I’ve been lucky enough to recently visit the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida, and as you might imagine, it’s full of breath-taking sights, sounds and experiences from the last sixty-plus years of manned space flight.
I walked underneath a real Saturn V rocket (it’s massive - over 100 metres long) and got up close and personal with the Space Shuttle Atlantis, one of only three space-flown shuttles displayed in the US. I had a glimpse into the future of space exploration and learned more about (and remembered) those folk who have helped to make all this progress possible.
Although all these inspiring feats of engineering were absolutely brilliant, one thing really stood out for me and that was hearing excerpts from John F Kennedy’s famous speech about the US space effort. He delivered this in 1962 at Rice University in Texas, just seven years before a man walked on the moon and I saw it played in different spaces across the Center. It served as a constant reminder to everyone of where this all started.
This speech is often referred to as the ‘We choose to go to the moon’ speech. In it, Kennedy addressed the challenges that the US faced in the quest to explore space and particularly, the goal of landing a man on the moon ahead of the Soviet Union. He delivered that speech in September 1962 and just seven years later, Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon. What an achievement. Kennedy helped to galvanise not just teams of engineers and astronauts in getting to the moon, but got a whole nation behind an amazing transformation that arguably changed the future of the world.
Although the context of Kennedy’s speech was the space race, I heard so many parallels in it to the challenges that leaders of organisational change can face in change, whether that’s a large transformation (like getting a man on the moon) or a lower-key shift, like introducing a new piece of tech. Here’s just a few of those parallels I heard…
The power of a bold vision
Kennedy’s speech wasn’t just a call to get a man on the moon. Instead, it was all about sparking the imagination, asking everyone to consider a future way, way beyond the present, painting a picture of how that might look and what was needed to get there, however difficult it might be. Sharing a clear and inspiring picture of a possible future, like JFK did, can inspire and motivate everyone we work with; it gives them direction, creates real energy and a real pull towards something.
“We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do all the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”
Leading in turbulent times
Leadership is a central theme in Kennedy’s speech and good leadership is vital when you know that you’re going to have to navigate setbacks and learn from them, rapidly, to keep moving forward. Transformational, big change is a long game that is often measured in years, not weeks or months and carries huge risk. With these sorts of timescales, it’s easy for people to lose interest and momentum. But leaders who persevere and demonstrate resilience help teams to keep learning and moving forward.
When I’ve worked with leaders who set the scene clearly from the start (like Kennedy) and have kept everyone on track - especially when things get tough – they’re the ones their teams follow and trust. And everyone is inspired to keep delivering.
Building for adaptive resilience
Although this probably wasn’t a term used in 1962, Kennedy’s words were definitely setting the scene for ‘adaptive resilience’ in the space race. This is developed when individuals and organisations strengthen their resilience as they experience and learn from challenging events. It’s not enough to keep going through tricky times but you have to learn from them. For example, when Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger B Chaffee died in a cabin fire in a launch rehearsal test in 1967, crewed Apollo flights were suspended for 20 months while all the hazards were addressed.
In organisations, adaptive resilience depends on effective leadership, collaboration, collective learning and a culture where people are genuinely valued. We saw evidence of this everywhere in the history of the US space mission across the Space Center where perseverance, adaptability, proactivity and teamwork showed up time and time again.
Although the odds were stacked against them and the risks seemed insurmountable, before the decade was out, the US succeeded in achieving the goal that JFK set in 1962, of getting a man on the moon.
How are you setting the scene for transformative change in your organisation?