The Truth About Making Smart Decisions

Chapter 33. Use constructive conflict

There have been few more high-pressure decisions than those made in the U.S. White House in October 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis. With surface-to-surface missiles in Cuba pointed right at the U.S. backyard, the intense pressure was the only certainty. As Robert Kennedy commented in his memoir of the crisis, Thirteen Days: “Each one of us was being asked to make a recommendation which would affect the future of all mankind, a recommendation which, if wrong and if accepted, could mean the destruction of the human race. That kind of pressure does strange things to a human being, even to brilliant, self-confident, mature, experienced men. For some it brings out characteristics and strengths that perhaps ...