This is about how we view the world around us as well as our place in it. About how we then utilise and act upon this point of view when we aspire to make a difference. When we ambitiously seek to make impact.
How
When we focus on our own state of knowledge and based on that aspire to be as accurate as possible in our decision making process, we take the first steps in setting up ourselves for success. To eventually achieve the very outcomes – our ambitious objectives – we aspire for.
Articulated, Clear & Inspiring Ambitions
It’s in every teachers job description to nurture students ambition into aspiration. When we feel purpose and meaning in what we do, when we focus on and are engaged in the journey itself, not just seeing reaching the destination as the only thing that matters, we build both the resilience and endurance so desperately needed to turn ambitions into reality. When we get the opportunity to feel and follow aspiration, we find meaning, energy and inspiration. We thrive.
We need articulated ambitions and clear objectives to frame our challenges, to enable specific and concrete communication about the most important things and find a clear direction in what we do and should do next. But we need to see and connect these ambitions and objectives to our overall purpose, why we exist, to enable us to be agile and adaptive within a certain wider context without loosing the sense of direction along the way.
Models & Maps for Common Understanding
To enable this we need to work with models of the parts of the world around us that are most significant to us, and scenarios describing our outlooks of how this world may change and consequently our role in it with it. We use these models to map out our current beliefs about what will happen and how we can and want to (aspire) achieve having an impact on those future events. These maps form the basis for our best bets of how to seek and make that assumed and desired impact.
These ways of mapping and modelling the world and our place in it are ways of triggering and driving the right learning and communication while exploring the very assumptions we build our whole endeavour on. With the purpose of creating meaning and connecting the dots best way possible to evoke and nurture the sense of aspiration so desperately needed to sustainably fuel the quest for seeking and making impact. The willingness to explore in a world full of unknowns, uncertainties and ambiguities.
Why
Uncertainty implies we are aiming for a stealth and moving target, or rather a number of possible and somewhat intangible moving targets. To be able to sustain and be successful under those conditions we need to find energy and meaning in scouting our nearest terrain and handling our daily operations. To express aspirations in everyday work.
When we do, we find the footing for what and who we want to be, and from that what we want to achieve. We thrive in what we do and why, and that is the key to doing best possible work, to do the right things, to be successful on our own merits. Stealth targets suddenly becomes less intangible and eventually reveal themselves to us more clearly. And consequently our daily aspirations leads the way in turning our ambitions into reality.