Michael Strong has spent more than 28 years designing K-12 programs and schools built on Montessori, Socratic and entrepreneurial principles. He wrote The Habit of Thought and is lead author of Be the Solution. We asked him how people learn to create value.
Learning and creativity
Michael starts with John Boyd and the nature of learning and creativity. Entrepreneurs create value. Experiential education works for adults too, and education is a way of scaling a culture.
Measuring what matters
Social physics can measure psychological safety and engagement. Soft skills turn out to be the hard ones. Michael describes observable entrepreneurial behaviors and the teaming skills people carry over from high-risk environments.
School, speech and enterprise
Michael is blunt about secondary school, which he calls the most boring and cruel years, and shares ideas for improving education. Shutting down other people’s views is dangerous. Mentorship and coaching ask Boyd’s question: to be or to do. He favors entrepreneurial solutions over political polarization, points to Whole Foods and the experience economy, and makes the case for conscious capitalism and decentralized decisions.
Learning reshapes orientation, and Michael has built schools around that idea.
What would a Socratic conversation reveal about how your team learns?
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https://youtube.com/@nowayoutpodcast