Legal Business

‘A curious atmosphere of consensus’ – the dangers of groupthink

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HSF fraud veteran Robert Hunter on how smart teams can make bad decisions

Many admire John Kennedy and his advisers’ deft handling of the Cuban missile crisis. It is generally thought to result from some of the best-judged decisions of the era. Yet a year earlier, much the same group of people decided to support the Bay of Pigs invasion (a crackpot scheme for the invasion of Cuba in which the US pitted 1,600 men against 200,000), conversely thought of as one of the most idiotic.