One of my favorite podcasts to listen to is Exponential Wisdom, hosted by Peter Diamandis and Dan Sullivan. In Episode 31, the hosts discuss moonshot thinking and strategies to get started. This got me thinking… What if moonshot thinking was a leadership competency? What would education be like if we had leaders at the federal, state, district, school and classroom level that inspired us with “moonshot” thinking?
So what is the moonshot philosophy? In the podcast, Diamandis shares that moonshot thinking is doing something beyond the incremental. 10% growth isn’t good enough; 10x growth is worth achieving. “Can you set a crazy objective that everybody in the company says, ‘There is no way we can grow there linearly.’ You’re effectively forcing the company to throw away it’s previous methodologies of doing things and start with a clean sheet of paper.” (Check out this video to learn more about moonshot thinking.)
Diamandis and Sullivan continue talking about starting your moonshot thinking by settling on a massively transformative purpose (MTP). What are you doing to change the world?
Finally, Diamandis shares his 5-year Moonshot Planner:
- What is your 5 year moonshot (your 10x goal – 10 times bigger than what you’re doing now)? (This is a running 5 years. Revisit your moonshot every year and make adjustments due to changing contexts, resources, etc.)
- What concrete objective can you achieve THIS YEAR that will put your moonshot on schedule?
- What 3 concrete objectives can you achieve THIS MONTH that will put your one-year goal on schedule?
We have an abundance of uninspiring leadership in education, particularly from our federal and state departments of education, Congress and the General Assembly. Despite the dearth of leadership at the top levels, we are discovering more district and school leaders moving their schools toward moonshots that break the cycle of linear change. My colleague, Lynn Fuini-Hetten, and I interviewed a couple of these school leaders on TLTalkRadio last season – City Neighbors and Chugach School District. Look for more inspiring leadership stories in our new podcast series coming in April, Shifting the #leadership paradigm. How would education be different if more leaders practiced moonshot thinking, particularly at the federal and state level?
I’m eager to spend some time in the near future working with my colleagues to clearly articulate our moonshot. I hope you will add your voice!
What is your massively transformative purpose? What is your moonshot?
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