the steps again? So I've got an idea.
Emotional Intelligence in Ideation
00:16:47
Speaker
Now what's the next step? So the fun thing is in the next step, you're not allowed to talk first.
00:16:51
Speaker
Because I had the idea. You had the idea. And this is different than a pitch meeting. What I see typically in places where it goes wrong, you have a very charismatic leader, like you were describing before, who said, here's the idea, go do it. Right. That's a pitch meeting. That's not an ideation session. Yeah. What I'm interested in is ideation, because ideation takes idea to implementation into the real world. Right.
00:17:12
Speaker
And so the difference here is when we go immediately into a benefit, they're not allowed to talk. You, if the you brought the idea to me, you're not allowed to talk first. Because what you want is the rest of the room to go, oh, I see this value or this value or this value.
00:17:24
Speaker
So they're leaning into the idea immediately. And I'm not relying on the level of your charisma to sell me on why that's good. Because if you haven't told me an idea that actually fixes a problem that we see any value in...
00:17:36
Speaker
then we shouldn't be pitched on the idea. But if you've communicated in 30, 60 seconds, even five minutes, hey, this is the idea. And then we go, oh, I think that that could be helpful because of this or this or this. The idea needs to stand a little bit at the very beginning in a like great environment on its own merit. And we go, oh, I think that'll help. Like earlier today, i was helping a team who was interesting. They were in Chile and somebody was in North Africa and California and like Florida. So their team is all over the place. And I was walking them through this ideation tool. And it was this visionary and he was going, hold on, so I don't talk? It's like, no, they need to hear the value. But you're really good at a 60 second pitch. Like you're used to doing this all the time.
00:18:16
Speaker
So it gives you that sense of mind of, oh, I need to have it kind of buttoned up. But what we will do, maybe maybe it's more me because I will just, hey, this idea could work or this. I haven't really given it any thought.
00:18:27
Speaker
In that moment, there's a little bit of ego that just says, oh yeah, that was my idea. It literally came out of nowhere in the thing and it's supposed to go do it. I never actually sat with it and go, would this actually survive in the real world? And that's what you want your ideators to do, to actually go, let me sit with this for more than four seconds. I don't want the credit. I want the momentum.
00:18:45
Speaker
I want it to actually help. So if they've done that, they can package it in 60 seconds. And then the value of the idea for them, it was like, let's start this podcast because they need to connect more with these certain people.
00:18:56
Speaker
so it would actually start to solve a problem. And so I asked the rest of the room, the implementers, hey, what what value, what's the benefit of this? And they were like, oh, easily we could see it gets in touch with more people. It creates some evergreen content. People understand our brand more clearly. So they were very apt to bring the benefit.
00:19:12
Speaker
but then the ideator can go last. If there's any benefit that we didn't catch in the room, then he's allowed or she's allowed to add it last. So that's step number two is making sure there's a benefit. So step one is the idea.
00:19:23
Speaker
Step two is once I've spent 60 seconds going, here's my idea, guys, it'll change everything, trust me. Trust me. Then you be quiet and then you let everybody else in the room share potential benefits to that idea. And then you as the person who presented the idea can go last and go, here's some other the things I think.
00:19:41
Speaker
When you're running a meeting like this, i mean, is is the visionary also running? In an ideal situation, no. You have a facilitator implementation person who doesn't... There are in all ah organizations people who are slightly ambidextrous. And actually, most of them are probably somewhere in the middle. Because there aren't there are, you know...
00:20:02
Speaker
230,000 people companies, but those are rare, right? Those are general electronics where they're highly specialized. In most departments, you're doing a little bit of everything. So you're having to come up with creative solutions. You're having to implement those things.
00:20:12
Speaker
So you want to find the person in the room who has a very high EQ and who conflict does not bother them. The tension of this doesn't bother them and they can help structure it and then value both the idea and the implementation people.
The Gut Reaction Phase
00:20:25
Speaker
Generally speaking, I mean, maybe this is not your experience, but it seems like, you know, ah often the visionary is coming in with and and not super, super, superly, a super well-shaped idea. oh Yeah.
00:20:39
Speaker
And so for them to have to like immediately defend it kind of puts them in a, I think it's kind of tough on their ego. Yeah. 100%, and now you have a tug of war of wills or personality and personal capital. Yeah, you're so powerful in that room. What am I really going to say to you? Right. Yeah. Kind of like your experience. I'm older, you're younger. saying no. Stop saying no and just acquiesce to my way of doing things. Yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah, for sure.
00:21:03
Speaker
that that's That's what happened. Which, by the way, in that moment, it's just a pitch meeting. I'm pitching you something you will do. This is not an ideation session. They're different. Got it. So benefits and then that's step two. Step three is what? So now we go into the last section of the EQ. So the first three steps are all emotional intelligence. The last is the last three steps are IQ. So the last step of the emotional intelligence, the third one, is now um gut reaction.
00:21:29
Speaker
And what you're wanting to do in this moment is just get a read of the room. I've given the idea, we've heard some benefits. And kind of like the old gladiator movies where like they thumbs you know up or down, whether the guy in the arena gets to you know live or not.
00:21:41
Speaker
What you want to do in this moment is just get a read of the room.
Aligning Ideas with Problems
00:21:44
Speaker
So you count to three and everybody goes thumbs up, sideways or down. Two rules for this particular section. Nobody's allowed to talk.
00:21:52
Speaker
And what you have to define what thumbs up sideways and down means before every vote. And what it typically means is, i might be interested, i'm unsure, i might be uninterested.
00:22:04
Speaker
But you wanna use those qualifying words, might. Because again, we're in the emotional stage. We're not committing to anything. it's just like, I'm trying to get a sense of how I feel. I might only be eight minutes into hearing this idea for the first time. And especially for implementers, there's this fear of, if I say yes, you're going to make me do something. And I'm already six other ideas deep. Yeah, of course. Yeah. yeah they They don't say that. That's just what these things signify. Yeah, to the room. So then you go one, two, three. And then everybody goes, or, or.
00:22:34
Speaker
And that's step three. That's step three. And the necessity of that is just for the ideator and the facilitator to go, does this have legs? If everybody in the room does this, it is one of two things. Either the idea was so poorly communicated, we don't know what we are being asked about, or...
Assessing Idea Feasibility
00:22:52
Speaker
It's so disconnected from the real problem that we're trying to solve. Why would we pursue this? So if you're saying, hey, I'm about to release my next New York Times bestseller book, which, you know, is always on the horizon for you. And then I, as your friend, came and said, hey, my idea is I want to donate a million dollars to a charity on the other side of the world. You're like, i think that's fantastic.
00:23:16
Speaker
I came to you asking, how how can you help me get this book on the New York Times bestseller? It does not fix the problem this meeting is with. That fixes another great problem. I should think we should talk about that, but not for helping me with the thing I came into this room to ask you about.
00:23:32
Speaker
Idea, benefit, gut reaction. Everybody does this. That takes 30 seconds. And what happens? So now we move into the data IQ portion of ah the the tool. So the next thing is facts. So, okay, the other thing that we're talking about here, right, with most ideation is no pre-thought has gone into this. It's just, oh, we're just reactionary. you guys pick out, see whatever. So now the job is facts is synonymous with cost.
00:23:58
Speaker
And costs have three versions. It's either time, energy, or capital. And even capital has two subsects. It's either human capital or money. So now you're going to ask the question of, hey, around this idea, how much time could it take to execute?
00:24:12
Speaker
How much energy is required? Meaning how many hours from these different departments will be required to execute the idea? And then third, which humans are needed to do that? And how much money is involved in that? So it's humans, software, money. There's some capital expenditure on the idea that we just need to know what will it cost. So, you know, if if you you and I were chit-chatting about a new book and you're like, okay, you know, it'll probably take me time-wise six months to write. Energy, it's about something really interesting. And, ah you know, new books cost $150,000 for company to come to do. Okay, now I immediately know if your new idea is come write a book with Jeff.
00:24:51
Speaker
I know exactly what the facts are, the cost of doing
Collaborative Process Phase
00:24:54
Speaker
this thing. But a lot of times with new ideas, they're still in this gelatinous form because nobody's done any of the pre-work. So we're like, let's just keep on having meetings about this, but we have no idea what the facts are.
00:25:05
Speaker
So how do you do that in a meeting where you're hearing this for the first time? So the best thing, and you know, the most important meeting is the meeting before the meeting and the meeting after the meeting. So when it comes to properly run ideation sessions, what I like is for the ideator go, hey, I have this possible idea.
00:25:23
Speaker
I'm thinking through some of these so that everybody else in the room is prepped so that they can ask some questions that the idea ideator should be thinking about. Hey, have you thought about how many people you need to execute that? Okay, so they're coming with some facts. Hey, have you thought about? So you can do it in the room, but the way it's really, really good is if there's a little bit of pre-work done on the idea.
00:25:41
Speaker
So ideally the ideator lets everybody know. They put it on the agenda. They go, I i want to pitch this idea. want to ideate this idea. pitch it. Yeah, there you go. And, you know, here's what I know. yeah And then when it comes to the facts section of of the session,
00:25:59
Speaker
is Does the ideator go first? Are they the ones going here? here yeah That's that pre-work coming in there. And then they can say, hey, I think this is a range. I don't have a really clear sense yet because I'm still wanting to see if you guys think this is a good idea, but I'm just going to give you some sort of parameters. But if they go, it could be $5 or 50 million. It could be one person or a hundred people. Like that's not helpful.
00:26:21
Speaker
And so if it's not helpful, like what? Is meeting over come back with more facts? or Yeah, the facilitator in that moment should say, hey, I really think this has value. But ah a good idea, like you said, they're a dime dozen. If we're actually going get this into the real world, I'd love to...
00:26:37
Speaker
pause right here and say, hey, could we schedule this again in a day, a week, a month, a quarter, whatever the size of the idea requires? And could you go and find those figures? Hey, could I assign somebody from the implementation process side of the company to help you go find that?
00:26:51
Speaker
And then we come back and do this. And then that's where the idea should pause hypothetically if they have no frame of reference, if there's no handhold. But the danger on that is you also have to be really clear. is like, you're not going to know down to the penny, down to the hour, down to the people what you need.
Understanding the 'Why' Behind Ideas
00:27:06
Speaker
So if that happens, that that ideation session is over at that point. Okay. yeah Assuming that they've done some homework, they they bring some some facts. Are they the only one who shares facts or can other be people contribute?
00:27:20
Speaker
Other people can contribute if it's like a larger, you know, group thing, but then it really moves now into when you start having group think into step five, which is process. Okay. Process is your five questions from, you know, journalism. It's that who, what, where, when, how.
00:27:35
Speaker
So the questions we're asking about any event is the same question we're asking about an idea. Who is going to be in charge of this? Okay. What is it trying to accomplish? Who, what, where are we hoping that this thing lives? When, what's the timeline of this thing accomplished? And how are we actually executing? There are things that feel vague.
00:27:54
Speaker
And then my favorite joke around this is who, what, where, when, how, and sometimes why. Because just like the vowels, um that's actually sometimes the most critical one because a word breaks down, doesn't make sense without a Y at the end of it. In the same way at the end of step five, if we're not kind of reiterating, hey is this really fixing a problem? Why would we do this? And let's just make crystal clear that this idea, this solution fixes that problem.
00:28:21
Speaker
If we don't have that, there's a real problem because now all of a sudden we'll do what I call climbing the ladder on the wrong wall. You'll finish, you'll have a great idea session. Everybody will say, yes, we'll go execute it for six months and we'll look around and be like, why doesn't this feel any better?
00:28:34
Speaker
Well, the front of the house was on fire and we said yes to doing the landscaping in the backyard. okay. Yeah, we we didn't know why we were doing this. We were fixing the wrong problem. So during the process section, who is asking and answering who, what, where, what? Yeah, this now becomes group think. Now all of you want all of the acumen, all of the thinking of your process people, because they're really jumping in even before that in four and going, hey, I think this could be now your ideator has to come with some of those costs. But they're able to also say, hey, historically, because your idea person is not going to know that sort of detail. Hey, I think this might be true if that's helpful. And they're like, oh, great, that gives me a handle on that. So it's very collaborative.
00:29:14
Speaker
Five is easily the most collaborative section of this whole thing where we really want to go, hey, based on our current resources, this is the who, this is the the when, this is the where, this is the how.
Leadership in Caution Phase
00:29:25
Speaker
So the ah the ideator comes with some facts and then that kind of segues into the process a section where people just start asking questions and sharing.
00:29:36
Speaker
When is this going to happen? How is this going to happen? And this is ah a group discussion. Yep. And then that naturally just goes into that, that why question now leads into step six. Okay.
00:29:48
Speaker
Should we do this? Is is this something that, yeah, that's the question now in step six, which is caution. And here's my favorite kind of other mechanism in the tool is in step two during benefits, the ideator speaks when.
00:30:04
Speaker
Last. So now in caution, the idea speaks when? First. First. And so I'm interested from you you know diving into the tool. Why do you think that's important? Well, I mean, if I bring an idea, right?
00:30:18
Speaker
ah I think if you are an idea person, you don't know... if it's a good idea or not. You just know it's an idea and it might have a charge. I think so a good word i idea people, visionaries, um assess ideas based on emotion. Yeah. How excited do I feel about And if it's if it feels really alive to me, typically you get an idea and then you sort of see it confirmed in the world. You see it confirmed on the news. You see it confirmed in conversations with friends. It's it's hard to be a visionary because it feels like you're always operating in urgency.
00:30:59
Speaker
And it really does feel I think this is true. It feels to the person who who has the idea It feels like if you don't do this now, it's never going to get done. There really is. It is kind of this binary ADD, you know, thing.
00:31:14
Speaker
And, um, I I've often. heard, you know people who have ADD, ADHD, neurodivergence, like there's a certain group of people, you know, in the population, like if they don't see it, it doesn't exist.
00:31:31
Speaker
And if it's on their desk, it has to exist. Like that's the only way it exists. um A friend of mine who's a very successful entrepreneur ah diagnosed with ADD, she, um,
00:31:45
Speaker
She says, like, you know, my husband will, like, clean up my papers. i have piles everywhere, and I'll clean them up, and I'll forget about things. She goes, he doesn't understand that for me, these piles are reminders of things that need to get done. and i was like, yes, that's true. That's true for me. You know, like, my wife was a very clean person, and she's, like, always putting things away. And for me, that's just a signal to to
Visionaries and Team Dynamics
00:32:05
Speaker
finish this thing. But I think if you're going through this process, if if I brought an idea to um a meeting, and I've submitted it to this process, and we are,
00:32:14
Speaker
ah intentionally and and also carefully kind of beating up this this idea a little bit pressure testing it to see if it is worth pursuing. I'll have a pretty good sense as as to whether or not like I think it's worth it by the end of that process. And if I go, like I don't think we should do this. yeah like It sounds like too much of a hassle. I don't want to divert resources to it. I didn't actually understand what the cost was. I think idea people, if they're the leader and they have some sort of influence, they're they don't know how much they're burdening their team yeah a hundred percent with a new idea.
00:32:52
Speaker
Yeah. And I think the beauty of what you bring up there at the end is it may not even be something as large as I don't think the whole idea isn't worth doing. What I see more often is if the leader can lead with a caution first, they're taking one shot at a, you know, a battleship.
00:33:09
Speaker
And it's just putting one little ping in the dent. But what it signals to the rest of the team is this isn't from God's mouth to how is. He also, so she also sees a problem. They see something as an issue here.
00:33:21
Speaker
And what that does in like the mentality and the culture of your process people is it makes them lean in. They're like, oh, you see a little bit of what I see. Like i you see the value in me going, but but wait, what about this or this or this?
00:33:35
Speaker
And so the beauty of me ah to me of the leader going first in step six in this caution piece is it just unifies the team. In the same way for benefits, when they all go first, the leader, the visionary goes, oh, you see
Critical Thinking in Ideation
00:33:48
Speaker
me.
00:33:48
Speaker
When the leader takes the first shot at the idea, they all go, oh you see us. Yeah, I never really thought about that. Yeah. There is this sense, I think, um when you're bringing an idea to to a table um that like he must have thought all all of this through. She must have thought all of this through. Now we have to figure out how to do it. And he's not going to they're not going to help us do this.
00:34:15
Speaker
So I love the idea of like bringing everybody together. Let's really kind of work with this thing and see if this is something we all agree that we should work on. So the leader or the visionary idea ideator goes first. You know, they kind of throw up the cautions. Should we do this?
00:34:32
Speaker
And then everybody goes after that. And and and is it is it a discussion? Is it thumbs up, thumbs down? How does that work? Yeah. So now it's just a discussion. Now you're saying, hey, now the floor is open in the world in which this thing we're actually going to exist. If we said we're going to leave this meeting with some action steps, what are like blind spots? Where are the potholes? Where are the things you're like a little bit worried? Like, hey, it might derail our beautiful new vehicle that we've just put on the road.
Concluding Ideation Sessions
00:34:55
Speaker
So we love to hear from everybody in the room because, by the way, we think that this sort of critical thinking, not being critical, but critical thinking, only helps the idea. It only makes it stronger and bigger and better and more efficient. And so it really does become a conversation and collaboration at that point.
00:35:11
Speaker
And then what? Like, how does the meeting end? So when you wrap it up, the facilitator basically says, okay, this was the idea. here' are some of the benefits. Here's our kind of gut reaction. They're doing a little 30-second recap. Here's some of the facts and the process. So what I'd like to do now, with everybody's permission, is I'd like to, like, pause and go, are we good now for us to start assigning this out for next steps?
00:35:33
Speaker
And what I like about this is it's going, there's continuity. Yeah. We're all a part of it. There's also some momentum, so this wasn't wasted. I mean, we live in a culture now where you know our most popular meme is, mima um this meeting could have been an email. right And my contention with that is, yes, your garbage meeting should have been an email. right But a great meeting is literally unmissable. yeah Like you're in there, you feel valuable, momentum and energy.
Preventing Disillusionment
00:36:00
Speaker
And so the role of the facilitator, and that can be anybody in the room. In small organizations, that could be the idea of person or it could be the chief implementation person with the only three of you. You just pick a role and be like, okay, at the end of this, i'm going to put a bow on it.
00:36:12
Speaker
And what I always want in a win is there has to be a number and a deadline. all wins, whether it's the smallest game of tic-tac-toe or a World Cup with 60 full countries coming from all over the planet, there has to be a number. I have to score one more goal than you. By when? By the end of the 90 minutes. So there's a number and duration.
00:36:30
Speaker
And so at the end of it, the facilitator's goal is to go, hey, what's a number? Okay, we need to have this one meeting by this next Wednesday to have assigned these people. And you're clearly stating that to the room, that there will be a win from this ideation session, even to the point of, we don't really know what's next, but hey, just so you know, the ideator will meet with one other person to have a follow-up meeting and send a recap email by the end of day on Wednesday, and then we'll tell you what's happening next. There's a next step. There's always a next step. Because like we said at the beginning, the chief question is, what's the next step? And so in order to increase clarity and connection, you have to reduce ambiguity, which creates anxiety. And everybody's got this question, was this worth it? Did I give my time to something? What is the next step? And this now is reducing all of that anxiety by getting that clarity.
00:37:20
Speaker
Yeah, well, I mean, it also sucks to be in a meeting where like you have this brilliant idea and everybody yeah goes, awesome, we're all on board with this, now what do we do? Or, oh, we'll talk about it later. Or, you know. Worst. And I think that happens often. A lot. yeah And the opposite side of that, and so you come from the ideation session, i had a brilliant session.
00:37:36
Speaker
There's just the other side of that where we were like, we had a lackluster idea, but I polished this toad. Like, holy crap, like I know the facts and the figures and
Steve Jobs' Leadership Evolution
00:37:45
Speaker
the next step. And then the ideator kind of goes...
00:37:48
Speaker
I don't really like that anymore because it's not really what I thought. Okay, we'll talk about it later. So you just suck the wind out of all of the implementation people in the room as well. Right. So there needs to be a clear bow and clear next steps, even if that's happened, of going, i don't know if this is the right idea anymore. Me and so-and-so will meet and we'll send out an email by end of day on this day.
00:38:07
Speaker
So there's real clarity that, oh, okay, maybe it morphed into something different, but there's still going to be a next step. I think that's important because um if you have, say, a visionary leader in an organization and there is no follow-up, there's just lots of ideas, some of which get done, a lot of which don't.
00:38:25
Speaker
ah My experience was working in an organization like that when I came to this nonprofit that I worked at for many years is um there was this feeling of disillusion yeah on the staff where they're like, oh it's another idea. yeahp like Cool. Yeah. I guess I'll be there. I'm not paying any attention because this will be like the dozen that came before them. And I didn't know anything. I was like 25 years old at the time and I was excited. you know i'm I'm a part of this growing organization. doing lots of fun things. but're like ah this like this This is just you know so-and-so's new idea. it'll be It'll be over in a year or two. you aren't Just his new pet project.
00:39:01
Speaker
and um And I saw that. And what's what was crazy is the idea did take off. It did become this big thing. And they were all wrong. sure ah But what I saw was kind of a failure to like bring the team on board with this big new vision. And sometimes that success is more dangerous than the failure because now all of a sudden it's just the success of the visionary and nobody else feels any attachment or worth or value or collaboration to the thing.
00:39:29
Speaker
Right. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's, it's sort of overdone to, you know, give a Steve Jobs example, but here we are, you know, that there were, there were two different Steve Jobses. There was the radical visionary, you know from the seventies and eighties, we're going to change the world. And then there was the older wiser man who actually learned how to work with the team, you know worked at next computer, which was basically a failure.
00:39:52
Speaker
Uh, but they ah eventually created the operating system. We, we now still have today with all Apple
Contrasting Apple and Pixar
00:39:58
Speaker
products. And then Pixar, where you actually learn how to be a CEO and how to get people on board with ideas and get others to adopt those ideas and take them somewhere. You know, the the Apple of, ah you know, 1980 versus the Apple of, you know, 2024. Completely different organizations.
00:40:18
Speaker
And I think that's a result of... two different kinds of visionary leadership, not one lacking in vision and the other one having a lot of vision, but you want to have a vision that invites people on board with that vision. They can help turn it into something. And I think you bring up an interesting point, too, there. The difference between Apple and Pixar is now, at least, Apple is still an interesting technology company, maybe.
00:40:42
Speaker
yeah Unless you're a Samsung person, you're like, they interested in 20 years. yeah Maybe you're right. But Pixar is this universally like, oh, you just feel warm and fuzzy. You feel included. You can see yourself there. And I think that's the last great thing that I think people need to think about.
00:40:57
Speaker
The last great thing that I think people need to think about.
Ideas and Identity Revisited
00:41:00
Speaker
when it comes to ideas is this, your idea is not your identity, but a great idea will help other people find theirs.
00:41:09
Speaker
And what I mean by this is when you walk in as a visionary and you say, hey, this is the idea. A lot of people are so attached to this. I remember this as a songwriter years ago. I was doing a co-write with a guy who had written like legitimate number one hit singles in the country world. And he was like, Carl, nice to meet you. Like our, you know, labels had set up this like kind of songwriting date. That's how it worked in those days. Maybe it still works like that.
00:41:31
Speaker
And I was like, man, I'm so honored to be here. he's like, yeah, man, show me the, you know, a couple of songs you're excited about. And so we played a couple and like, oh, i really like that. and then he played me some like, No, those are songs like, wow, geez, okay, you're a real craftsman. And we kind of stopped for our little, you know, coffee, lunch break or whatever.
00:41:47
Speaker
And he says, ah so, you know, how many songs you got in the catalog? And I was like, man, 40. And I was like, really excited. you know these are These are songs that you've written that have been published. and Yeah, songs it are finished that are maybe on a record or about to go through any publishing. And I didn't have a publishing deal at the time. I was like super on the label, but just, you know, off on myself. i was like, how about you? He's like, I think I'm about to 6,000. Wow.
00:42:10
Speaker
one And I was like, man. And I was like, can you help? Like, what piece of advice would you give me? He's like, they're not babies. Like your song is not a baby. You're going to have a thousand little song idea babies over your life.
00:42:24
Speaker
The less precious you can be with them, less attached. He's like, they're great. It's a moment of inspiration that hopefully makes its way out into the world. But the more attached you are to it and the more it becomes about you and about your identity, the less able you are to have somebody else write a different bridge or co-write with people or write hundreds of or thousands of them that eventually get out into the the you know kind of the the ether of the culture. And I think that same idea so very true of our ideas inside companies or anywhere.
00:42:52
Speaker
If I can make sure that my idea is not my identity, but I can put it in a container like these six steps, then the process of ideation can help everybody find their identity without being beholden to it. Oh, I'm an idea person. I don't need to feel bad about that. I can bring it, but I need to bring it with a little bit more acumen and understanding how it lives in the real world. Oh, I'm an implementation person. I don't need to feel bad that people have accused me of being critical.
00:43:18
Speaker
I need to have a critical eye and idea towards the thing to help it be better, but I can find that part of my identity in the process. Well, that's all I got on that.
00:43:30
Speaker
Me too. Until the next question.