The Cost of Neglect: A Lesson in Strategy and Management

Oct 15

Key Takeaways

Cuba’s government retains political control while the country’s public services, economy, and infrastructure deteriorate.
Unlike during its 1990s crisis, Cuba is now losing many of the professionals whose expertise would support recovery.
Continued deterioration could make a future political transition harder to translate into lasting improvements.

In “Cuba’s Point of No Return,” published in Foreign Affairs, Will Freeman describes a country whose government remains in control while its capacity to provide essential services steadily weakens.

He opens with the collapse of a historic building in central Havana that most recently housed a design school. Declared uninhabitable years earlier, it suffered partial collapses before finally falling. When Freeman visited, men were salvaging bricks from the rubble to build makeshift homes.

The building illustrates his larger concern: Cuba is losing the foundations that any future government would need to rebuild the country.

A Government That Survives a Deteriorating State

Freeman distinguishes the leadership’s ability to retain power from the state’s ability to serve the population.

Political repression remains effective. Meanwhile, hospitals lack essential supplies, utilities become less reliable, and public institutions struggle to function.

He assigns primary responsibility to the Cuban government’s resistance to reform and its allocation of resources, while arguing that American sanctions accelerate the deterioration.

His warning is that these conditions could outlast the present leadership. Political change might create an opportunity for recovery, but a successor government would still inherit damaged infrastructure, weakened institutions, and a depleted professional workforce.

What Was Different in the 1990s?

One of Freeman’s most important comparisons is with Cuba’s Special Period following the loss of Soviet support.

The economy contracted severely then, but enough doctors and teachers remained to keep hospitals and schools functioning. The country suffered enormous financial hardship while retaining much of the professional capacity necessary to sustain essential services.

Today, Freeman describes a different situation. Emigration is emptying professions, while inadequate public salaries draw other skilled people into unrelated work.

That distinction matters. Economic resources can help finance recovery, but recovery also requires people who know how to operate, maintain, and improve the systems being restored.

Freeman separately compares Cuba’s emerging economy with 1990s Russia. Private enterprise is expanding, but weak legal protections and privileged access create opportunities for insiders to accumulate wealth. His concern is that these arrangements could become entrenched, complicating future efforts to build a broadly prosperous economy.

The Cost of Neglect

Freeman argues that continued pressure might force political change—or might leave the government in place while the country deteriorates further.

Unconditional sanctions relief carries its own risks, potentially strengthening leaders whose priority is remaining in power. He proposes targeted relief in exchange for specific political and economic reforms.

Whether that approach could succeed remains uncertain. His broader question is more enduring: what will be left to work with when an opening finally arrives.

“Point of no return” is a forceful description, and the article does not establish an irreversible deadline. But rebuilding can become progressively harder long before it becomes impossible.

Why It Matters

The management lesson follows from that distinction between hardship and lost capacity.

Institutions depend on physical infrastructure—buildings, equipment, and essential systems. They also depend on human infrastructure: professional expertise, institutional knowledge, working relationships, and the ability to pass skills to others.

Both require continuing attention.

Deferred physical maintenance can turn a repair into a replacement. Deferred investment in human capacity can leave an institution without the knowledge needed to make that replacement useful.

A community restoring a neglected facility, for example, must consider more than construction costs. It may also need to rebuild the expertise, partnerships, and programs that once made the facility valuable.

The same principle applies to businesses, public agencies, and nonprofit organizations. Funding can purchase equipment or reopen a building. Developing capable people and effective working relationships takes time.

Cuba’s comparison with its own 1990s crisis makes this especially clear: retaining professional capacity can preserve possibilities for recovery even through severe economic hardship.

My Perspective

Freeman’s article reminds us that recovery depends on what has been preserved along the way.

For management, this is a question of stewardship. Maintaining physical assets and developing human capacity protect an institution’s ability to respond when circumstances improve or new opportunities arise.

Resources are limited, and some deferral is unavoidable. But its full cost includes the possibility that the foundations needed for future success will be harder to restore.

Cuba’s Lesson: Prolonged neglect can erode the human and institutional capacity necessary for recovery.

Further Reading: https://reader.foreignaffairs.com/2026/09/17/cubas-point-of-no-return/content.html

Paul Wilson