‘How does a man get to the point where he can throw away human life so easily.’
The above quote is attributed to JFK via the movie 13 Days (Netflix it if you haven't seen it), which is an account of the Cuban Missile Crisis, in which the Soviet Union sought to place nuclear missiles in Cuba circa 1962. As I recall JFK, his brother Bobby and an advisor were sitting around discussing the very real and very necessary need for military force to prevent the Soviets from placing missiles on the island. JFK, who was frustrated with Khrushchev (the Soviet leader) and his own military council, echoes the phrase rhetorically while trying to make sense of thousands of years of the human condition.
For me that tableau has come to symbolize the necessary weight, gravitas and seriousness decision makers must have and more importantly highlights that not all of us are decision makers nor should we be and that’s okay. I know what you’re thinking “I make decisions everyday” and that’s true, if only semantically. For me we all make choices everyday, but decisions are defined by two things:
1. They are made ALONE
2. They are IMPACTFUL
On point one we know that any good decision maker has trusted council, but any good decision maker also realizes and willingly OWNS the responsibility of his/her decision alone. On point two I highlight impact because whether it’s a clear +/+ or +/- a decision has real impact.
Why am I talking about this? Because for worse or worse we have been marketed to and led to believe that somehow it was admirable for decision makers to be average. That somehow being intellectually incurious and disinterested was a plus for a decision maker. That being just as unprepared, unfit and unready as the people you will make decisions for makes you qualified to make decisions (huh?). If recent history has taught us anything, it has taught us the extreme fallacy of this type of average joe as decision maker thinking.
