Have we lost our capacity to imagine the impossible?
July 20th, 2009
(Photo of Buzz Aldrin on the surface of the Moon)
Today is the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing and the first small steps made by man on the surface of the Moon, arguably the single greatest accomplishment in human history.
On May 25, 1961, President Kennedy announced an enormously bold goal to a joint session of Congress: land a man on the Moon and bring him home safely before end of the decade.
At the time of Kennedy’s address, only two men, Yuri Gagarin and Alan Shepard, had ever flown in space, and Shepard’s flight occurred only 20 days before the speech. Many people, including more than a few NASA employees, believed Kennedy’s aspiration to be, quite literally, impossible.
And it only took us eight years, one month, three weeks and four days to achieve it.
Could we do it today? Sadly, I doubt it very much, because I believe our society is losing the capacity to imagine and achieve the impossible. Associations are a classic illustration of the problem. We prefer to pursue small, safe and easily attainable goals, because we are desperately afraid of failure. We don’t want to take chances, and our commitment to genuine discovery is trumped by the need to make the numbers. At a time when we really need disruptive innovation, we struggle with making even simple incremental improvements.
How do we change this dynamic? In my mind, it comes down to a very clear choice. Leaders will aspire to make real that which does not yet exist. Everyone else will share all the reasons why those things can’t be done.
What will you do today–the 40th anniversary of an impossible achievement–to imagine the impossible for your association, and then act boldly to make it happen? Please share your thoughts.
Entry Filed under: Principled Innovation Blog, What's New?, Social Media, Innovation, Associations, Extreme Makeover, The Association Innovator, We Have Always Done It That Way, Garage Memes, Embrace the Revolution
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