Early on in Operation Warp Speed in 2020, the team figured out they needed giant 2,000-liter vats in which to manufacture massive amounts of vaccine.

“The only place they were made in the world was Switzerland or Germany,” recounts Paul Mango, who was the Health and Human Services liaison to the team. “Army guys call over and say we’re going to need these.”

The folks in Europe say, “Yeah, we have some, we know this is an emergency, we’re going to put it on a ship tomorrow and it’ll be there in six weeks.”

Without missing a beat, four-star general Gus Perna, chief operating officer of Warp Speed, says, “I’m sending a military charter now. You better be prepared to load it tomorrow.”

“And then he calls the Department of Transportation and says, ‘This plane’s going to land at Newark, N.J., this time tomorrow afternoon,’” recalls Mango. “’I need state troopers on the interstate from here to Baltimore, because this is a doublewide trailer.’ Literally, on Labor Day and the Fourth of July, multiple states had to shut down highways to give priority to the vats.”

Things that usually take months took hours and days during the herculean effort to get vaccines delivered to Americans in less than a year’s time.

Mango told me that anecdote while talking about his soon-to-be-released book “Warp Speed,” which recounts the powerful story of the most successful emergency vaccine development and deployment effort ever. The book is a stirring reminder that when Americans put on their Big Boy pants, set aside their differences and insist on the government and private sector working together toward a big and clearly defined mission, they can do pretty much anything

“Among all the political strife, criticism of our country’s imperfections, and intolerance for diverse perspectives … the commitment, sacrifice, and accomplishments of those involved with Operation Warp Speed … are both inspiring and a source of pride again in being an American,” Mango told me.

Remember back when we were proud of ourselves? The Manhattan Project, the Apollo Program, the Berlin Airlift, the Marshall Plan, winning World War II?

Mango found an inspiring renewal of America’s particular brand of optimism in the way the team came together to produce vaccines in months.

“No other country possessed the combination of exceptional leadership, pace of innovation, industrial dexterity, and human capital that we found here in the United States,” he said. The towering success of that mission is even more pronounced now as China flails with inadequate vaccines and massive shutdowns again while the United States returns to normal.

Part of what made the operation a success was, ironically, all our differences.

The Warp Speed Team was “a melting pot of talent: a chief scientific adviser from Morocco, a manufacturing expert from Italy, a secretary of Arab-Lebanese heritage, an assistant secretary whose Czech parents met in forced labor camp during World War II, and a street-fighting, four-star general from New Jersey,” Mango points out. “What were the odds all those leaders would forge unbreakable bonds in support of a common goal?”

So why did America work in this instance when it seems so damn dysfunctional in so many other settings?

Though the two leaders of the team, Gen. Perna and Moncef Slaoui, came from dramatically different backgrounds — Slaoui was a Morocco-born intellectual and scientist educated in Brussels who spent his whole career in the private sector, Perna a roughneck Jersey boy who scrapped his way to the top of the U.S. Army — they both subscribed to precisely the same leadership principles, Mango said.

“First of all, they’re servant leaders,” Mango said. “They’re there to make sure their teams are successful, it’s not about themselves.”

Second, they invited differences of opinion. They were not afraid to hear a point of view that didn‘t agree with them, said Mango.

Third, they did not tolerate any non-team player.

And fourth, they both were very clear communicators. They used simple language. They were both outstanding listeners.

“They both had tremendous respect for each other’s leadership styles, which were precisely the same,” Mango adds.

“Warp Speed” is also a story that sings the praises of a much maligned character in recent American history: the federal government.

Mango found that when working in concert with the private sector, the “immense convening power of the federal government was a force and catalyst for good.”

Here then is a template for successful politics of the future, if we allow it — partnership of public and private, rather than a death battle. “I hope the federal government draws from these lessons for other consequential undertakings in the future,” said Mango.

“Our role was clear: enable the private sector to be successful,” Mango said. “We did this by assuming financial risks private industry would not tolerate.” When the government officials needed to accelerate the delivery of critical equipment all over the world like the vats, for example, they cut the red tape for private contractors with a scythe.

“Most people think this was a scientific achievement, but it was really a logistical achievement,” said Mango. “We had to start from scratch 27 different manufacturing facilities. And then, we had to enroll 50,000 vaccinations sites. We had to organize the distributors, we had to organize UPS, FedEx, CVS, Walgreens. You had an information technology system developed from scratch. That was the demanding part. The science, believe it or not, was relatively straightforward.”

Mango interviewed many of his colleagues on Warp Speed about their thoughts and reflections on the effort for his book. Most commented that it was the single best team experience of their lives.

“There are only a couple of opportunities in most of our lives to experience a true team performance,” he concludes. “The characteristics of such performances are simple but often elusive: a clear and compelling mission, a sense of mutual accountability to each other, an intense level of commitment, complementary skills among those on the team, and every participant subordinating his own interests to that of the mission.”

“When the federal government’s reach does not exceed its grasp, it can be extremely effective,” Mango writes. “When it assembles the talent, knowledge, and sense of commitment inherent in its people, gives them the necessary resources, and trusts them to get the job done, it can achieve the seemingly impossible.”