In 1963, NASA brought in George Mueller to build the managerial foundation of the Apollo program, and he brought a sea of organizational change. His vision for NASA was that of a single interconnected mind—an emergent intelligence like the “joint cognition” that defines extraordinary teams. As NASA director Wernher von Braun framed it, Mueller brought the perspective of an electrical engineer who aspired to create a managerial “nervous system,” whereas von Braun, a mechanical engineer, saw organizations as reductionist contraptions.
