Yeirang Lee- Reflecting on History

Yeirang Lee

Application Assignment #9

Reflecting on History

                  Throughout history, many problems have risen due to mismanagement. Management is critical in increasing not only the productivity of a team, but also personal well-beings and capabilities of the members. Within this week’s readings, the paradoxes of management were the most eye-catching and thought provoking. The readings point out the difficulty of management because of the conflict and paradoxes of the goals of managers. Among these, Hill states five paradoxes within team management: individual difference vs collective identity, support vs confrontation among team members, performance vs learning and development, managerial authority vs team autonomy and discretion, and triangle of relationships (1995). This essay will focus on the support vs confrontation paradox that has largely been affected by “groupthink.” I will analyze how these paradoxes have been critical in causing one of history’s most evident failures, the Bay of Pigs invasion led by President John F. Kennedy. Through the analysis of groupthink, we can understand how these paradoxes can have critical, detrimental effects on a team.    

Before explaining the failures of the Bay of Pigs crisis, it’s important to explain what groupthink is, how it affects a team, and how to prevent groupthink. Groupthink is the process of thinking where group members value consensus and harmony over realistically and critically evaluating alternative courses of action (Janis, 1972).  Groupthink is a sharp contrast from the Nut-Island effect explained by Paul Levy in which he describes five stages of faulty characteristics within a mismanaged team. Levy discusses the problem of teams being isolated from top management, creating an autonomous, ignored team that holds resentment, denies problems, avoids tasks, makes up their own rules, and forms a distorted picture of reality (Levy, 2001).  Groupthink focuses on the group pressures to conform and thus for the sake of cohesiveness, problems are ignored. Because of groupthink, the group only discusses limited to a few alternative courses of action, fails to reexamine courses of action, makes little or no attempt to obtain information from experts, and fails to work out contingency plans (Janis, 1972).

In the Bay of Pigs incident, groupthink was prevalent despite the expertise among group members and time spent on the plan. The Bay of Pigs incident involved a brigade of about 1,400 Cuban exiles aided by the US Navy, Air Force and CIA invading the Bay of Pigs in Cuba to overthrow Castro’s new government. President Kennedy received briefings from CIA director Allen Dulles and Gen. Lyman Lemnitzer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on the Cuban invasion plan just weeks after his inauguration in 1961. Kennedy’s team also included high officials such as Dean Rusk (Secretary of State), Robert McNamara (Secretary of Defense), McGeorge Bundy (former Dean at Harvard), Arthur Schlesinger (Harvard historian), and others. Then for four months, Pres. Kennedy held meetings in the White House and other branches of the government to go over the details of the plan, but didn’t question the basic elements and more importantly, the possibilities of failure (Janis, 1972).

As Kennedy’s group valued their presence and team higher than anything else, the group was very quick to agree and held false image of themselves. For example, Robert Kennedy stated that “It seemed that, with John Kennedy leading us and with all the talent he had assembled, nothing could stop us. We believed that if we faced up to the nation’s problems and applied bold, new ideas with common sense and hard work, we would overcome whatever challenged us” (Janis, 1972). Moreover, Schlesinger stated that the “meetings took place in a curious atmosphere of assumed consensus” (Janis, 1972). This meant that group members did not voice strong objection, no realistic alternatives were presented, in-depth discussions were avoided, and members believed silence was taken for consent. Kennedy invited Senator Fullbright who was a critic of the Bay of Pigs invasion plan to a meeting but when Fullbright told JFK of his doubts and criticized the invasion plan, Kennedy proceeded not to have a discussion. Furthermore, Robert Kennedy, Dean Rusk, and others played as mindguards who filtered dissenting information and peer-pressured others to conform to the group (Janis, 1972). In these ways, the group had an illusion of invulnerability and unanimity.

Because of these effects of groupthink, Kennedy’s team held six critical, erroneous assumptions that led to the failure of Bay of Pigs. First was that they believed U.S. role wouldn’t be known, but other nations knew only U.S. had means and intentions of the invasion. Two, they underestimated Cuban Air Force as they didn’t have the intelligence to grasp strong calculation of these forces. Three, they believed that the Cuban exiles had high morale and were able to fight on their own, but in reality, they had ulterior motives to hold power after the fall of Castro. Four, they thought Castro’s army was weak; however, Castro’s army proved strong to hold the beachhead at the Bay of Pigs very well. Five, they assumed that the public was opposed to Castro’s ruling; while actually, most Cubans in 1961 still warmly supported Castro and the revolution. Six, they believed the Cuban exiles could remount in a nearby location if the invasion failed, but the exiles didn’t have local support to regroup nor did they have the motivation for long-term guerrilla warfare (Janis, 1972). Because of these assumptions, on day one, none of the four ships containing reserve ammunition and supplies arrived as the first two were subsequently sunk by Castro’s forces. On day two, the invasion forces were surrounded by well-trained Cuban army and by day three, 1,200 of the Cuban exiles were captured and the rest were killed during the initial fighting (Janis, 1972).

None of the members from Kennedy’s team were able to detect these false assumptions, and from this case, we can see the criticality for managers to detect symptoms of groupthink for improving the team’s productivity and outcomes. In order to prevent group think, I believe it is critical to master three of Hill’s five paradoxes. Groupthink can be avoided when a manager is able to allow “different voices – perspectives, priorities, and styles,” foster support and confrontation among group members, and balance managerial authority and member autonomy (Hill, 1995). This way we want to increase creativity, trust, individual judgment, critical thinking, and still maintain cohesiveness within the group to effectively carry out their goals.

As the readings point out, there are numerous tangible and intangible problems in which managers have to resolve in team management. Beyond enhancing the capabilities, well-beings, and cooperation among the members, managers must be able to detect, predict, and prevent many of the faulty characteristics of the team (Majcharzak, Jarvenpaa, Hollingshead, 2007). Only then can you avoid huge disasters and crises as shown in the Bay of Pigs Case. We constantly see the effects of groupthink in our history, such as the Pearl Harbor Attack, Korean War, and even 9/11 terrorist attack in which the U.S. government received warning signs, but failed to implement any measures because mismanagement and the impact of groupthink.

Hill, L. (1995). Managing Your Team, Harvard Business School, pp. 1-22 (full article)

Levy, Paul. (2001) The Nut Island Effect: When Good Teams Go Wrong, Harvard Business Review, pp. 5-12 (full article)

Majcharzak, A., Jarvenpaa, S., and Hollingshead, A. (2007) Coordinating Expertise Among Emergent Groups Responding to Disasters, Organization Science, Vol. 18 No. 1, pp.147-161 (full article)

Janis, Irving (1972). Victims of Groupthink. New York: Houghton Mifflin, chapters 1 -5.