“Why Don’t We Do More of That?”

At the age of 22 when I was home from college, my father said, “son, we are going downtown to have lunch today, and our guest is Neil Armstrong.” I remember to this day how my spine tingled.

We grew up in Cincinnati. Mr. Armstrong lived a few houses down from us. He was a private man, even reclusive. Dad was in the Commonwealth-Commercial Club with him and they assigned rooms alphabetically for their retreats, so he often roomed with Mr. Armstrong.

Dad would recount, “I think Neil likes being with me because I treat him like an ordinary guy and never ask him about the moon.” Dad went on to say that Neil liked to spend time on his ham radio in the basement and fly in his glider alone at Lunken Airport. Even though he was Commander of Apollo 11, he left much of the public affairs mission to the Lunar Module Pilot, Buzz Aldrin. There are many photos of Aldrin on the moon. There are almost none of Armstrong – just the grainy footage of him descending the ladder to become First Man.

Hearing all of this, I didn’t know what to expect at our lunch – maybe it would just be something rather ordinary from this extraordinary man. What happened instead lit a civic spark for me that has so much relevance to the needs of the nation today.

During our conversation, Neil and Dad expressed frustration that some local problem wasn’t being solved. I can’t even remember what that local problem was. What I do remember is what Neil Armstrong then said: “My God, when Kennedy issued that challenge to send a man to the moon and return him safely within a decade, technologically we had no idea how to pull it off. But it mobilized 400,000 mathematicians, engineers, contractors and others to make it happen…. I don’t know why we don’t do more of that.”

Years later, I came across NASA’s Johnson Space Center Oral History Project where Neil gave full credit to those working behind the scenes. He said, “When you have hundreds of thousands of people all doing their job a little better than they have to, you get an improvement in performance. And that’s the only reason we could have pulled this whole thing off.” Typical humility from him, and in such contrast to our age of narcissism.

Here I was listening to someone who was extremely humble, and according to Dad, never wanting to talk about his moon mission, sharing his passion for collective action. Okay, I was 22 and a little naïve, but just maybe the country could do anything if it thought boldly enough and inspired massive talent to hack a public challenge. The idea stayed with me.

Years later, working with colleagues in what we call the Office of American Possibilities, we performed a review of over 100 initiatives across U.S. history – from the founding of the republic through the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief -- to see whether great achievements shared common elements. They did, and it reminded me of the conversation with Neil Armstrong.

First, there has to be a galvanizing challenge – as Stan McChrystal likes to remind me, big ideas, not incrementalism, inspire people. And it has to be big enough to transcend ordinary politics and petty divisions.

In 1776, the idea was a constitutional republic in a world of kings. In the 19^th century, it was putting vast tracts of land into federal custody for the enjoyment and use of future generations even as industrialization consumed everything in sight. In our time, it was saving millions of lives in Africa from AIDS and malaria, even though there was no domestic constituency demanding it. The examples were so rich, I kept thinking of Neil’s comment – “why don’t we do more of that?”

Second, each effort was driven by a breakthrough insight – not a miracle cure, but an insight that made the problem all of a sudden seem fixable or possible to address in a dramatic way. A simple, affordable bet net could prevent malaria and drove a worldwide effort to save 14 million lives. Data showed that half of America’s dropouts came from just 15 percent of the nation’s high schools, enabling a targeted response that would help more than 5 million more students graduate from high school rather than dropping out. We captured similar insights from dozens of projects.

Third, successful efforts shared a common architecture – clear goals, evidence about what works, a plan, room for innovation, and accountability for results – sustained over time. Not one year. Not one election cycle. At least a decade or more. We saw that transformational change took endurance, and that so many promising initiatives sputtered due to political cycles.

Fourth, the best initiatives marshalled energy and talent audaciously across sectors, politics, geography, and other differences. Successful initiatives captured insights from multiple perspectives to sharpen the argument for the cause and weren’t beholden to rigid ideologies.

The final element was the formation of a highly entrepreneurial team that takes risks, invents, learns over time, and keeps adjusting to build early momentum. They built coalitions, generated significant financial support, and stayed focused like a laser on a shared goal. As Walter Isaacson shared in a commencement address at the College of William and Mary, nothing extraordinary happens alone. And as historian Doris Kearns Goodwin reminded us at the launch of our More Perfect initiative, all transformational change across U.S. history was first catalyzed by private citizens, with no public appointment, who cared about a cause, place or people.

We live in an unmistakably dark time, full of narcissism, federal government dysfunction, and political leaders who don’t work to bring us together to meet bold challenges. So, energy and innovation are going to have to come from the ground up.

I see it every day – Billy Shore working to ensure no kid is hungry; Wendy Kopp engaging generations to teach for America and teach for all; Sylvia Earle bringing the national park idea to our oceans by creating fully-protected marine reserves; Nazanin Ash and Anya McMurray mobilizing millions of Americans to sponsor and welcome newcomers at a time when the stranger is being rounded up on American streets; Nikole Nelson mobilizing community justice workers to close the civil legal aid gap; the list goes on and on.

So, what if we took Neil Armstrong’s challenge seriously and identified 25 public challenges that merit a moonshot, applying the lessons we’ve learned from the past, and marshalling the energy and talent we know is in our country to solve them?

It’s always been private citizens who have lit those civic sparks and the 250^th anniversary of the birth of a radical experiment seems like a good time to relight them.