Compliance Lessons from the Cuban Missile Crisis


Compliance into the Weeds is the only weekly podcast which takes a deep dive into a compliance related topic, literally going into the weeds to more fully explore a subject. This week Matt and Tom take a deep dive into a different area; their joint love of history. Matt is reading Nuclear Folly, a new chronicle of the Cuban Missile Crisis by Ukrainian history professor Serhii Plokhy. We use this as a starting point to explore how both the Soviets and Americans used different types of internal debate and information to eventually steer clear of nuclear war. Some of the issues we consider are:

  • What was the Soviet model for information gathering, analysis and debate, both before and during the Missile Crisis?
  • How was the American model of Ex-Comm so different?
  • How do these models inform a speak up culture?
  • How and more importantly why are leadership, corporate culture, speaking up, ethical values all connected.?
  • What does this mean for compliance officers?

 Resources
Matt’s blog post on Radical Compliance:
Culture and the Cuban Missile Crisis

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