Moonshot Thinking

Moonshot thinking.  Many of us have never even heard of the term. I hadn’t until today.  We had our monthly leadership meeting at work where all the managers and leaders get together and usually pat each other on the back for whatever good thing they got accomplished this month.  Today was different.  There were 2 guest speakers who have regular day jobs but on the side they go around and talk to businesses about moonshot thinking and how to change the dynamic of your organization.  The premise is that you take this fantastic goal, something that you would love to do and think more than anything is nearly impossible to achieve.  Much like Kennedy saying we were going to put a man on the moon but hadn’t even created the technology or had any idea how it could happen.  They just knew they wanted to so they started creating the plans. 

One of the most important things I took away from the meeting was that just as I have been saying in my blog posts there is power in partnership.  If you hold all your cards to your chest and don’t share any information then the organization cannot grow.  You must trust that the team you have is capable and has valuable input in the process.  When you take one person’s ideas you are just dealing with what that one person knows.  If you have 10, 20, 50, 100 people all putting in their input you are creating what is called social capital.  It is a dynamic approach at creating an organization that is highly communicative, energetic, passionate about the relationships with their teams, and supportive of one another.  How many companies out there that you have worked for have you felt that way?  Usually you are just trying to keep your head above water and get the pertinent information out before the entire building burns to the ground.  If you approach it from a standpoint of collaborative work then you are not putting out fires you are creating fires within the team you are leading.  

One of the speakers said that leadership is not a position it is a decision and that in any organization you will have 18% of the team that are toxically disengaged, 50% that are just disengaged and 32% that are highly motivated and interested in pushing the business forward.  If you just step in and build a relationship with the team and create the vision and mission with them they are more likely to engage in what they are doing.  Be clear in what your mission and goals are and when you create mission driven leadership you will have a team that is actively engaged. 

The exercise below was one they had us do at the beginning of their presentation and it helped me realize what I am interested in doing with my life.  I am starting a leadership organization that will focus on life/work coaching, mentoring and inspiring teams and leaders.  That is my moonshot.  

So I will pose the same question to you:  

What is your moonshot? 

        - What makes it important to you?

        - How do you communicate that vision? 

        - What supports do you need to achieve it?