Perhaps the best demonstration of advocacy versus inquiry comes from the administration of President John F. Kennedy. During his first two years in office, Kennedy wrestled with two critical foreign policy decisions: the Bay of Pigs invasion and the Cuban Missile Crisis. Both were assigned to cabinet-level task forces, involving many of the same players, the same political interests, and extremely high stakes. But the results were extraordinarily different, largely because the two groups operated in different modes.
The first group, charged with deciding whether to support an invasion of Cuba by a small army of U.S. -trained Cuban exiles, worked in advocacy mode, and the outcome is widely regarded as an example of flawed decision-making. Shortly after taking office, President Kennedy learned of the planned attack on Cuba developed by…
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Harvard Business Review Special Issues (Digital) - 1 Issue, Fall 2023