Cuban Missile Crisis 50th anniversary: Leadership Lessons
Jon Chapman
Steve Macaulay
October 2012 marks the 50th anniversary of an important landmark event in
the 20th Century, it became known as the Cuban Missile Crisis. Now we are
going to explore this with Jon Chapman who has made a special study of
historical events and their leadership implications today. Now Jon can you
set the scene what was happening fifty years ago?
Jon Chapman
Well we are at the height of the cold war between the Soviet Union and the
United States. There’s a nuclear arms race going on with each side trying to
out produce the other, it gets to the point where we could wipe the world
out several times over so any conflagration, any war that takes place that
goes nuclear threatens the entire planet. What these two countries are
doing are enlisting people around the world to help fight their cause one of
which is Cuba, a Communist country, went Communist in 1959 led by Fidel
Castro, the Soviet Union decide that they will install nuclear missiles on Cuba
only ninety miles away from the United States. One Monday morning in
October 1962 the President of the United States John Kennedy is woken up
and shown the photographs and asked “what do you want to do?”
Steve Macaulay
So the World was on the brink for thirteen tense days, how was it resolved?
Jon Chapman
Well at the outset Kennedy is presented with a series of mutually exclusive
options, there is a diplomatic solution, there is a military solution, and so on
and so forth. The outcome is actually a blend of all those things and it’s
made possible by one of the skills that Kennedy particularly shows which is
his ability to put himself in Khrushchev’s shoes and work out what his
opponent would be thinking or feeling about the situation so that emotional
intelligence and a willingness to listen to different points of view is really
important in bringing together different aspects of those different solutions
so at the end of the day the missiles are withdrawn, there is a secret deal for
the Americans to withdraw their missiles from Turkey and the whole
situation is resolved in a way which saves face for both sides.
Steve Macaulay
So John if we take the corporate world of the 21st Century say you are in
charge of BP at the time of the Deep Water Horizon crisis or Lehmans when
that went bust, what lessons can we draw from the Cuban missile crisis?
Jon Chapman
Well I think because they are two very, very different examples, but of
course in both of those cases you have organisations which suddenly find
themselves under threat and in the case of BP one thing that’s clear is that
the kind of conversation they are seeking to have is focussed around the
technical solution which is where a lot of their expertise lies and
unfortunately what they ignore are the different kinds of conversations they
© Cranfield University 2012
www.cranfieldknowledgeinterchange.com
1
should have been having with the rest of the oil industry and with the
American administration and as the crisis progresses we can see it gets them
into deeper and deeper trouble and ultimately threatens the whole
existence of the organisation. In the case of Lehman Brothers the problem
really arises when you look at how the different administrations try to deal
with the problem and you have different administrations with different
agendas with different kinds of organisational cultures struggling under a lot
of time pressure to come us with a consensus solution and the default
solution happens it’s the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers and we are still five
years on dealing with the fallout from that so one gets a sense that the kind
of getting your organisational act together in advance knowing who you
need to work with and who you need to be talking to is really important
because it is very very hard to build those kind of relationships under
pressure.
Steve Macaulay
So for leaders under pressure it’s bound to happen that there are still some
very relevant lessons.
Jon Chapman
Indeed and I suppose the important thing is start thinking now because you
might not have time when it actually happens.
Steve Macaulay
Jon, thank you very much.
© Cranfield University 2012
www.cranfieldknowledgeinterchange.com
2