Moonshot Thinking

Moonshot Thinking is an approach to innovation, and it can be applied to business or any other discipline where you target at least 10X goals. That shifts the mindset, and it empowers a team of people to look for unconventional solutions, thus starting from first principles, by leveraging on fast-paced experimentation.

Approach to Moonshot Thinking
In the literal sense, President John F. Kennedy invented moonshot thinking in 1962 when he challenged an entire nation to set an incredibly audacious goal of sending man to the moon in fewer than 10 years. Many decades later, Astro Teller, director of X (formerly Google X), presented moonshot thinking as a philosophy for radically approaching any problem. Moonshots require us to aim for a 10x gain versus a more typical incremental 10 percent improvement. This bold approach can be broken down into three key steps:

• Identify a huge problem that affects the entire organization: Many companies could quickly identify women and women of color in senior management. According to McKinsey’s Women in the Workplace 2020 study, for the sixth year in a row, women continued to fall behind in moving into first-level management positions. According to the study, for every 100 men promoted into a managerial position, only 85 women were promoted—and this gap was even larger for women of color.
• Identify a big, bold, seemingly impossible goal: In the case of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), consider taking broad aim at diversity (for example, “We will achieve gender and racial parity at all levels of the organization, including our board of directors, by 2030.”). Your colleagues may jump to why this cannot be done at all levels or within the timeframe, but this is not the point. Moonshots are not designed as feasible goals; the point is to push the collective mindset beyond the gravitational pull of small incremental changes.
• Craft breakthrough new approaches to tackle the challenge: When it comes to driving increased diversity, it is imperative to start with data. Invest in a thorough collection and analysis of everything impacting representation, including recruiting sources, hiring processes, and promotion practices. Enact sweeping changes to talent acquisition, sponsorship, and performance review practices to include a much more diverse talent pool from which to draw.

Examples of Moonshot Thinking'
Nowadays there are many projects that have radically changed the way we consume, behave, communicate… Companies like Airbnb, Netflix or Uber are great exponents in their category and they are frequently mentioned when it comes to Exponential or Moonshot Thinking. Some examples are:

• SpaceX: “Make humans a multiplanetary species”. SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy will be the world’s most powerful functioning rocket when it lifts off later this year.
• Google’s self-driving car: “Make an autonomously-driven vehicle”. Google’s self-driving car prototype is electronically powered and equipped with the sensors and software to navigate and operate the car. Google self-driving cars have already driven 2 million miles on public roads.
• Made In Space: “Make everything in space be made in space”. Made In Spaceput the first 3D printer on the International Space Station in 2014. Now, they’re building Archinaut, an autonomous manufacturing platform that can build and assemble large-scale structures in orbit (picture antennas in space that are larger than a football stadium, providing internet to everyone on earth).

There are countless examples: Blue Origin by Jeff Bezos or Virgin Galactic in the space world; JUST or Impossible Foods in the gastronomy universe (trying to eliminate animal suffering); and of course all projects related to the Singularity University.