POETRY, POWER, AND MOONSHOTS

We have it in our power to begin the world over again.

— Thomas Paine

Alexander was a slightly built man with a grand plan.

He seemed younger than his 19 years as he climbed onto the platform and looked out at his audience of farmers and merchants, many of whom viewed him with a mix of skepticism and contempt. He would need to combine his passion and skills to build his case to a sharply divided audience. One-third of his listeners that day agreed with his opinion. The other two-thirds strongly disagreed or felt neutral about the subject. Alexander faltered at first. But as his confidence built, his rhetoric soared. He was an avid reader who loved poetry. He was known to have a "facility with words" that freed him from his humble birth and placed him among the giants of the time. On this day, his powers of persuasion allowed him to convert a largely hostile audience.

Alexander Hamilton's speech took place on July 6, 1774. He had taken a break from his college classes to argue for a boycott against British goods. "When his speech ended, the crowd stood transfixed in silence, staring at this spellbinding young orator before erupting in a sustained ovation." Hamilton, whose spirit Lin-Manuel Miranda would resurrect 240 years later, "commanded attention with the force and fervor of his words." According to historian Ron Chernow, "no other articulated such a clear and prescient vision of America's future." Hamilton's gift was to combine words and ideas to stir people's imagination.

Hamilton, along with Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, Samuel Adams, and other gifted writers and speakers of the American Revolution, were influenced by the poets and philosophers who gave rise to the Enlightenment. The "trinity" of Francis Bacon, Isaac Newton, and John Locke taught America's founders to wrap their ideas in the radical rhetoric of rebellion. By doing so, they unleashed a wave of free ideas that built upon one another to usher in the greatest period of progress civilization has ever seen.

In 1835, the French sociologist Alexis de Tocqueville observed that "Every American is eaten up with longing to rise." One of these Americans was a young man born to a poor family in a log cabin. Abraham Lincoln studied the words of the founders, which he would later invoke in the Gettysburg Address, a speech that would remake the country. According to historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, Lincoln was a gifted storyteller who articulated his vision of a free society with contagious emotion. Lincoln's communication skills transformed a self-described "prairie-lawyer" into one of the greatest presidents of U.S. history. The ideas that shaped America didn't advocate for themselves.

Ideas built the modern world and it's the power of ideas that will build the world of tomorrow. But ideas in the absence of eloquence will fall on deaf ears.

One hundred and eighty-five years after poets and writers, orators and leaders ignited the flame of freedom, another son of Boston ignited the spirit of adventure. Robert Frost wrote that John F. Kennedy's election heralded "a golden age of poetry and power." Frost was right. In the speeches that Kennedy delivered to inspire the country to build a moon program, Kennedy translated his ideas into language that fueled one of the greatest achievements in human history. Recently scholars have identified some of his most effective rhetorical techniques.

I'm Not Mopping Floors; I'm Putting a Man on the Moon

Charlie Mars couldn't wait to get up and get back to work each morning. He'd graduated from Vanderbilt University with a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering. Five years later he joined NASA as a project engineer. Though he would never set foot on the moon, or travel in a rocket, or enjoy a ticker tape parade, years later, Mars spoke about the experience with the awe of someone who had done all three. "One of the things we had in common was a goal. We're going to the moon. We're putting a man on the moon! It so captured our imagination, and our emotion," Mars recalled.

Wharton management professor Andrew Carton stumbled upon Mars's story as he pored over 18,000 pages of documents, transcripts, and internal NASA memos from the Apollo program, America's ambitious initiative, begun in 1961, to put a man on the moon. Carton noted a common thread among the writings of Mars and the other NASA employees across all functions — accountants and administrators, clerks and engineers. They'd all been profoundly inspired by the words of one man: John F. Kennedy.

When Neil Armstrong took one giant leap for mankind on June 20, 1969, it was the final step of a process that began when one leader with a bold idea lit the collective imagination of the 400,000 people who could turn it into reality. Carton identified the rhetorical formula behind Kennedy's successful communication and explained how his speaking skills triggered massive action.

First, "Kennedy reduced the number of NASA's aspirations to one." When NASA was established in 1958, it had several objectives, among them to establish superior space technology, to achieve preeminence in space, and to advance science. Kennedy chose to focus on the single goal of sending humans to the moon and returning them safely to Earth. It's easier to rally a team around one common goal than to divide their attention.

Second, "Kennedy shifted attention from NASA's ultimate aspiration to a concrete objective." In other words, Kennedy took the abstract (advancing science by exploring the solar system) and made it tangible. On May 25, 1961, Kennedy told the U.S. Congress: "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 earth." Kennedy articulated a concrete goal and attached a specific deadline to it.

Third, "Kennedy communicated milestones that connected employees' day-to-day work with concrete objectives." Kennedy outlined three programs and three objectives: The Mercury program would send an astronaut into orbit; Gemini would teach NASA what it didn't know about space walks and connecting two spacecrafts together; and Apollo would ultimately put a man on the moon. As you'll learn later, the "rule of three" is a powerful communication technique that superstar persuaders use to mobilize their...