Thirteen Days Decision Process Essay Example

always reminding them of the risk of starting a new war if they decide to follow their emotion to launch an attack. Thus, he asked for other choice of strategies and solutions from his followers. However, even after other solutions had been proposed, he still tried to influence the final decision by delaying it and hoping that the chance of having a political negotiation would arise to end the crisis.

Among those proposed solution, JFK chose the “harmless” one, which was to run a blockade on Cuba. At first, most of his followers were not in full support of his decision of having this blockade since it was considered to be ineffective and slow. However, JFK managed to motivate them and gain their trust in this matter (As in some part of the movie shows how Robert McNamara, the Secretary of Defence, convinced Admiral Anderson, the Chief of Naval Operation, not to start shooting until there was an order from JFK to do so).Having his followers’ trusts and supports at hand, JFK successfully organized and coordinated his followers to obey his orders during the crisis. He had also successfully shared his beliefs (i. e.

launching an attack is a bad idea that could result in having WWIII) to his followers. According to Mintzberg’s framework, people in this film portrayed Interpersonal Roles, Informational Roles, and Decision-Making Roles. The movie showed how JFK (the real leader) put Kenny O’Donnell (i. e. the one who direct subordinates, e.

g. alling pilots and ask them to lie in order to keep the military from launching a counter-attack) and Bobby F. Kennedy (i. e.

the one who coordinate subordinates, e. g.

holding ExComm meetings and arranging consensus) in charge under his direct supervision. JFK also hold the figurehead role. It is shown in the movie how he represented the cabinet at Chicago and could not be substituted by other representatives (e. g.

by Vice President Lyndon Johnson). Moreover, there was a funny part of the movie where it is shown that JFK was scared of cancelling his visit to Chicago (perhaps because his supporters are mostly from this state).For the liaison role, Kenny O’Donnell perhaps was one of those who had it. He had interacted with several people (e. g.

pilots, newspaper publisher, his fellow reporters, USA representative to the United Nation, etc) outside the White House in order to keep things cool and under control. Besides Kenny, JFK also play part of his liaison role where he must interact with the USA military leaders who in turn, pressurized him to invade Cuba. Regarding informational processing roles, monitoring role was hold by JFK as he indirectly scanned for information (i. e. n the reality, the U-2 spy plane pilots were the ones who do the dangerous photo-taking mission) about the existence of Cuban Missiles and about how to remove those Missiles out of Cuba, including the investigation on Alexander Fomin’s background that he delegated to Kenny and FBI’s Walter Sheridan. To disseminate the information, JFK trusted Kenny to pass his message to the subordinates (e.

g. JFK told Kenny to tell the Press Secretary, Pierre Salinger, the truth about the crisis issue). In addition to monitor and disseminator roles, the movie also showed how Robert McNamara, The USASecretary of Defence, act as JFK’s spokesperson in Pentagon,

making sure that no action was taken without JFK’s approval. Adlai Stevenson also got his share as a spokesperson as he represented and spoke for USA in the United Nation (UN).

Personally, I think Adlai is the coolest character in this movie since he was the one who propose the idea of political negotiation (i. e. trading American’s missiles in Turkey with Soviet’s missiles in Cuba) which what in the end became the final solution of the Cuban Missile Crisis.I also love the part of the movie where he gave his counter-argument to Soviet’s Zorin at the UN Security Council meeting. Regarding decision-making roles, the cabinet and the military leaders act as entrepreneur as they initiate their ideas and strategies in order to solve the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Regarding the crisis itself, JFK acts as a disturbance handler who responds to threats which could endanger the life of the American people. In different angle of perspective, Bobby F. Kennedy (BFK) and Kenny also act as disturbance handlers as they responded to threats which could endanger JFK’s presidency (e. . Kenny threatened Scotty Reston, the New York Times Washington bureau chief, telling him not to print the crisis issue on the newspaper as it could inflame the situation and ruined JFK’s plan of having a more peaceful solution to end the crisis).

Moreover, JFK was a resource allocator who chose which people would do which jobs and how much authority they would get during the process (e. g. assigning McNamara to supervise the blockade of Cuba, assigning BFK to set up a consensus, assigning Kenny to investigate Fomin’s background, etc).Obviously in the latter part of the

movie, BFK who was negotiating with the Soviet’s ambassador about the mutual agreement, hold the negotiator role. JFK showed balance between the task-oriented behaviour and the relation-oriented behaviour. The task-oriented behaviour was shown in how he did planning, organizing, leading, and controlling (POLC) efficiently and effectively.

The film showed how he was upset when the military leaders were “playing” with his authority, but was not carried away with his anger. He tried to maintain good relationship with his subordinates, while in the same time, tried to stress his authority on the subject.We can see how JFK recognized his subordinates in the later part of the movie where he was recording his condolence to Major Rudolph Anderson’s (i. e. U-2 pilot whose plane was shot down in Cuba) parents. We can also see how close JFK’s relationship with his subordinates is by how loyal his subordinates are and how they always try to stick on JFK’s orders.

JFK showed effective participative leadership behaviours by involving the cabinet, the military leaders, and the Executive Committee (ExComm) in the decision making process. According to Vromm and Yetton model, JFK decision procedure is most likely fall into CI (i. e. eader shares problem with others individually and makes decision alone) and CII (i. e.

leader shares problem with others collectively and makes the decision alone) categories. It is obvious that he tried to lead everyone to the consensus of having a political negotiation with the Soviet. The quality of the decision making and the quality of the decision process significantly increased in this film. In the beginning, only JFK’s close friends agreed with his decision, while others were grunting

behind his back (e.

g. the movie showed how General LeMay and other military leaders were discontent of the Kennedys after a meeting).As more people were involved in the meeting and as JFK shared most of his thought about avoiding WWIII, his subordinates became less resistant to his decisions. As the movie progress, we could see how JFK let his subordinates to have more authority and finally delegated some important tasks to them. This includes how JFK told BFK to carry out the negotiation with the Soviet’s ambassador. All characters in this film have the power to change a world (in a single meeting! ).

Just imagine how if JFK had decided to launch an attack on Cuba, we might have different kind of world today.Moreover, all of these characters tried to influence one another which finally tried to influence the president’s decision. Fortunately, it was not the military leaders but JFK who had the legitimate power as a president of USA to make the final decision. Regarding expert power, the military leaders had their expertise on war or military subjects, while Kenny and BFK had theirs on political subjects.

To force JFK to make decisions, the military leaders used rational persuasion tactics by displaying evidence of missile sites photographs and explaining why the missiles were so dangerous to the country in regard of the missiles’ ballistic range.Coalition tactics is employed by Adlai to seek the aid of UN and other countries to support USA in removing the missiles out of Cuba. BFK employed exchange tactic in negotiating with the Soviet’s ambassador. General LeMay employed pressure tactic on JFK but it was not a success.

Besides his legitimate power, JFK also employed personal appeals as we can see in the movie how Kenny trusted JFK and gave his best friend his full support.

In Thirteen Days, we experience the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 from inside the White House. This true story provides higher drama and more intensity than any fiction.The world came dangerously close to World War 3 and perhaps the total destruction of the planet via nuclear missiles, and this movie walks us through it from the point of view of the ultimate insider. That ultimate insider is JFK's "Special Aid to the President" Kenneth P.

O'Donnell, played by Kevin Costner. Bruce Greenwood plays John F. Kennedy and Steven Culp plays brother Robert Kennedy. Along with Bobby, O'Donnell is one of JFK's most trusted confidants and has a ringside view of the entire crisis as we live it through his eyes. For those who are too young to have lived through it, or remember it, and who flunked U.

S. History, the Cuban Missile Crisis took place in October 1962. A U-2 spy plane took pictures of Russian missile installations being constructed in Cuba. As these missiles could reach the U. S. in a matter of minutes they were considered first strike weapons, and the U.

S. absolutely could not tolerate their presence. The events that follow constitute what could perhaps be called the highest stakes game of "chicken" ever played with neither side willing to back off and stand down for several days. During this time we came closer to nuclear war than at any point in history.

The movie portrays Kennedy, his brother and O'Donnell as being the

young new Presidential team looking for the correct solution to the problem without blowing up the world while the Joint Chiefs and the old guard just wanted to zip into Cuba and blow all of the missile installations up. That is something that JFK felt would necessitate a response from the Russians that would start an escalation that would likely end up in armegeddon. Even with tons of now declassified documents to draw from, it's tough to say how accurate that portrayal is overall. Although pretty much historically accurate, some dramatic license was used here and there.However, one thing is for certain and that is his handling of this event is what made John F. Kennedy one of the most popular Presidents in history.

The film is well acted and does a very good job of recreating the time period. It starts a bit slow, and early on I thought it was lacking in it's ability to truly grab the intensity that surrounded the events, but it got much better as the story progressed. Costner's performance also worried me early on. His attempt at a Boston accent initially was like fingernails on a chalkboard. I don't know if his performance improved later in the film or if I just got used to it.But by the end of the film, it wasn't bothering me at all.

We're giving this film a 4 star rating, but I must say this is one of those movies that makes me wish we had half stars. There are no car chases, shoot outs or tah tahs like we normally look forward to, but this is a great story, and an

important story and a well done film. And perhaps more importantly we did enjoy it. So let's just call it a rather unenthusiastic 4 star rating. It's kinda like eating something that's good for you and discovering you like it even if it's not as good as a cheeseburger.

- Billy Bob