Apollo 11 and the Secrets of Breakthrough Performance—Lessons for Leaders, Organizations, and Humanity
An Interview with Ken Cox, NASA engineer
Dr. Ken Cox is an engineer, technologist, scientist, futurist, and change agent that has worked for NASA for more than 40 years beginning in l963. He served as the Chief Technologist for the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. Other management assignments in the past have included (1) Technical Manager for the Apollo Primary Control Systems in 1967, (2) Space Shuttle Technical Manager for Guidance, Navigation and Control in 1974, and (3) Chief of the Avionics System Division in 1987. In 1990, at the direction of the NASA Administrator, he created the Strategic Avionics Technology Working Group (SATWG), a NASA industry academia interface and networking organization to facilitate an open dialogue between government, industry, and academia concerning space technology issues and futures planning.
“I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth.”
-John F. Kennedy,
May 25, 1961
Frontiers
Barry: Ken, I’d like to discuss the source of the breakthrough or breakthroughs that made Apollo 11 possible. What attracted the people who came to work on Apollo 11?
Ken: My favorite books as a kid were written by Jules Verne—20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and From Earth to the Moon. I could envision doing something that hadn’t been done before. That’s what drew all of us.
I believe that the long range evolution of humanity is tied to frontiers. This is important for us as humans—it excites and inspires us. An inherent background question that we don’t get into very often asks: “Are you concerned about the future of humans? We may use up the resources of the earth.” It would be better for us if we had a broader perspective for the extreme long term of humanity rather than thinking only about the present.
I am not saying Apollo 11, or exploration in this way, is some kind of Noah’s ark. But it allows us as humans to not just be reactive, but proactive about our future.
Barry: So perhaps you could say Apollo 11 wasn’t about reacting out of fear, but rather about something like wonderment. And perhaps this is the best of being human. So answering the question, “What was the source of this breakthrough we call Apollo 11,” part of it was that people were called to something that inspired them about the future, something they saw as possible that had never been done before.
Bold Promises
Ken: Yes, and there’s more. We went to the moon in 1969. We kept the promise we made. That was part of it too.
We did not play the traditional game the military, civilian, and government agencies play: “It doesn’t matter if we over-run (on costs or time frames)—we’ll come up with an explanation for why (we’ve over-run), someone will buy this excuse, and we’ll get more funds and more time as requested.” In this way, people intentionally do not work for a breakthrough. They are protected against the risk and demands of a bold promise, like putting a human being on the moon and back to earth in a decade. They are protected by the bureaucratic system. Apollo 11 operated completely outside this traditional game.
Barry: You are saying that part of the source of this breakthrough was a promise made and kept. That was the promise Kennedy made, that our government made, that everyone who worked on Apollo 11 made: to send human beings to the moon and safely return them to earth before the end of the decade. This was different from how NASA operated before and after Apollo 11, wasn’t it?
Ken: Yes. We didn’t have a follow-on to Apollo 11’s performance.
Barry: No new vision or possibility that inspired people in that way? And no real promise, no commitment, to fulfill that vision.
Ken: Yes. Bureaucracy began to do what it always does: you end up with people who fight each other, destroy the unity of all the energy that could be between them. During Apollo 11, we were in a hurry to do something, and whether or not we believed we could do it didn’t matter; we were going to try. We were inspired. We were inspired to make and keep that promise. We weren’t just excited about the science of it: it was about frontiers, which included science.
The Art in Organizational Breakthrough
BP: Part of the breakthrough was organizational as well, right?
Ken: That was more important than anything else. It was nip and tuck whether Apollo was going to be run by the military or a civilian agency like NASA. Science did have something to do with it: Sputnik and so on. But there is a misread, a misunderstanding by historians: the scientists were already working together from all over the world– Russians, Americans, others. There was lots of dialogue going on between them, regardless of nationality. You’ve got to understand two important factors that affected us:
First, we faced the outcomes of World War II, one of which was that the War gave us the ICBM’s (intercontinental ballistic missiles) and the ability to put things in space. The German scientists developed a propulsion ability. Werner von Braun was a German scientist involved in the development of the ICBM’s. After the war, he came to the U.S. and worked on our missile programs. We’re talking about the scientific abilities we developed out of the War.
The competition with the Russians (to explore outer space) was due to the cold war and the politicians, not due to the scientists because the scientists did work together. So we have to look at the Apollo Program in the context of World War II.
The second factor affecting us was the Information Age. Apollo 11 was a digital system, which was possible due to the information age—that is, digital computing.
Barry: Why was this important?
Ken: Because when you are working on an unknown, unanswered problem, you need to face a lot of uncertainties. Digital services can take two months to resolve, to rebuild, if you have a problem. With an analog system, though, the same problem takes three years to rebuild. When you do something you never have done before on a scheduled that is constricted, you need to be able to make changes, corrections, rapidly.
Going from the Mercury and Gemini space systems (before Apollo) which were analog, to Apollo being digital was a major shift we’d never done before. Without it, Apollo 11 would not have been possible within the given timeframe.
Barry: So these advances, computing digitally and the new propulsion ability, created the opportunity for the breakthrough. They did not produce the breakthrough. They were not the source of the breakthrough.
Ken: Yes, that’s accurate. It was not just engineers, scientists, and so forth doing technical computations and constructs, reconfiguring existing knowledge. There was a need for the artists: for those who paint what they’re doing. Who said, “Hey! Look at that! A new frontier!” The creation of something new that inspires us. Hearing Kennedy declare going to the moon and back, reading Jules Verne as a 10 year old. Art. Creating what had never existed before.
What’s Missing for Breakthrough Performance
Barry: Ken, go back to the before and after of Apollo 11: what was and is currently missing in our space programs that was present with Apollo 11?
Ken: There was no effective follow up. Many of my closest associates left because they didn’t come to work for NASA, they didn’t come to work for an organization. They came to work for the program.
Barry: I hear you saying that they came to fulfill the vision. No one generated the next possibility, the next vision. So they left.
Ken: Yes. You can’t find out what was missing by looking at an organizational chart.
Barry: When people looked back at Apollo11, they said that particular organizational form, that set of solutions, must be the way to go forward. But you are saying that was not “the answer” and completely misses the source of the breakthrough.
Ken: There was no precedent for how you take something like this and continue it, learn from it, the lessons to derive from it. I want to get past this “whose at fault” business–it’s not enough to say a bunch of bureaucrats or idiots are at fault. This was something they never understood—few ever understood—that maybe we should give some consideration to. Really, how did we do this? Lessons certainly came out: how to operate better, how to get program management to operate with fewer mistakes, how we do ops better, how do we do engineering better.
Barry: But not, “How do we produce the next breakthrough for humans.” It’s perhaps simpler than all the explanations, solutions, structures, procedures, policies, etc.
Ken: I chuckle when I hear NASA, or at city or state levels, people asking how you learn from what you did last time. In general we don’t do all that bad at deriving lessons, at learning from the past, for normal, business-as-usual things. But in this case, with respect to Apollo 11, it was a completely new thing—something never done before—from a government standpoint, from an organizational standpoint. We were so successful, people thought “the answer” was “just get the right people, and run the thing.” Or “get the right bureaucracy, the right organization, in place.” Then we’d do it all again.
Organizations Lose Compelling Purpose
But bureaucracies, and organizations, over time have certain tendencies. We think we really change. We do change this or that aspect of a system, but we’re not changing the total system. It’s not like anybody’s dumb. These are good, well-meaning people. We’re changing all these things, putting in this system and that structure. And yet, we leave out the most incredible, fundamental piece: how did you get everybody working together in the way they did during Apollo 11? I believe that bureaucracies are such that the only way to deal with them effectively is every so often you’ve got to uproot them. Transform them. But the very idea that you’re going to close an army base or a NASA center! “We don’t talk about those things around here, son!”
Here’s the real question that must be dealt with: When does an organization become a bureaucracy? When does it tend to choke off creativity and new things that you haven’t done before?
Barry: What I hear you saying, Ken, is that when you don’t have a vision that inspires everyone that the organization is in service of realizing, then the organization becomes a bureaucracy in service of itself, of it’s own survival.
Ken: That’s right. Its not that someone is bad. It’s the nature of this that we’re talking about.
Barry: Why is it that we don’t look at the issue of breakthrough performance in this way, at the source of it?
Ken: Look at health care now, or any issue of national importance. Because we have people all over that come from different points of view and backgrounds who are more interested in solving their individual problems than the collective problems of the country. It’s inherent.
Barry: With Apollo 11 they weren’t there to solve their individual problems, then.
Ken: No! That’s the whole point. What’s in it for me, versus what’s in it for the country. Even more, what’s in it for the world? What’s in it for humankind? Is there a disconnect between what’s in it for humanity and what’s in it for me. By and large there are deep rooted prejudices that all humans on this earth are not equal. Are we improving? I don’t want to go off on are you a Republican or a Democrat? or is this group right is that group right. In some cases, neither.
Barry: Because this is really beyond politics, beyond opinions.
Ken: Reality with a heavy dose of vision; humans are so important. Let’s keep on the path of the positive rather than destructive aspects of human beings. I don’t think they’ll ever be a day we don’t have wars. The thing one would hope is that we work to avoid them or have less.
The Future History of Humans
Barry: I hear something profound in what you are saying now, Ken, about being human. Like what’s possible for humanity, for human beings.
Ken: I get to the point where I don’t want to debate anybody. Somehow in the process, if I had to write a book title to this dialogue I’d call it, The Future History of Humans. How do we not only learn from the past, but project ahead in terms of where humanity really has some potential of going that is broader than where we are today. I am into a dialogue with George Robinson who worked for the Smithsonian, and is probably the best lawyer regarding space exploration anywhere in the world. He’s written a number of books. He’s greatly concerned about the future of humanity–he feels it needs to always do exploration, do things it’s never done before–not just to make money, but because it excites us. It unites us. That what we do in space will eventually have a strong influence on what we do, on humanity as a whole.
Now let me extrapolate: I think that what George and I are suggesting is that there is a subject called “frontiers for humanity.” What are they? Going to outer space is not the only one. Art, music, science. That sort of thing never ends. It’s not a question of getting the ultimate goal for humanity. It just doesn’t work that way. I look upon our dialogue that says: how do we improve as we go along, as we explore, endlessly—as opposed to an end point where it all turns out. There’s no end point. And you can get into a discussion about humans and other living things. I’ve got a wonderful relationship with my two cats, but they haven’t learned to speak English and they don’t care about exploring new frontiers.
Above all, when one gets into such serious discussions, one has to maintain one’s sense of humor.
Barry: Ken, as I look over this whole conversation, you didn’t ever give “the five action steps” or “the nine process phases” to achieve a breakthrough. Why?
Breakthrough Are Not Prescriptive
Ken: For a breakthrough like Apollo 11, you can’t be prescriptive. Like I’m the doctor, and if you take these 5 pills, then…I don’t think I know it all. It’s not about knowing the steps. That’s nonsense when you’re talking about doing something that’s never been done before. You have to approach it differently from the way you approach the day to day, the achieving of normal goals: go climb that hill for the purpose of achieving some goal, or because we’re going to win this game. No–it’s a different framework, this thing about breakthroughs. The underlying principles, in this case, get beyond just “what was the event that happened, what were the actions we took” and then doing that again. Achieving something like Apollo 11 doesn’t mean that the next step up the new hill is based on what you did on the last hill. But it does mean this: climbing a really difficult hill you never climbed before gives you insight that you wouldn’t have had if you didn’t do that climb. It’s a progressive process. Rather than, “Decide ahead of time for the next climb and figure it out based on what you learned from the last climb…” It’s more like, “Get on a path, start climbing, get started.” It’s not any easier or more predictable or less scary, just freer. Now we’re into the realm of possibilities, versus, “I know which path to take.” Remember what I said about painting and creating?
Barry: I am wondering, Ken, why another vision as powerful as Apollo 11’s hasn’t been created since then?
Ken: Remember what I said about bureaucracy and that people who came to work for Apollo didn’t come to work for NASA—they came to work for the program—the vision. Bureaucracies are about themselves staying alive, not about visions being realized.
Barry: So now you have this bureaucracy, with the problems that all bureaucracies have. They talk about reinventing NASA like CEO’s talk about reinventing their organizations. How do you reinvent NASA, or any organization, so you have a condition that supports creativity and exploration, and that shapes itself to realize a vision—rather than to maintain its own existence?
Ken: There are levels of bureaucracy—maybe we see more in the governmental, public sector. But it occurs in every organization that’s ever been formed. It’s foolish to say there are the good guys and the bad guys, and blame someone. The problem is beyond this. NASA is doing the best it can. The only way to deal with bureaucracies is you have to uproot them and start over again.
Barry: This takes tremendous courage. It’s very bold.
Ken: If you don’t, the organizations become about themselves, their own persistence, rather than fulfilling a real vision. And to uproot an organization, to reinvent it so it can make a vision happen, is that someone who has the power, like a vice-president or president, has to state the vision and begin the uprooting. It’s got to be someone above the bureaucracy, the daily organizational level, because you’re talking about politics and human issues, like people protecting their jobs. Some high authority has to start the uprooting.
Barry: You need a new vision to demand the reinvention of the organization.
Ken: You need to state a vision, a purpose, that speaks to people’s humanity, that speaks to them personally. That inspires. And who states it is important. It’s got to be someone above the bureaucratic, daily organizational level, and be said by someone who has the power to say it and enact it, like a vice-president or a president. Because you’re talking about humanity, politics, and individuals’ lives: human issues. You need someone of a high enough authority to start the uprooting. And this is where the courage comes in: they won’t know how to do it! Kennedy didn’t have a clue how we were going to get to the moon and back. But he started it. Someone has to start it!
