Low-Hanging Fruit, Moonshots, and Coffee: Dreaming Big Within and Beyond Our Limitations

Vocation must be perpetually discerned. In today’s culture of constant change and pivoting, this discernment work is often bypassed as a quaint but pointless roadside attraction alongside the freeway towards progress/sustainability/innovation/retention (you pick!). Our team at Augsburg University’s Christensen Center for Vocation takes that roadside attraction very seriously. We design and lead transformative learning experiences for leaders intended to help them not only discern their organization’s calls but also take action that affirm these calls. Those learning experiences are only transformative if we create and facilitate the space for these leaders and teams to reflect on how the experience has impacted them. To do this, we have implemented an efficient and effective process. This article is a summary of that process and is shared here as a tool you can use with your teams when you find yourselves at a crossroads, when you have completed a workshop or continuing education experience, when a busy season or large event has come to an end. It is a process designed to help you listen to and trust your collective wisdom as you wonder what your next steps might be. It begins with the contemplative practice of the awareness examen, move into naming the low-hanging fruit that can be accomplished quickly and easily, invites you to dream big about the moonshots your team might take, and then lands with you naming the next few people you need to invite into the conversation.

Awareness Examen

The first step in this process is the Awareness Examen. The Examen was originally a part of the spiritual practices of Ignatius of Loyola. It was intended to be practiced at the end of the day as a way of reflecting back over the day, looking for moments of both desolation and consolation. Moments of desolation are moments when you experienced or encountered anxiety, fear, brokenness, etc. A moment of consolation is a moment in which you experienced peace, hope, healing, etc. Allowing your team to share their experiences of desolation and consolation during an event is a form of program evaluation, a way of relationally processing the experience together, an opportunity to develop trust with one another, and an important step towards allowing the collective wisdom of the group propel you work forward. Here is how you practice the Awareness Examen.

“Allowing your team to share their experiences of desolation and consolation during an event is a form of program evaluation, a way of relationally processing the experience together, an opportunity to develop trust with one another, and an important step towards allowing the collective wisdom of the group propel you work forward.”

Sit in a chair with your spine straight and your feet flat on the floor. Or find any position that is comfortable and possible for you and your body. Place your hands on your legs with your palms either up or down. Do a brief scan of your body from your scalp down to your feet. Notice where there is tension or discomfort. Do what you need to do to relieve that tension or discomfort—stretch, wiggle, crack, twist, etc. Then take three deep slow breaths in and begin to center yourself. Allow yourself to become aware of your breath and your body. Close your eyes and then reflect over the experience you want to process. Allow yourself to become aware of moments of desolation in this experience or over the particular time you are reflecting on. Once you’ve identified a moment, examine it. What was happening? Who was present? What were you feeling? Why would you categorize this as a moment of desolation? After sitting with it for a while, take a few more deep slow breaths and release the memory of that experience. When you are ready, allow yourself to reflect once again over the same period of time or experience. But this time, become aware of moments of consolation. Once you’ve identified a moment, examine it. What was happening? Who was present? What were you feeling? Why would you categorize this as a moment of consolation. After sitting with it for a while, take a few more deep slow breaths and release the memory of that experience. After completing this reflection, take some time to allow each person on your team to share both their moments of desolation and consolation with the team. Allow them to simply share what came to them without any judgment or commentary. Just let their words about those moments stand on their own.

Low-Hanging Fruit

After you have processed and shared your own experiences with an event you are then ready to begin looking forward. We always start this by asking teams to brainstorm what they think the low-hanging fruit might be for them. Low-hanging fruit are practices you and your team can implement almost immediately through minor changes and with the resources already at hand that could result in important and beneficial gains for the work you do. For example, at the end of a day long event focused on sustainability one team identified a quick and easy low-hanging fruit. They could add a “Support Our Work” button to their website where interested parties could simply make a financial donation. It would take one person about ten minutes to implement this low-hanging fruit. I tend to like to phrase the question this way, “Given the desolations and consolations we have heard from one another, what might be some of the low-hanging fruit our team can implement easily that would have a positive impact on our work?”

Moonshots

When we begin with low-hanging fruit we allow our team to honor its very real limitations as well as the assets they already possess. This next step, moonshots, invites your team to move beyond their current limitations and assets. A moonshot is exactly what it sounds like. The phrase originated from NASA’s Project Apollo from the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. It literally meant an attempt to land on the moon. It figuratively means a radical proposal or solution for a very challenging problem. For example, at the end of a DEI training a member of one leadership team said, “Rather than reading a land acknowledgment statement at the beginning of every large event on campus, what if we started a conversation with the local indigenous leaders in our area about what actual reparations might look like.” This is a moonshot. Again, I will often phrase the question this way, “Given all that we have seen and heard and shared here, what are some moonshots we might just dare to take?”

Coffee

After orbiting around our moonshots for a while, we invite teams back to terra firma. We know how busy we all become upon arriving home after an inspiring but exhausting team experience. We also know how lonely it can start to feel when working to implement some of the changes we dream of making. So the last step we ask teams to take is the naming of a few people with whom they each need to have a cup of coffee and a conversation regarding the low-hanging fruit and moonshots. These might be with high-level administrators who can make or break an idea, or they might be with the movers and shakers on campus who really know how to make things happen, or they might be with those naysayers who you know will be suspicious of whatever you propose. Naming these people together helps the team identify key people who need to be part of the movement. It also creates some immediate accountability. Now you each have someone you must reach out to and everyone on the team knows you have agreed to do this. Having these conversations helps to keep the momentum your team developed at the event and it helps build a coalition of people who will help lease the work.

“We also know how lonely it can start to feel when working to implement some of the changes we dream of making. So the last step we ask teams to take is the naming of a few people with whom they each need to have a cup of coffee and a conversation.”

Even though we talked about moonshots, we know this is not rocket science. What we are proposing is nothing amazing. Yet we have seen it be both an efficient and effective way for a team to wrap up their time at a shared experience together that helps them reflect upon the experience and identify some immediate and lofty goals. We often lose the insights we gain from a team experience when we transition away from them without pausing to reflect. This process has proven to be an effective way to honestly celebrate, lament, and move forward from an event with a community of collaborators and a sense of call to action. We hope it helps you do good work and love the work you do.