Remember our movie about eggshell strength? Now you can use it yet another time and link a personal image to it as proof that you are an active part of the big mission.

Big missions need big leadership towards a clear goal. And big missions need a clear strategy as the backbone for many tactical steps to be taken towards that ultimate goal.

ON THE ASTRONAUT SYMBOL OF SENSEMAKINGSymbols and emotions are just as important as hard facts and bare data because they make sense of the numbers and facts, creating the reasoning behind an endeavour.

Uniting behind one goal

In the end, it was just one man on the moon in 1969. But some 400,000 people within or alongside NASA had worked towards that goal for years. One of them was the legendary janitor who the great President Kennedy asked what he was doing. The janitor, carrying a broom and obviously working on cleaning the floor, is said to have replied, “I’m helping to put a man on the moon!”

Was he really? Was he laughable? Are some tasks more important than others to a big mission? Imagine, just for a moment, that the janitor had not felt a part of a greater mission. Would anyone have noticed at all? Would it have made any difference, unless his cleaning became so sloppy for others to take notice?

Or does literally any effort behind one goal make a difference? The NASA janitors’ story is about teambuilding and team spirit. Every employee felt personally connected to the ultimate goal of putting a man on the moon. And that personal awareness of their contribution created a feeling of pride and meaning.

Strategy and tactics

Rather than describing his actual work as “I’m cleaning the floor”, the janitor identified with the organisation’s bigger goal and saw his part as one vital contribution amongst others. The janitor story is often quoted to show the charismatic rhetoric of John F. Kennedy, who was a primary architect behind the sensemaking of the moon landing.

Why is the narrative important behind any activity, especially in change management? “Why are we doing this again?”

1. Fewer yet clearer concrete goals; everything under one strong umbrella; joining forces, not splitting them.
2. From abstract to real—easy to visualize and to imagine with a deadline attached to it. When people lose sight of the reasons why they are doing something, they lose the power to achieve it.
3. The road map: milestones, stepping stones, everything mapped out; eat an elephant bit by bit, be proud of the achievements (popularity of road movies); show how things build upon one another and how everyone’s contribution matters; hold people accountable and celebrate together any achievement towards your goal
4. Give life to it: Why the moon? Kennedy used a lot of pathos and “what ifs” to make it resonate. Why better eggs are self-explanatory in a world with growing hunger for sustainability and high-quality, versatile protein.

I’m helping to put a man on the moon!

Payments and prid

If team members feel meaningful for a mission X, they will pay greater attention to what they are doing. Pride and a sense in one’s contribution is a very vital part of the reward—and one that money cannot buy. An impressive salary for someone without a feeling of the difference they make will not do the job of retaining the best people and attracting new talent. This is even more true when we look at the fact that day-to-day work can be tedious, become boring and start feeling dangerously meaningless and neglectable if we lose sight and sense of why we are doing something—and wonder if anyone cares.Imagine if the janitor had lost his connection to the mission; maybe a clean floor seemed to have no meaning towards putting a man on the moon.

Imagine if one of the astronauts, who had trained for years on end for the big moment, had come in and slipped on a sloppily cleaned floor, ending up with a broken leg just before the mission.

Any effort we put in, whether others see it or not, has a deep meaning. Any effort makes a difference. It took 400,000 people to put the first man on the moon, and one of them was an unknown janitor who worked to ensure clean floors so no one would slip and drop out of the mission at the last minute—or Neil Armstrong may have become Neil Leg-limp! The janitor’s work was indeed as meaningful as everybody else’s.

Box

Any company depends on creative specialists transforming ideas into visual, tangible items. They are behind all this and make everything we see, print, download or use as material. Without them, ideas would remain as a concept; they would not take shape. Our team is much smaller, but the effort is often as big as a lunar landing. Without the specialists in our two agencies, we wouldn’t be able to tell our brand story as compellingly as we do.

Adding meaning is like adding value. If you know why a certain step in a process must be carried out correctly in a certain way to obtain the outcome you desire or to ensure the subsequent process will occur correctly as well, then you know about the deeper meaning of your activity.

Any company depends on creative specialists transforming ideas into visual, tangible items. They are behind all this and make everything we see, print, download or use as material. Without them, ideas would remain as a concept; they would not take shape.

On the other hand, if you don’t have this overall perspective of being a part of a value creation chain, you will remain below and behind your possibilities—and drag others down as well, because they depend on your previous steps to take their next ones and build on them

Charismatic leaders are aware of this and ensure everybody is aware of the big picture and feels actively involved. This is true even—and especially—when work becomes routine and seems to contrast with the company’s higher flying, wider aspirations.

Leadership must not be silent

Then again, leadership must help everyone involved to see connections and keep up their spirit, celebrate milestones that have already been achieved and problems that the team has overcome together. A great leader can help create a narrative of an endeavour that is equally important as the endeavour itself. Communication transfers information, but also establishes views or preserves memories. It is much more than just talking or chit-chatting—and communication is more than words, too!

Some leaders offer regular coffee-talks to reiterate and reinforce why things matter.

There may not be any news, but the regularity of these get-togethers reinforces and strengthens the joint mission. “Why we are doing this again” and “What we have achieved so far” and “What we have learned up to now?” and “What we can be really proud of ” are very important reminders to strengthen a team and make sure everyone remains behind a mission and feels that their contribution is meaningful and important.

Behind one heroic man on the moon there are many helpers. Likewise, behind each egg you sell successfully, many hearts and minds have worked side-by-side to get it to its destination.