THE MOONSHOT FACTOR

Innovation, collaboration and feedback culture have become buzzwords many companies proudly advocate. In the next few paragraphs, I’ll share my perspective on the value of fostering an innovation-based culture. I will pinpoint the potential pitfalls of misunderstanding this concept and highlight how the feedback culture can unlock business value.

A project with a moonshot factor aims to tackle one of the world’s most challenging and persistent problems. Sometimes, this approach is paramount to developing outstanding products and services, such as Waymo’s self-driving cars.

Nonetheless, the ambitious nature of projects with the moonshot factor has also led to many initiatives that have failed and not come to fruition.

In the next paragraphs, I will share my perspective on why a company, especially an incumbent, should sponsor the “moonshot factor” and how proficient I am in injecting it into my day-to-day fatigue.

Where did I learn about the moonshot factor?

I heard for the first time about the moonshot factor while listening to a great episode of Simon Sinke’s A Bit of Optimism podcast with Astro Teller, the Google X CEO.

This episode inspired me to find answers to a bunch of critical questions.

Why the moonshot factor is critical for organisations to innovate?

Many companies claim to be innovators, but most are not. This misperception can cause large corporations to overlook the potential business value of pursuing ambitious and innovative ideas.

The actual return on investment for the organisation will be a tangible and measurable outcome that dispels the idea for good and unleashes creativity and effort to focus on something else.

This cycle deprioritises the outcome and prioritises creating a safe environment for talents to explore and concentrate on what unlocks business value to the organisation.

I learned that what we call a moonshot has three essential parts.

1. There has to be a giant problem in the world that the company wants to solve and eliminate
2. There has to be some futuristic product or service the company is proposing to make. However unlikely, the organisation could make it, get it to work, and get it cheap enough to go to the market. If so, everyone can agree that it would probably make that problem go away and unlock business value for the organisation
3. There must be a proposal for a disruptive technology that will allow the organisation to improve its products by at least an order of magnitude compared to the current solutions

If an organisation has those three things in place, it is fair to say that it is preparing a moonshot story. This scenario is possible only if the organisation’s leadership knows the assumption is probably mistaken, but that’s cool and worth exploring.

Additionally, leaders support talents in answering the question, “How fast and cheaply can we verify that you’re wrong so we can move on to the next thing?

How proficient am I with the moonshot factor?

Throughout my career, I’ve often focused on building pedestals because it was the easiest way to say that the job was half done. Slowly, I realised that creating the pedestal removed an insignificant amount of risk.

If you were trying to teach a monkey to stand on the top of a ten foot pedestal and recite Shakespeare, what should you do first?

The giant leap starts by understanding whether it is possible to train the monkey. The second step is to figure out how to minimise the risk that this will not work. This way of looking at the problems and opportunities is an intellectual architecture. Putting this in place helps people focus on de-risking the most challenging parts.

The moonshot factor sounds like the pillar of a creative environment that will enable the company to harvest business value from a moonshot factor-driven approach to envisioning and designing products and experiences.

To learn more

• How to create a moonshot organization
• Leaning on the wisdom of ancient philosophers and Silicon Valley thought leaders