From "Sending Humans to the Moon" to "Sending Humans Back to the Moon": A Management Perspective on Humanity's Return to the Moon after Nearly Six Decades
After more than 60 years, the United States has restarted manned lunar orbiting flights. According to Xinhua News Agency, in the evening of April 1st, Eastern Time in the United States, the new - generation lunar rocket "Space Launch System" of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida to carry out the "Artemis 2" manned lunar orbiting mission. This is the first time the United States has sent astronauts to the moon since 1972.
Shortly before the launch, when NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman was asked how to define the success of this mission, he gave a brief and thought - provoking answer: "Don't terminate it prematurely." He explained that the mission would be considered a success only when the astronauts returned to Earth safely after the 10 - day mission.
This definition reflects the changes represented by the Artemis program. It is no longer the nationwide lunar - landing race in the 1960s, but a complex project that involves commercial outsourcing, international cooperation, and budget concerns. In this context, an old management question emerges again: In a grand project worth billions of dollars and involving tens of thousands of participants, does the person mopping the floor in the meeting room, tightening the screws on the assembly line, or repeatedly debugging the circuit board in front of the test bench still know why they are working?
Several years ago, when "Management Perspectives" first published the classic study by Andrew M. Carton from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, what touched countless readers was an insight from President Kennedy: One of the most important tasks of a leader is to transform the grand vision into the meaning of everyone's daily work. After analyzing a large amount of historical data of NASA during the lunar - landing era, Carton found that Kennedy used a delicate art of "sense - making" to condense NASA's ultimate ideal into the specific and vivid goal of "sending people to the moon" and break it down into three milestones: "Mercury", "Gemini", and "Apollo", enabling everyone from engineers to cleaners to find their positions in the grand blueprint. The person mopping the floor at NASA is not just doing cleaning, but "sending astronauts to the moon safely" - this is the power of sense - making.
However, from Apollo to Artemis, the organizational environment of NASA has undergone fundamental changes. Today's Artemis program is no longer a single government - agency project, but a huge ecosystem spanning ten NASA space centers, five major mission councils, dozens of commercial contractors, and international partners. The complexity of this "multi - center, multi - contract, and multi - lateral cooperation" poses new challenges to organizational integration.
Today's Artemis program is more like a complex multi - team system (Multiteam System, MTS). A study published in 2025, based on 31 interviews with NASA subject - matter experts, delved into how to maintain the coordination of the MTS when the component teams become increasingly autonomous. Another study of 13 crews in the HERA simulation mission found that shared leadership is the most common leadership structure. Especially in an environment lacking privacy, crew members are more likely to spontaneously form a multi - center leadership network. This is in sharp contrast to the highly centralized and top - down command mode in the Apollo era described by Carton. In the Artemis 2 mission, the four astronauts come from different countries, genders, and ethnic backgrounds, and the distribution and handover of mission command itself constitute a mini - organizational integration experiment.
While revisiting the classic study, the "new lunar - exploration program" also poses new challenges to current management research, awaiting more interpretations from scholars.
I'm not mopping the floor at NASA; I'm sending people to the moon!
Original author Andrew M. Carton
Assistant Professor at the University of Pennsylvania
Reviser Wang Haizhen
If you work at Apple, people think you're changing the world; if you work at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), people think you're exploring space: because these are the ideals and visions of the organizations you're in. But in reality, you might just be making circuit boards, booking flights for your boss, arranging meeting rooms, or simply responsible for cleaning the building. When you're mopping the floor, do you still think you're changing the world or exploring space?
This is the paradox of ideals or visions. The organizational vision is like a grand blueprint. The secret to making people excited lies in its grandeur, long - term nature, and far - reaching goals. Grand goals such as changing the world or exploring space make people feel that their work is very important and meaningful, which gives us motivation and makes us willing to endure the harsh reality for the sake of the ideal. However, it cannot be ignored that the grand and far - reaching organizational vision not only makes it difficult to see the connection with one's own work, but worse, it makes the daily work seem so trivial and insignificant.
On the grand blueprint, our daily work is at most just a drop of ink, and we don't even know which drop it is, or even if our drop is needed. At this time, the grand blueprint not only fails to be motivating but also discourages people. How can mopping the floor in the meeting room be considered exploring space?
It cannot be denied that the grand blueprint can indeed endow work with a sense of meaning, but the premise is that employees can see the connection between their daily work and the grand blueprint. Researchers collected a large amount of relevant data during NASA's lunar - landing missions, trying to uncover the secret of how NASA successfully endowed employees' work with meaning through the organizational vision. The data used by the researchers is very comprehensive, such as more than 100 online materials publicly released by NASA, comments on 20 public media websites in the United States, 5 special reports on Kennedy and his NASA subordinates, 4.5 - hour documentaries, 95 public interviews, etc. Through the analysis of these data, the researchers found that at NASA, this important task was excellently accomplished by then - President Kennedy. Just as an architect embeds each brick into a great building, Kennedy successfully incorporated the daily work of every NASA employee into the grand blueprint of the lunar - landing program, endowing the daily work of each employee with the lofty meaning of "sending people to the moon". The author summarized Kennedy's four meaning - endowing measures and the five - stage sense - making process experienced by employees.
#1
Kennedy's Four Meaning - Endowing Measures
Kennedy took four actions to reveal the internal structure of NASA's vision, helping employees connect their daily work with NASA's stage goals and ultimate ideal. Condense all the ultimate ideals of the organization into one. Kennedy merged NASA's three ultimate ideals into one, that is, "exploring the solar system to promote technological development". Translate the ultimate ideal into specific, time - limited organizational goals. Kennedy found a goal that carried NASA's ultimate ideal - the lunar - landing program, which was to send people to the moon and bring them back to Earth safely within eight and a half years. This organizational goal is very vivid and firmly grasped the attention of NASA employees. Set milestone - style tasks to connect daily work with the final goal. At NASA, the lunar - landing project includes three milestone - style plans: the "Mercury Program", the "Gemini Program", and the famous "Apollo Program". Each plan focuses on overcoming a key milestone - style problem: the "Mercury Program" aims to send people into Earth's orbit, the "Gemini Program" aims to achieve space launches, and the "Apollo Program" solves the remaining related problems. Integrate the ultimate pursuit with specific goals. Kennedy transformed the abstract ideal of promoting scientific development into a tangible goal - landing on the moon, and emphasized that the moon is a place full of hope for knowledge and peace. In this way, the lunar - landing program was endowed with the meaning of humanity's pursuit of knowledge and peace, returning to NASA's ultimate aspiration - exploring the solar system to promote scientific development.
#2
The Five Stages of Establishing Connections
The leader's meaning - endowing measures will guide employees through five different perception stages, ultimately connecting their daily work with the organization's ultimate pursuit.
The first stage - the approach stage. In this stage, by translating the ultimate pursuit into specific, time - bound goals, the leader makes employees feel that the ultimate pursuit is no longer out of reach. As mentioned before, Kennedy translated NASA's ultimate pursuit into the lunar - landing program. Since people feel that a visually "visible" goal is closer than an "invisible" one, through the vivid image of the moon, NASA employees will feel that the goal of landing on the moon is not far away. However, the more specific the grand goal is, the more likely it is to seem unbelievable. For specific goals, it is easy to judge the possibility of success or failure. Many people thought that landing on the moon was almost impossible at that time. Moreover, the value that a specific goal can carry is limited. The lunar - landing program was once questioned, "What's the meaning of landing on the moon?" These questions will be solved one by one in the following four stages.
The second stage - laying the steps. In this stage, using a series of milestone - style tasks set by the leader, employees can see how the ultimate goal will be achieved step by step. But there shouldn't be too many such stage tasks, that is, the steps shouldn't be too long, otherwise, employees' attention will be focused on the steps rather than the final destination. At NASA, Kennedy set three stage goals for the lunar - landing. Employees can understand the path to achieving the final lunar - landing goal. At the same time, dividing into fewer stage tasks avoids employees getting lost in the complex details and forgetting the organization's goal.
The third stage - clarifying the individual's role. Facing a grand goal, employees need to know their role in it to find the role and value of their daily work for the grand goal. Kennedy merged NASA's three ultimate pursuits into one, which made everyone face the same goal. At the same time, Kennedy divided the ultimate goal of landing on the moon into three stage goals, making it easier for employees to position themselves in the grand blueprint. When employees realize that their work is an indispensable part of many important tasks, they can experience the meaning of work.
The fourth stage - re - looking at daily work. When employees understand the role of their work in achieving the organization's ultimate goal, they will view their daily work from a broader and more long - term perspective. At NASA, through the three - step measures endowed with meaning by Kennedy, employees no longer see their work as making circuit boards or developing rockets, but as sending people to the moon. Naturally, they will view their daily work from the perspective of the lunar - landing program.
The fifth stage - regarding daily work as the pursuit of the organization's ultimate ideal. In this stage, employees connect their daily work with the organization's ultimate pursuit and experience a great sense of meaning from their work. At NASA, employees not only think they are sending people to the moon but also promoting scientific progress. Combining the tangible and finite goal of landing on the moon with the abstract and endless goal of promoting scientific progress allows employees to have a specific work goal (landing on the moon) and at the same time strive endlessly (promoting scientific development), without losing the meaning of work due to the achievement of the goal. In this way, NASA maximized the meaning of employees' daily work. The realization of the fifth stage is based on the previous four stages. First, the ultimate pursuit must find a specific goal like the lunar - landing as a carrier. Second, employees need to connect their daily work with the lunar - landing. At the same time, the leader's fourth meaning - endowing action - integrating the abstract ultimate pursuit with the specific organizational goal is also very important. Kennedy made NASA employees understand that the lunar - landing program is not just about landing on the moon, but about using the technological capabilities developed through the lunar - landing to improve human life. In short, through these stages, NASA employees were able to reinterpret their daily work from a broader perspective. Thus, the ultimate aspiration is not only the final result of their work but also their real - life work every day. Every day, they are not mopping the floor or making circuit boards, but promoting scientific development.
#3
Management Insights
The organizational vision is indeed a good way to endow work with meaning, but the problem lies in how to connect it with employees' daily work. While presenting the grand blueprint of the organization, leaders need to transform this grand blueprint into specific goals and make them tangible. Leaders need to become architects, translating the blueprint into specific goals and also enabling people to restore this goal to the organization's pursuit. By establishing these connections, leaders can help employees view their daily work from a more grand perspective and not feel insignificant. Simply put, endowing work with meaning lies in changing the meaning of work. The four measures and five stages summarized in this article provide an action manual for organizational leaders. That is to determine a supreme ideal, find a suitable representative goal for it, break it down into a few stage goals, and finally elevate the representative goal to the supreme ideal.
This article is from the WeChat official account "Fudan Business Knowledge" (ID: BKfudan). Author: Tan Xiangyi. Republished by 36Kr with permission.