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Pigs were individuals who were held over from the previous administration.
 Kennedy put these lessons to excellent use 18 months later when the US and the Soviet Union stood at the edge of nuclear war, during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Because he learned from the Bay of Pigs, and acted on that knowledge during a far worse crisis, he was able to avoid a catastrophe.
LESSONS FOR ACCOUNTABILITY
    Bringing this back to our discussion of accountability, Kennedy’s reactions to the Bay of Pigs provide us with a formula that we can adapt and use:

1. He took responsibility: no blame, no buck passing; he stepped forward and clearly said he was the person who approved the plan;

2. He was determined to learn from the event: he had a strong individual study the disaster, and asked him to look at Kennedy’s role as well as that of others; and

3. He acted on the lessons he learned: with exceptional results.  Taking responsibility, learning from the mistake, and acting on what was learned; to me, those steps go to the heart of accountability. How can managers create systems and organizational climates that foster such positive accountability? That’s the topic of our next column
agencies make major mistakes, and still preserve the opportunity to learn from the mistakes and improve in the future?
 The answer is yes. My favorite example occurred soon after the Bay of Pigs fiasco in April, 1961. It was, by some accounts, the greatest foreign policy blunder of the post WWII era. Hundreds of Cuban exiles who invaded Cuba with support from the US were captured and imprisoned. Many were executed. And the US suffered a humiliating defeat in the eyes of the world.
 How did President Kennedy react? He held a news conference less than a week after the invasion failed, and told the reporters, “There’s an old saying that victory has a hundred fathers and defeat is an orphan.”  What matters, he said, is only one thing: “I am the responsible officer of the government.”
 Kennedy didn’t publicly blame the head of the CIA or Joint Chiefs of Staff, although he probably felt like it. Those individuals had assured him that the invasion would be a success. Nobody was fired on the spot (although Kennedy did remove the CIA director the following year). Kennedy took responsibility for the disaster. And there was no public outcry for independent commissions and endless investigations.
 Kennedy made two other decisions that were impressive examples of accountability following the Bay of Pigs. On April 22, 1961, just a few days after the invasion’s end, he appointed Gen. Maxwell Taylor to head up a commission that was to study the Bay of Pigs and determine what lessons could be learned from the disaster. Kennedy also told Taylor that he wanted to know what he, Kennedy, did that might have contributed to the problems, and what he could do differently in the future.  We didn’t use the term “learning organization” back then, but that’s essentially what President Kennedy wanted to create.
 Finally, Kennedy did what many leaders find it difficult to do. He studied the report that Taylor later gave him, and took the recommendations to heart. He learned, for instance, that he had been too involved in certain policy level meetings leading up to the Bay of Pigs; that his involvement had reduced the amount of candor among his top aides; and that he needed to have someone involved in such policy meetings who was absolutely loyal to him. Many of those who planned the Bay of
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For more information:
Russell M. Linden, PhD
Principal
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www.russlinden.com