Comparing The Bay Of Pigs And The Cuban Missile Crisis

During the Kennedy administration, there were two events that stand out as evidence of the power of group dynamics in solving a national crisis in both an effective and ineffective way. These two events have been named the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis. The first ended in with disastrous results; whereas the second ended with wild success. Clearly, the Kennedy administration learned from the first mistake and took great effort to correct their course so that the Cuban Missile Crisis could be solved effectively. What is more, in both situations, Kennedy’s top administration was present, yet the way in which the groups interacted differed dramatically, including the process of information, the handling group conflict and seeking alternative options.

In fact, Kathleen Eisenhardt states that, “Groups with superior process center their attention on real-time and fact-based information about current operations.” However, during the Bay of Pigs information lagged and at times proved to be inaccurate. Therefore, it is important for groups to divide the load of information into separate categories or specialties where an individual or smaller segment is tasked with only acquiring their assigned information. Eisenhardt speaks to the strength of this tactic in stating, that this “cultivates a variety of different perspectives and provides depth of knowledge by focusing the attention of specific members on particular features of the situation.” Also, when groups are focused on specific information they are able to identify problems or errors earlier because they are not lost in a mountain of information (Eisenhardt). In essence, groups become more effective when information is attained through specialized