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"Incredible achievement and great tragedy unfolded on the treacherous slopes of Mount Everest in the spring of 1996," begins Trustee Professor of Management Michael Roberto ’s landmark 2003 case study Mount Everest–1996 . Recently named a “Classic Case” by The Case Centre, a nonprofit dedicated to furthering business education and the case study method, it documents the harrowing story of an ill-fated attempt to summit one of the world’s tallest mountains led by some of the world’s top climbers. 

Mount Everest–1996 also exemplifies Roberto’s commitment to using immersive, real-world examples to educate the next generation of leaders. A good case study serves a springboard for discussion and introspection as well as an informational resource, he explains. “The case method is about putting a student in the shoes of a decision maker. It’s not about the professor coming in and preaching and teaching a bunch of theory through a lecture, but instead giving the students a messy, real world situation.”

The story of Everest Roberto speaks from experience. When The Case Centre compiled a 2017 list of the 40 best-selling case study authors in the world, he ranked #25. His award-winning case studies range from an examination of the rise of Planet Fitness to a multimedia analysis of the 2003 Columbia space shuttle accident.

“Everest always captures the imagination. If you want students to learn, you've got to motivate them and one way you do that is to use really compelling settings.”

Mount Everest–1996 is the case study for which Roberto is perhaps best known. It explores a March 1996 tragedy in which five mountaineers from two widely-respected teams, including the teams’ two leaders, Rob Hall and Scott Fischer, perished while attempting to summit Mount Everest during an especially deadly season. Roberto’s examination of the disaster has been used in graduate and undergraduate courses around the world and he has been invited to personally teach the case at institutions ranging from Fortune 500 companies to West Point and the Naval War College to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Fascinated by Into Thin Air , an account written by expedition survivor Jon Krakauer, Roberto realized the story could be used to teach students about high-stakes decision-making. He exhaustively researched and worked on the case for more than a year, including learning about mountaineering and studying accounts from the surviving climbers. 

Total immersion The resulting case study recounts the events and decisions that led to the disaster, from issues involving logistics and inter-personal conflicts to larger questions of leadership under stress conditions. It’s a perfect starting point for students to explore a range of key topics including team dynamics, evaluating risk, and knowing when to cut losses.

“A great case has to have some element or points to debate, some level of tension, and some level of uncertainty.” 

The subject matter, Roberto notes, draws students in and gets them thinking. “Everest always captures the imagination,” he says. “If you want students to learn, you've got to motivate them and one way you do that is to use really compelling settings.”

But even though the story is extraordinary, the lessons it offers are universal, Roberto asserts. “I think one of the reasons the case study has been so compelling is because, while we haven't all been in a life-or-death situation like that, we've all been in teams that broke down in similar ways or we’ve been in situations where we've thrown good money after bad – whether it's a home improvement project or a used car or a business project,” he states. “I think the case touches on some essentials of human nature and group behavior that are very fundamental.” 

Learning from failure Part of the success of Mount Everest–1996 can be attributed to its approach. In developing the case study as a member of the Harvard Business Faculty, Roberto decided to take a different tack than the others he was seeing. “When I looked around, it seemed that 99% of the case studies that students were studying were success stories,” Roberto remembers. “I wanted to write about a failure.”

In studying failure, students aren’t presented with a clear-cut path to follow or a list of instructions to memorize and replicate. Instead, they are required to do their own analysis and consider what they might do in a similar situation. “If there's a clear right answer, that's a bad case,” Roberto explains. “A great case has to have some element or points to debate, some level of tension, and some level of uncertainty.” 

“I have students I had 20 years ago who still remember this case.”

That sort of ambiguity lies at the heart of Mount Everest–1996 . “So much of what is written about Everest expeditions and those kinds of things is about the heroic person who gets to the top,” says Roberto. “This is about being able to look and say, ‘Yes, these qualities are needed to do great, ambitious, remarkable things, but, in a way, some of those same qualities can also get you in trouble.”

A lasting impact The Everest tragedy’s inherent humanity is one of the qualities that has made it so resonant for students, Roberto believes. “I don't look at Hall and Fischer and say, ‘Oh they're terrible leaders.’ I look at the case and say, ‘But for the grace of God, go I,’” he states. “The mistakes they made were very human. I don't teach it as they're bad people or bad leaders so much as they made some bad choices for some of the same reasons we all make bad choices.”

For nearly two decades, students studying Mount Everest–1996 have learned from those choices and take away lessons they’ve used to go out into the world and lead their own teams. The time they spend with the case study, Roberto says, tends to stick with them. “They never forget it,” he says. “I have students I had 20 years ago who still remember this case.”

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Mount Everest-1996

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This award-winning simulation uses the dramatic context of a Mount Everest expedition to reinforce student learning in group dynamics and leadership. Students play one of 5 roles on a team of…

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Now available in English, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese, French, or Arabic. Teach this simulation online with new suggestions added to the Teaching Note.

This award-winning simulation uses the dramatic context of a Mount Everest expedition to reinforce student learning in group dynamics and leadership. Students play one of 5 roles on a team of climbers attempting to summit the mountain. During each round of play they must collectively discuss whether to attempt the next camp en route to the summit. Ultimately, teams must climb through 5 camps in 6 simulated days totaling approximately 1.5 actual hours of seat time. Team members analyze information on weather, health conditions, supplies, goals, and hiking speed, and determine how much of that information to communicate to their teammates. Along the journey, the team must also make decisions in response to 3 hidden challenges which affect their ascent, hiking speed, health, and overall success.

Version 3 retains the same core experience and learning objectives while featuring key improvements for students and faculty. This includes a new design and layout, new team challenges, new team assignment options (including the ability to work in pairs), new instructions and videos, and better usability across devices. A complete V3 Transition Guide, as well as teaching recommendations, free trials, videos and more are available to registered Educators. A comprehensive Teaching Note is also available. This product was designed and developed to comply with WCAG 2.0 AA standards.

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To learn how to build, participate in, and lead effective teams, as well as to examine:

How teams can improve the way they make decisions,

How opposing interests and asymmetric information affect team dynamics,

How leaders shape team decision-making and performance in competitive and time-sensitive situations,

How teams and their leaders deal with tradeoffs between short-term task completion and longer-term team effectiveness, and

How cognitive biases impair decision making.

Dec 6, 2017

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Harvard Business Publishing

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1 hour, 30 minutes

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Mount Everest Case Study Analysis (from "High-Stakes Decision Making: The Lessons of Mount Everest" case)

Mount Everest case demonstrates just how important leadership is for a group that works towards a common goal. This case doesn’t only provide information that can be applied to studying extreme sports team dynamics. It rather suggests that the “right” leadership must be present to ensure the success of any common venue. The leaders of the two expeditions presented in the case, Hall and Fischer, underestimated the importance of maintaining a strong team culture within a group of people who were driven by self-interest, which lead to the subsequent failure of both expeditions. If Hall and Fischer dedicated more effort towards building trust among the team members and communicated their beliefs more clearly, the result wouldn’t have been so unfortunate. Otherwise, the expeditions had a low chance of success from its beginning.

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"Lessons From Everest: The Interaction of Cognitive Bias, Psychological Safety, and System Complexity"

What went wrong on Mount Everest on May 10, 1996? That day, twenty-three climbers reached the summit. Five climbers, however, did not survive the descent. Two of these, Rob Hall and Scott Fischer, were extremely skilled team leaders with much experience on Everest. As the world's mightiest mountain, Everest has never been a cakewalk: 148 people have lost their lives attempting to reach the summit since 1922.

Newspaper and magazine articles and books—most famously, Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mount Everest Disaster —have attempted to explain how events got so out of control that particular day. Several explanations compete: human error, weather, all the dangers inherent in human beings pitting themselves against the world's most forbidding peak.

A single cause of the 1996 tragedy may never be known, says HBS professor Michael A. Roberto . But perhaps the events that day hold lessons, some of them for business managers. Roberto's new working paper describes how. Here follows an excerpt from "Lessons From Everest: The Interaction of Cognitive Bias, Psychological Safety, and System Complexity."

Implications for leaders This multi-lens analysis of the Everest case provides a framework for understanding, diagnosing, and preventing serious failures in many types of organizations. However, it also has important implications for how leaders can shape and direct the processes through which their organizations make and implement high-stakes decisions. The Everest analysis suggests that leaders must pay close attention to how they balance competing pressures in their organizations, and how their words and actions shape the perceptions and beliefs of organization members. In addition, the case provides insight regarding how firms approach learning from past failures.

Balancing competing forces The Everest case suggests that leaders need to engage in a delicate balancing act with regard to nurturing confidence, dissent, and commitment within their organizations. First, executives must strike a balance between overconfidence on the one hand and insufficient confidence on the other. Leaders must act decisively when faced with challenges, and they must inspire others to do so as well. A lack of confidence can enhance anticipatory regret, or the apprehension that individuals often experience prior to making a decision. High levels of anticipatory regret can lead to indecision and costly delays. 71 This anxiety can be particularly problematic for executives in fast-moving industries. Successful management teams in turbulent industries develop certain practices to cope with this anxiety. For instance, some leaders develop the confidence to act decisively in the face of considerable ambiguity by seeking the advice of one or more "expert counselors," i.e. highly experienced executives who can serve as a confidante and a sounding board for various ideas. 72 Naturally, too much confidence can become dangerous as well, as the Everest case clearly demonstrates. To combat overconfidence, leaders must seek out information that disconfirms their existing views, and they should discourage subordinates from hiding bad news. Leaders also must take great care to separate facts from assumptions, and they must encourage everyone to test critical assumptions vigorously to root out overly optimistic projections.

Fostering constructive dissent poses another challenge for managers. As we see in the Everest case, insufficient debate among team members can diminish the extent to which plans and proposals undergo critical evaluation. Flawed ideas remain unchallenged, and creative alternatives are not generated. On the other hand, when leaders arrive at a final decision, they need everyone to accept the outcome and support its implementation. They cannot allow continued dissension to disrupt the effort to turn that decision into action. As Cyrus the Great once said, leaders must balance the need for "diversity in counsel, unity in command." To accomplish this, leaders must insure that each participant has a fair and equal opportunity to voice their opinions during the decision process, and they must demonstrate that they have considered those views carefully and genuinely. Moreover, they must clearly explain the rationale for their final decision, including why they chose to accept some input and advice while rejecting other suggestions. 73 By doing so, leaders can encourage divergent thinking while building decision acceptance.

Finally, leaders must balance the need for strong buy-in against the danger of escalating commitment to a failing course of action over time. To implement effectively, managers must foster commitment by providing others with ample opportunities to participate in decision making, insuring that the process is fair and legitimate, and minimizing the level of interpersonal conflict that emerges during the deliberations. Without strong buy-in, they risk numerous delays including efforts to re-open the decision process after implementation is underway. However, leaders must be aware of the dangers of over-commitment to a flawed course of action, particularly after employees have expended a great deal of time, money, and effort. The ability to "cut your losses" remains a difficult challenge as well as a hallmark of courageous leadership. Simple awareness of the sunk cost trap will not prevent flawed decisions. Instead, leaders must be vigilant about asking tough questions such as: What would another executive do if he assumed my position today with no prior history in this organization? 74 Leaders also need to question themselves and others repeatedly about why they wish to make additional investments in a particular initiative. Managers should be extremely wary if they hear responses such as: "Well, we have put so much money into this already. We don't want to waste all of those resources." Finally, leaders can compare the benefits and costs of additional investments with several alternative uses of those resources. By encouraging the consideration of multiple options, leaders may help themselves and others recognize how over-commitment to an existing project may be preventing the organization from pursuing other promising opportunities.

Shaping perceptions and beliefs The Everest case also demonstrates how leaders can shape the perceptions and beliefs of organization members, and thereby affect how these individuals will interact with one another and with their leaders in critical situations. Hall and Fischer made a number of seemingly minor choices about how the teams were structured that had an enormous impact on people's perceptions of their roles, status, and relationships with other climbers. Ultimately, these perceptions and beliefs constrained the way that people behaved when the groups encountered serious obstacles and dangers.

Leaders can shape the perceptions and beliefs of others in many ways. In some cases, the leaders' words or actions send a clear signal as to how they expect people to behave. For instance, Hall made it very clear that he did not wish to hear dissenting views while the expedition made the final push to the summit. Most leaders understand the power of these very direct commands or directives. However, this case also demonstrates that leaders shape the perceptions and beliefs of others through subtle signals, actions, and symbols. For example, the compensation differential among the guides shaped people's beliefs about their relative status in the expedition. It is hard to believe that the expedition leaders recognized that their compensation decisions would impact perceptions of status, and ultimately, the likelihood of constructive dissent within the expedition teams. Nevertheless, this relatively minor decision did send a strong signal to others in the organization. The lesson for managers is that they must recognize the symbolic power of their actions and the strength of the signals they send when they make decisions about the formation and structure of work teams in their organizations.

Learning from failure Often, when an organization suffers a terrible failure, others attempt to learn from the experience. Trying to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past seems like an admirable goal. Naturally, some observers attribute the poor performance of others to human error of one kind or another. They blame the firm's leaders for making critical mistakes, at times even going so far as to accuse them of ignorance, negligence, or indifference. Attributing failures to the flawed decisions of others has certain benefits for outside observers. In particular, it can become a convenient argument for those who have a desire to embark on a similar endeavor. By concluding that human error caused others to fail, ambitious and self-confident managers can convince themselves that they will learn from those mistakes and succeed where others did not. 75

This research demonstrates a more holistic approach to learning from large-scale organizational failures. It suggests that we cannot think about individual, group, and organizational levels of analysis in isolation. Instead, we need to examine how cognitive, interpersonal, and systemic forces interact to affect organizational processes and performance. System complexity, team structure and beliefs, and cognitive limitations are not alternative explanations for failures, but rather complementary and mutually reinforcing concepts.

Business executives and other leaders typically recognize that equifinality characterizes many situations. In other words, most leaders understand that there are many ways to arrive at the same outcome. Nevertheless, we have a natural tendency to blame other people for failures, rather than attributing the poor performance to external and contextual factors. 76 We also tend to pit competing theories against one another in many cases, and try to argue that one explanation outperforms the others. The Everest case suggests that both of these approaches may lead to erroneous conclusions and reduce our capability to learn from experience. We need to recognize multiple factors that contribute to large-scale organizational failures, and to explore the linkages among the psychological and sociological forces involved at the individual, group, and organizational system level. In sum, all leaders would be well-served to recall Anatoli Boukreev's closing thoughts about the Everest tragedy: "To cite a specific cause would be to promote an omniscience that only gods, drunks, politicians, and dramatic writers can claim." 77

Excerpted with permission from the working paper "Lessons From Everest: The Interaction of Cognitive Bias, Psychological Safety, and System Complexity," Michael A. Roberto , 2002.

All images © Eyewire unless otherwise indicated.

Five Questions for Michael A. Roberto

Why study Mount Everest? Professor Roberto described what managers can learn from mountain climbing in an e-mail interview with HBS Working Knowledge senior editor Martha Lagace.

Lagace: In your new research, you tried to learn from a tragic episode on Mount Everest. You've applied a variety of theories from management to study why events on May 10, 1996 went horribly wrong. What interested you in the Everest case, and why did you decide to delve further using the tools of management?

Roberto: When I read Jon Krakauer's best-selling account of this tragedy, entitled Into Thin Air , I became fascinated with the possibility of using this material as a tool for teaching students about high-stakes decision-making. After all, here you had two of the most capable and experienced high altitude climbers in the world, and they both perished during one of the deadliest days in the mountain's history. It struck me that the disastrous consequences had more to do with individual cognition and group dynamics than with the tactics of mountain climbing.

In addition, I am always searching for material from outside of the business environment that can be used in our classrooms at HBS. I believe that there are important lessons that we can learn by examining case studies from other fields. Students find the material refreshing, and they enjoy trying to learn about management by studying experts in other domains.

Q: In hindsight, it is very easy to point a finger and assign blame to individuals involved in the climb. You resist that temptation. Why?

A: If we simply attribute the tragedy to the inadequate capabilities of a few climbers, then we have missed an opportunity to identify broader lessons from this episode. Many of us often fall into the trap of saying to ourselves, "That could never happen to me," when we observe others fail. The fact is that there may be powerful reasons why many people would fail under similar circumstances. It seemed that this might be the case here, and that's what motivated me to consider several different conceptual explanations for the tragedy.

Q: Overconfidence, an unwillingness to "cut one's losses," and a reliance on the most recent information are all psychological factors that can play into high-stakes decisions. You suggest that people dealing with risk—be they expedition leaders or executives—are very susceptible to these emotions. How might they have applied on Mount Everest that day?

A: First and foremost, I would advocate strict adherence to a turn-around time. In this case, the climbers ignored the conventional wisdom, which suggests that they should turn back if they cannot reach the summit by one o'clock in the afternoon. A strictly enforced rule would help protect them against the sunk cost effect, i.e., the tendency to continue climbing because of the substantial prior commitment of time, money, and other resources.

As for the overconfidence bias, I would suggest that expeditions assign someone with a great deal of credibility and experience to be the contrarian during the climb. That person would be responsible for identifying risks, questioning the judgment of other guides and climbers, and reminding everyone of the reasons why many people have died on the slopes of Everest.

Finally, I think the climbers should maintain radio communication with some expert hikers who are not involved in their expedition. Their emotional distance from the effort may enable these experts to offer unbiased guidance and to provide a more balanced assessment of the risks involved in particular situations.

Q: You also looked at the Everest tragedy through the lens of group dynamics. How, in a nutshell, do you think group dynamics could have influenced climbers' actions that day?

A: I would argue that the groups developed a climate that was hostile to open discussion and constructive dissent. One expedition leader went so far as to say, "I will tolerate no dissension...my word will be absolute law." Not surprisingly, people suppressed their concerns and doubts about some of the poor judgment and choices that were made during the climb.

For instance, one survivor lamented that he did not "always speak up when maybe I should have." One factor that contributed to the lack of candid discussion was the perceived differences in status among expedition members. For example, one climber said that he did not speak up when things began to go wrong because he "was quite conscious of his place in the expedition pecking order."

The unwillingness to question team procedures and exchange ideas openly prevented the group from revising and improving their plans as conditions changed.

Q: Many pieces of a puzzle need to interlock successfully for a team to climb a mountain or execute a high-pressure business decision. What is often the role of complexity in these kinds of situations?

A: The idea here is that climbing Everest entails a complex system of activities and behaviors. Two characteristics of this system—complex interactions and tight coupling—enhanced the likelihood of a serious accident.

First, complex interactions means that different elements of the system interacted in ways that were unexpected and difficult to perceive or comprehend in advance. This led to a series of small, but interconnected, breakdowns and failures that became part of a dangerous "domino effect."

Second, tight coupling means that there was a fairly rigid sequence of time-dependent activities, one dominant path to achieving the goal, and very little slack in the system. These characteristics made it easier for a problem in one area to quickly trigger failures in other aspects of the climb.

71. For a more extensive discussion of anticipatory regret, see I. Janis & L. Mann, Decision Making: A Psychological Analysis of Conflict, Choice, and Commitment, (New York: Free Press, 1977).

72. For more on the issue of developing confidence to make decisions quickly in turbulent environments, see: K. Eisenhardt, "Making Fast Strategic Decisions in High-Velocity Environments," Academy of Management Journal , 32 (1989): 543-576.

73. See A. Korsgaard, D. Schweiger, & H. Sapienza, "Building Commitment, Attachment, and Trust in Strategic Decision-Making Teams: The Role of Procedural Justice," Academy of Management Journal , 38 (1995): 60-84.

74. In the famous story of Intel's exit from the DRAM business, this is exactly what Gordon Moore and Andrew Grove asked themselves as they were contemplating whether to continue investing in the loss-making DRAM business.

75. Jon Krakauer has cautioned that this could occur quite easily with respect to the Everest tragedy. In his book, he wrote, "If you can convince yourself that Rob Hall died because he made a string of stupid errors and that you are too clever to repeat those same errors, it makes it easier for you to attempt Everest in the face of some rather compelling evidence that doing so is injudicious." (p. 356-357).

76. E. Jones and R. Nisbett, "The Actor and the Observer: Divergent Perceptions of the Causes of Behavior," in E. Jones, D. Kanouse, H. Kelley, R. Nisbett, S. Valins, and B. Weiner, eds., Attribution: Perceiving the Causes of Behavior (General Learning Press, 1971).

77. Boukreev and DeWalt [p. 226-227], op cit.

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Publication Date: November 12, 2002

The Inside the Case video that accompanies this case includes teaching tips and insight from the author (available to registered educators only). Describes the events that transpired during the May 1996, Mount Everest tragedy. Examines the flawed decisions that climbing teams made before and during the ascent. Teach this case online with new suggestions added to the Teaching Note.

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Bad decisions put to the test on Mount Everest

Or how cognitive biases proved to be the downfall of experienced mountaineers.

• Tomorrow's Choices, Today
• Bad decisions put to the…

In May 1996, two rival mountaineering companies embarked upon a new ascent of Mount Everest. The expeditions were led respectively by the charismatic Rob Hall and Scott Fischer, who aimed to take their new clients to the top of the world. On the 10th of May, the two teams were descending from the summit when they were caught out by a violent storm. The leaders of both groups of climbers, as well as two of their clients and a guide, died that day, unable to reach the nearest base camp.

Climbing Everest is no trivial matter. Since the first ascent in 1950, 280 people are believed to have met their end there. Though it is still not the world’s most dangerous mountain: Annapurna I, K2 and Nanga Parbat all have fatality rates of between 20% and 28%. Compared with these deadly rivals, it could be argued that Everest has been the most climbed and is one of the safest mountains. So why is it that experienced, well-equipped professionals (who had, among other things, bottled oxygen) ended up making a series of bad decisions that ultimately condemned them to death?

Cognitive biases, or why our choices are not always logical

In 1970, two big names from the world of psychology, Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman, sparked a revolution by proving that humans are not rational creatures and that our choices are not always logical. In other words, many of our judgements, choices and decisions are often the result of largely arbitrary rules, rather than of statistical and logical calculations. This is mainly due to the existence of “cognitive biases”, a sort of subconscious neurological mechanism that can influence or disrupt our relationship to reality, impacting our opinions and behaviours without us noticing.

According to Kahneman, the source of these biases lies in the complex interplay of two systems in our brain, which he labels “System 1” and “System 2” . He argues that in System 1 the brain forms thoughts in a fast, automatic way. It makes decisions spontaneously and instinctively, often guided by emotions. In System 2, thoughts are formed in a slower, more deliberative way. The brain makes decisions consciously and rationally.

The downside of System 2 is that it assumes you have the time and desire to engage in deep reflection. For practical reasons, most of our day-to-day decisions are therefore made by System 1; if all our decisions were based on a drawn-out thought process, it would take days and we would have no time for anything else.

Most of the time, the shortcuts that our brain creates via System 1 are both useful and sensible. They allow us to quickly sort and interpret the information we receive, so that we can take action. Sometimes, however, things can go wrong. The shortcuts taken by our fast brain (System 1) can at times prove harmful. In such instances, we talk about “cognitive biases” – the name given to the many shortcuts in thinking that, rather than taking us safely and efficiently to the right destination, instead lead us into trouble.

Cognitive biases tested on Mount Everest

In 2002, six years after the incident on Everest, Michael Roberto, a research assistant at Harvard Business School, investigated the accident that cost the lives of some of those on the expedition. After analysing the accounts of the survivors and questioning them carefully on the sequence of events leading up to the incident, he established that at least three key cognitive biases could have led to bad decisions being made during the ascent , contributing to the catastrophic outcome.

The “sunk cost fallacy” entails sticking with a decision that you know is a bad one for fear of wasting the sacrifices you have made so far. This could explain why the climbers persisted in their ascent despite a dire weather forecast and in full knowledge of the risks they were running, particularly not having enough energy or oxygen to make the descent. In his account of the expedition, the American journalist Jon Krakauer – who had been invited to join the expedition – recalls how difficult it was for certain members of the team to accept that they should turn back when the decision needed to be made. They had sacrificed so much, financially, physically and psychologically to get to where they were, that it seemed unthinkable to give up so close to the goal. In the words of Doug Hansen, one of the client mountaineers who died that day: “ I’ve put too much of myself into this mountain to quit now, without giving it everything I’ve got ”. Although Rob Hall, the leader of the expedition, was fully aware of the dangers involved in continuing the ascent and had himself set out rigid rules designed specifically to avoid any temptation to break them in a moment of weakness, he was unable to stand up to one of his clients. Worse still, he accompanied Doug Hansen on his final ascent, knowing full well that they would not have enough oxygen or strength for the descent. Neither man made it down.

They had sacrificed so much, financially, physically and psychologically to get to where they were, that it seemed unthinkable to give up so close to the goal.

The overconfidence bias involves overestimating our capabilities, skills or the strength of our judgement at the time of making a choice. It could explain the guides’ poor assessments of their own abilities. It is worth remembering that the leaders of the two expeditions were experienced mountaineers who had both climbed Everest several times and successfully taken dozens of people to the summit over the five previous years. Fischer was therefore used to brushing aside the doubts of his clients, reassuring them that everything was under control. He is said to have told a journalist: “I believe 100 percent I’m coming back…. My wife believes 100 percent I’m coming back. She isn’t concerned about me at all when I’m guiding because I’m gonna make all the right choices”. As Michael Roberto noted in his analysis, Fischer was not the only one to have boasted about having complete confidence in himself. Several other members of the expedition had similarly overestimated their physical and psychological capabilities and were in no doubt as to their ability to successfully reach the summit and make it back down.

The “recency bias” , potentially interpreted as a variant of confirmation bias (only seeing what we want to see) also seems to have played a role in the Everest drama. This biais could be what led the expedition leaders to underestimate the likelihood of a violent storm catching them off-guard, and therefore failing to prepare for such an eventuality. The weather during their recent expeditions had been good; in fact, it had been particularly mild over the previous five years. They therefore only took these medium-term observations into account, subconsciously ignoring the older weather data that clearly showed that storms were a frequent occurrence on Everest. Had they widened the scope of their analysis to include this older data, they would have recalled that in the mid-1980s – just ten years earlier – there had been no expeditions up Everest for three consecutive years due to bad weather.

A fourth bias could be at play in these events: the “authority bias” . The fact that there was a defined hierarchy among the climbers meant that some of them, particularly the guides, were reluctant to question the decisions of the leaders, even at times of crisis. For example, one of the guides is reported to have said that he did not dare express his disagreement with some of the decisions made by Rob Hall (the expedition leader), preferring to defer to the experience, status and authority of his “superior”, rather than voicing his reservations. More generally, Michael Roberto highlights that the team lacked “psychological safety” – a climate in which everyone feels able to speak up and debate differing viewpoints. Had there been a feeling of mutual trust and opportunities to calmly discuss possible differences in opinion, certain biases may well have not undermined the rationality of the expedition leaders when it was at its most vulnerable.

Understanding and recognising the existence of biases can help us to avoid certain traps, particularly when we have to make crucial decisions, whether it’s coming back from Everest safe and sound or not ruining your business (or your life).

Besides demonstrating the disastrous consequences cognitive biases can lead to in high-risk situations, the case of the 1996 expedition also shows how difficult it can be to resist them, even when we are aware of their existence and the risks they pose. The strict rules that the mountaineers had set for themselves before making their ascent – including turning back if they had not reached the summit by 2.00 p.m. – were specifically intended to protect them from any biais: they knew all too well that their judgement would be seriously impaired while approaching the summit as a result of extreme fatigue and lack of oxygen. But instead of abiding by their rules, they let their biases take over and lead them straight to their death.

Specialists believe that over 90% of our mental behaviour is subconscious and automatic, and thus that our judgements and behaviours are dictated without us being aware of it. In this context, understanding and recognising the existence of biases can help us to avoid certain traps, particularly when we have to make crucial decisions , whether it’s coming back from Everest safe and sound or not ruining your business (or your life).

• #Leadership

Author:  Sophie Guignard

A graduate of ESCP and Sciences Po Paris, Sophie began her career at Lazard, then ran a magazine in Buenos Aires before joining the editorial staff of Le Monde. She then co-founded Heidi.news, in Switzerland, and now develops editorial projects for various media and events. She is the author of 'Je choisis donc je suis: comment prenons-nous les grandes décisions de notre vie’ (Flammarion, 2021) [English Translation: I choose therefore I am: how do we make the big decisions in our lives?]

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Lessons from Everest: The Role of Collaborative Leadership in Crisis

O n May 10, 1996, 26 climbers from several expeditions reached the summit of Mt. Everest, the world’s highest mountain. At 29,028 feet, the peak juts up into the jet stream, higher than some commercial airlines fly. A combination of crowded conditions, a perilous environment, and incomplete communications had already put some climbers in peril that day; a late-afternoon blizzard that sent temperatures plummeting sealed their fate.

Descending climbers were scattered along the upper reaches of the mountain when a powerful storm hit. Some people became incapacitated near the summit; others managed to get to within a few hundred yards of their tents at Camp Four (26,100 feet) before becoming lost in the whiteout conditions. Eight climbers would die over the next day and a half. Others would suffer severe frostbite and disability from their Everest summit attempts.

The 1996 Everest climbing season was the deadliest ever in the mountain’s history. The key events of the May 1996 tragedies have been analyzed thoroughly, both from a sensationalist perspective for the general public, and from a more analytical perspective by the climbing community. Now that some time for reflection has passed, we can view the The 1996 Everest climbing season was the deadliest ever in the mountain’s history. The key events of the May 1996 tragedies have been analyzed thoroughly, both from a sensationalist perspective for the general public, and from a more analytical perspective by the climbing community. Now that some time for reflection has passed, we can view the events as a rich metaphor for how organizations cope and survive, or not, under extreme conditions.

Although most of us don’t face life or death situations in the office, we do operate in a volatile environment that demands strong leadership and quick decision-making based on the best information we can gather in a short time. In this sense, we might say that our work teams scale our own Everests every day.

Because any significant undertaking requires leadership of a productive team effort, we begin by sketching out some of the factors essential to “collaborative leadership.” We then examine the case of the 1996 IMAX expedition led by David Breashears as an example of effective collaborative leadership in action. We conclude by drawing lessons from Everest for business leaders.

Collaborative Leadership

Many managers recognize the need for collaborative leadership to help them achieve their objectives in a changing business environment. They have heard that leading in new ways can enable groups to perform at higher levels. The problem is that very few managers really know what collaborative leadership entails or how to implement it. Many think they are leading collaboratively when they are really either just trying to keep everyone happy or continuing to rule with an iron fist couched in friendlier language.

Collaborative leadership is a set of skills for leading people as they work together to accomplish both individual and collective goals (see “Skillful Collaborative Leadership”). First and foremost, collaborative leaders must be excellent communicators of a passionate vision. They must maintain a keen awareness of the many variables that affect their organizations, such as the availability of resources, time constraints, and shifting markets. These leaders must balance the agendas of a group of talented but very different people and work with the team as a whole to help members achieve their highest level of capability. In short, they must be able to weave many complex factors together into a plan to accomplish an overarching goal.

SKILLFUL COLLABORATIVE LEADERSHIP

A collaborative leader creates a safe, clear, and cohesive environment for the group’s work. he or she:.

• Functions as a kind of central switching station, monitoring the flow of ideas and work and keeping both going as smoothly as possible
• Ensures that every group member has ownership of the project
• Develops among team members the sense of being part of a unique cadre
• Works as a catalyst, mediating between the outside world and the inner world of the group
• Provides avenues for highly effective communication among team members

A collaborative leader has a mastery of boundary-spanning skills, including capitalizing on the group’s diversity. He or she:

• Develops new projects in a highly collaborative manner, taking good ideas from anyone involved in the process
• Is a dealer in hope rather than guarantees
• Reduces the stress levels of the members of the group through humor and creating group cohesion
• Focuses on encouraging and enabling the group to find and draw on inner resources to meet the goal
• Uses mediation to eliminate the divisive win-lose element from arguments balanced with open but clear decision-making

A collaborative leader inspires the group through vision and character. He or she:

• Realizes that you can only accomplish extraordinary achievements by involving excellent people who can do things that you cannot
• Is absolutely trustworthy and worthy of respect
• Transforms a dream into a compelling vision for the group’s work
• Conveys a sense of humility and integrity
• Has the courage to speak of personal fears
• Models the ability to cut through unconscious collusion and raise awareness of potential red flags
• Maintains grace in a crisis

Collaborative leaders do not rely on pure consensus when making decisions. Their role on the team is to stay aware of the big picture and to keep in mind all the factors that are necessary to make the goal happen. Thus, although they collect input and information from others, they must ultimately make a decision that they feel best serves the organization’s needs. This decision may go against the expressed desire of one or more team members. To keep dissenters engaged, collaborative leaders must articulate a vision so compelling that team members are willing to make their personal aspirations secondary to achieving the overall objective.

In a crisis, teams tend to fall apart as their members approach basic survival level. On Everest, survival means having enough air to breathe to keep blood circulating to the brain and staying warm enough to avoid frostbite and hypothermia. Similarly, managers of a business in a critical state must understand the organization’s core functions and find ways to sustain those activities until they can muster additional resources.

In crisis situations, people’s “fight or flight” instincts will cloud their judgment unless the leader has instilled in them a strong sense of the vision; has modeled the ability to work through the dilemma and keep moving toward the goal; can foresee possible scenarios for resolving the crisis; and can communicate the different actions needed to reach safety. A collaborative leader must master the skill of creating a complex web of relationships among team members that binds the group together and that resists the pressures that seek to separate them under stress. For when collaborative leadership is missing, personal survival and individual goals negate group goals, planning falls apart, and communication is shattered.

Collaborative Leadership on Everest

During the challenging May 1996 climbing season, the IMAX expedition led by David Breashears succeeded where others failed, in that the group achieved its goals of creating footage for the IMAX Everest movie, conducting scientific research, and putting team members on the summit safely. A measure of this success is attributable to Breashears’s collaborative leadership style.

Breashears and his group were united in their personal goals to summit Everest, and in the group goal of bringing the Everest experience back to the masses through large-format cinematography. Unlike some of the other teams on the mountain, Breashears’s IMAX expedition was fully funded by the film’s producers and by the U. S. National Science Foundation. Because of this financial backing, Breashears had the luxury of handpicking his crew, and he showed an outstanding ability to judge both physical and psychological readiness.

At base camp, Breashears’s approach to team-building centered on creating opportunities for the team to get acquainted, bond socially, and develop a sense of mutual respect and interdependence. For example, at dinner, team members contributed delicacies from their home cultures. This rich social context and intimacy was sustained beyond base camp. As the IMAX team moved up the mountain, the process of filming the movie helped to unite the team further.

On May 8, just before several other expeditions headed out for the summit, Breashears made the difficult call to postpone his team’s attempt and descend to a lower camp. His chief priority was the team’s safety. Although Breashears gathered the input of his team members, no one questioned that the final decision to make or abandon the summit attempt would be his alone.

When the other teams ran into trouble on summit day, Breashears stopped filming. His group devoted all their energies to rescuing the survivors, bringing them down the mountain, and assisting in providing medical treatment. These actions saved the lives of two climbers. Breashears and his team chose to risk their chance to summit and their film project in order to respond to the immediate needs of people who were in jeopardy. The group’s heroism further cemented their bonds. Breashears’s display of character under duress, for example, his refusal to film the injured climbers for profit, additionally bolstered the team’s spirit.

After the tragedies and rescues of the remaining members of the other teams, Breashears’s group returned to base camp to consider their options. In the end, after the memorial services and a short time to reflect, they decided to return to the mountain to make a summit attempt. Once they reached high camp, Breashears made the hard decision to cut one team member from the summit team. The climber had cracked two ribs through coughing on the way up to high camp, and Breashears judged that she would not be strong enough to safely make the summit. Again, this decision was his to make, and the team was strong enough that they accommodated the loss of one member with little loss of morale.

In preparing for the summit attempt, Breashears ran through a number of scenarios for the climb. He mused: “In my mind, I ran through all the possibilities of our summit day. When I got to the end of one scenario, I would work through another. I know that the effects of hypoxia (lack of oxygen to the brain) and sleep deprivation and the tug of Everest would cloud my decision making. I wanted to have rationalized a decision for the most likely scenarios of the day down here in the relative warmth of my sleeping bag and the security of my tent” (High Exposure, Simon & Schuster, 1999).

Despite the stress of the preceding events, the IMAX team successfully summitted Everest and captured the glory of the highest point on earth on film. Part of the success of the expedition came from the incredibly talented team. But Breashears’s ability to masterfully create both environmental and psychological support for his climbers and articulate an unwavering vision and sense of integrity bring him close to the collaborative leadership ideal.

Unconscious Collusion

Collaborative leadership alone cannot create success. When crisis strikes, team members must rely on their own inner resources — courage, conviction, and, a more elusive resource, character — to get them through the challenges at hand. Although the leader can model and instill a vision of uniting personal and team objectives, the successful resolution of crisis ultimately rests on the strength of earlier team-building efforts.

In Into Thin Air (Anchor Books, 1997), the best-selling book about the May 1996 Everest climbing season, Jon Krakauer noted that in one of the other expeditions “each client (a climber who has paid to be part of a professionally guided expedition) was in it for himself.” Such thinking precludes effective collaboration. In addition, he states that many of the clients adopted a “tourist” attitude. They expected the staff to prepare the mountain for them, so that they would only need to put one foot in front of the other to succeed.

At the same time, according to Krakauer, on the morning of the summit attempt, several clients on his team expressed concerns about the summit plan they were following, but none of them discussed their doubts with their leaders. If there had been closer collaboration within the teams, such concerns may have been discussed more openly. In reflecting on these actions and attitudes, we must consider the role of unconscious collusion. In groups, unconscious collusion occurs when no one feels either empowered or responsible for calling out red flags that could spell trouble.

In the rapidly changing conditions and troubled communications that Krakauer documents in his book, unconscious collusion played a central role in the tragic outcomes.

This kind of unconscious collusion can lead to poor decisions and potential disasters in companies as well. The ongoing pressures on businesses for results and nonstop success — comparable to “summit fever” (the desire to get the summit despite escalating risks) among a group of climbers — create overwhelming pressure for employees to go along with the crowd, to bury their doubts, and to ignore risks. In successful groups, someone always raises questions when they sense problems with a certain course of action. But unfortunately, unless the team has developed high levels of trust, personal ownership, responsibility, and open communication, no one will feel it is their duty or right to question a prior decision. To counter unconscious collusion, the collaborative leader must constantly nurture team intelligence, model and reinforce the need for open communication, encourage dissenting viewpoints, and maintain an open-door policy.

What Does This Mean for Business Collaboration?

Looking at the case of the 1996 Everest expeditions through the lens of collaborative leadership can naturally lead to the following conclusions about business collaboration under crisis:

Consistency in collaborative leadership is vitally important. One of the lessons we can glean from the success of the Breashears team is the critical role of consistent leadership, particularly in a crisis. The confusion that results when leaders vacillate between different leadership styles can undermine a group’s sense of teamwork and the ability of different members to step into leadership roles. In this context of blurred boundaries and roles, a sudden leadership vacuum can lead to paralysis and “every man for himself behavior.

In contrast, over time, predictable, consistent collaborative leadership inspires commitment, confidence, and loyalty from a team. In this atmosphere, people know what to expect from their leaders, and what their leaders expect from them. If the leader must withdraw for any reason, the team’s strength and strong vision seamlessly carry it though the temporary vacuum at the top.

The ongoing pressures on businesses for results and nonstop success — comparable to “summit fever” (the desire to get to the summit despite escalating risks) among a group of climbers — create overwhelming pressure for employees to go along with the crowd, bury their doubts, and ignore risks.

The ideal collaborative leader shares much in common with a good movie director. David Breashears’s training as a movie director likely supported his ability to motivate others and lead collaboratively. The director is the leader on a movie production, but all the members of the team are mutually dependent. On a movie production, each person’s role is clear, and each task must be executed in sequence.

The movie director’s challenge, similar that of a team leader, is to:

• find and organize the best talent,
• prepare the environment for the production,
• draw on and incorporate the team’s ideas,
• create a clear goal,
• articulate a story and vision for the production, and
• weave together the complex web of aspirations and talents in the group to create a coherent and compelling end product.

The movie production process also offers a strong element of real-time learning, in that it incorporates processes for discovering errors and correcting potential failures before the project reaches a critical stage. The director reviews “dailies” for each day of production. In collaboration with cast and crew, he or she decides which scenes work and which need to be reshot, keeping in mind time and budget constraints. This regular review process serves as an excellent way to prevent teams from falling into unconscious collusion and ignoring warning signs.

The “director” in a business setting — the leader — must ensure that team roles are clear; that members clearly understand the project’s objectives and milestones; and that the group as a whole frequently and openly assesses the progress to date against the original plan. He or she must do so in a nonthreatening setting and demonstrate flexibility in adapting the plan to changing conditions. Many businesses have adopted formal after-action review processes that occur both in the course of a project and after its completion.

Collaborative leaders develop flexibility in the team for dealing with rapidly changing conditions. Successful groups must recognize the need for flexibility in approaching rapidly changing conditions. For instance, in order to sustain collaboration in crisis and mitigate survival anxiety, Breashears and his team collectively reviewed potential scenarios, developed contingency plans, and stayed in touch with each other on summit day. When survival anxiety becomes too high in business, because of ill-defined or shifting management priorities, downsizings, competition, or loss of market value, managers must prepare for a strong wave of fight-or-flight reactions among team members and for a fall-off in collaborative efforts. The development of alternate strategic scenarios is an emerging business practice that can support the flexibility of project teams and help them respond quickly to changing conditions.

Collaborative leaders are supported by interdependent team members who take ownership for achieving common goals. As Krakauer and others have noted, many of the clients on the commercial expeditions in 1996 felt they had been led to expect that they were entitled to reach the peak of Everest; that their every need would be catered to; and that the dangers were minimal if they followed the formula laid out by the expedition leaders. This overreliance on the leaders put a tremendous burden on those individuals and led to a vicious cycle: As the clients became more and more dependent, the leaders’ ability to prepare “the mountain for the clients” decreased.

In the business arena, no organization can afford to cultivate dependence in its employees — and thereby put unnecessary stress on managers. Successful groups combine strong interdependence among members with individual responsibility and ownership for the outcomes of the project. This combination is vitally important in the harsh environment of the new economy.

When Preparedness Isn’t Enough

Leaders will be most successful in turbulent environments if they inspire team members to go beyond their limitations; coach them to make the teams’ goals their own; practice a consistent, predictable collaborative leadership style; and present an unwavering vision. In the new business climate, managers would do well to cultivate the skills that make for a great director, rather than those that make for a great supervisor. More and more, leaders must form teams made up of contractors, partners, suppliers, and subsidiary employees — none of whom directly report to one another. They will need to organize more frequent project reviews, so that team members are continually checking their assumptions, learning in real time, and correcting mistakes before they become serious. In this way, collaborative teams can avert potential disaster.

When expedition leaders initially prepare to climb Everest, they focus tremendous energy on preparedness: physical training, supplies, equipment, portage, logistics, and staffing. Teams that undertake these operations with skill and foresight greatly enhance their chances of success on the mountain. However, the 1996 season on Everest revealed that excellent preparation isn’t enough. When a team’s very survival is threatened, the quality of their interactions, relationships, and decisions become key to a successful outcome.

In business, the process of facing a new challenge is similar: Organizations devote much effort to preparedness, logistics, and resources, but they often fail to invest in promoting leadership and collaboration skills. What we learn from Everest is that it is exactly this investment in human capability that can mean the difference between success and failure. With a strong grounding in collaborative skills and effective collaborative leadership, teams can learn to pull together in times of crisis rather than fall apart.

Dori Digenti is president of Learning Mastery (www.learnmaster.com), an education and consulting firm devoted to building collaborative and learning capability in client organizations. She is facilitator of the Collaborative Learning Network, a group of leading companies working together to understand and enhance collaboration skills.

Institute a failure analysis process — such as the U. S. Army’s after-action review — for all projects. Ensure that your analysis includes the role that leadership played in the project: Was it too authoritarian or laissez-faire?

Look at how your organization Look at how your organization deals with crises. Is there a pattern in the responses? How could your leaders improve their ability to support teams through times of stress?

Bennis, Warren and Patricia Ward Biederman, Organizing Genius: The Secrets of Creative Collaboration (Perseus Books, 1997)

Breashears, David. High Exposure (Simon & Schuster, 1999)

Krakauer, Jon. Into Thin Air (Anchor Books, 1997)

A Farewell—System Dynamicist Donella Meadows

Among her other accomplishments, Dana was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize; cofounded the Balaton Group; developed the PBS series “Race to Save the Planet”; was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship; and served as a director for several foundations. In 1999 she moved to Cobb Hill in Hartland Four Corners, Vermont. There she worked with others to found an eco-village, maintain an organic farm, and establish headquarters for the Sustainability Institute.

Dana’s mother, Phoebe Quist, has referred to her daughter as an “earth missionary.” Meadows described herself as “an opinionated columnist, perpetual fund-raiser, fanatic gardener, opera-lover, baker, farmer, teacher and global gadfly.” Dana was a true pioneer and visionary who was committed to — and succeeded in — making the world a better place. For copies of her “The Global Citizen” columns and information about the Sustainability Institute, go to www.sustainer.org. For more details about Dana’s life and work, go to www.pegasuscom.com.

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Press Release

Climate change and human impacts are altering mt. everest faster and more significantly than previously known.

Photograph by National Geographic Rolex Logo Lockup

November 20, 2020 Washington, D.C . -- Today, new findings from the most comprehensive scientific expedition to Mt. Everest in history have been released in the interdisciplinary scientific journal One Earth . Featuring a collection of research papers and commentaries on Mt. Everest, known locally as Sagarmatha and Chomolangma, the research identifies critical information about the Earth’s highest-mountain glaciers and the impacts they are experiencing due to climate change. As part of the 2019 National Geographic and Rolex Perpetual Planet Everest Expedition, climate scientists studied the environmental changes including Everest’s “death zone” to understand future impacts for life on Earth as global temperatures rise.

This new research fills a critical knowledge gap on the health and status of high-mountain environments, which are incredibly difficult to study due to the inhospitable environmental conditions. Key findings include:

• The highest-ever recorded sample of microplastics was found on the “Balcony” of Mt. Everest at 8,440 m, one of the last resting spots before reaching the summit. This microplastic is likely coming from the clothing and equipment worn by climbers, highlighting the impacts of humans on even the highest reaches of our planet.
• Researchers surveyed nearly 80 glaciers around Mt. Everest and found evidence of consistent glacial mass loss over the last 60 years and that glaciers are thinning, even at extreme altitudes above 6,000 m. Using declassified spy satellites and a new highest-resolution data set, this is the most complete assessment of the status of the world’s highest glacier as a baseline for future research on its changes.
• Additionally, the research captures the first documented surge of a glacier (when it moves 10 to 100 times faster than it normally does) in the Mt. Everest region, a phenomenon that can put people and communities at risk.

Glaciers like those on Everest provide ⅕ of the global population with a steady supply of fresh water around the world. But due to the extreme conditions of these high mountains, little information up until now has existed about the impacts of climate change at elevations above 5,000m.

“Mountains and their rapidly-disappearing glaciers are the “water towers” of our planet, storing and transporting freshwater to nearly two billion people around the world. That water supply is increasingly under threat due to rising temperatures, melting glaciers, pollution, and other human-caused and environmental stressors,” said Paul Mayewski, Scientific and Expedition Lead, and Director, Climate Change Institute University of Maine, and lead author of the preview “Pushing Climate Change Science to the Roof of the World” published in One Earth.

Microplastic pollution at the highest point on Earth is a direct result of increased tourism and waste accumulation. A large proportion of that waste is made out of non-biodegradable plastic. While visible plastic has been reported on Mt. Everest previously, the pristine environment at Earth’s highest peaks is changing. The new data highlights that the collected snow samples had significantly more microplastics compared to the stream samples, with the majority of microplastics being fibrous.

“With increased tourism, microplastics throughout Mt. Everest is expected to rise, creating issues for the environment and people of the Khumbu region,” said Imogen Napper, National Geographic Explorer and first author of “Reaching New Heights in Plastic Pollution — Preliminary Findings of Microplastics on Mount Everest."

Results from the highest weather stations in the world demonstrate that the majority of precipitation to the Mt. Everest region is sourced in the Bay of Bengal, highlighting the importance of atmospheric circulation to high mountain glaciers. Further, the weather stations enabled a full reconstruction of climber’s oxygen availability during past Everest summit attempts to generate a comparison of climbing difficulty.

From April to May 2019, an international, multidisciplinary team of scientists conducted the most comprehensive single scientific expedition to Mt. Everest in the Khumbu Region of Nepal as part of the National Geographic and Rolex partnership. Team members from eight countries, including 17 Nepali researchers conducted trailblazing research in five areas of science that are critical to understanding environmental changes and their impacts: biology, glaciology, meteorology, geology and mapping.

Scientists are now utilizing the samples and data they collected during the Expedition to gain unique insights into how climate change and human populations are affecting even the highest reaches of our planet. Even the highest glaciers on Earth are reeling from human activity around the globe.

“Mountains will outlast us,” the One Earth editorial team wrote in its “The Changing Face of Mountains” editorial. “But without immediate action and integrated approaches to adaptation and sustainable development, they will lose their majesty. They will become diminished. With consequences for us all.”

Papers from the National Geographic collaboration include:

• King et al.: “Six decades of glacier mass changes around Mt. Everest revealed by historical and contemporary images,” an Article publishing in One Earth (ONEEAR266)
• Napper et al.: “Reaching new heights in plastic pollution – preliminary findings of microplastics on Mount Everest,” an Article publishing in One Earth (ONEEAR267)
• Perry et al.: “Precipitation Characteristics and Moisture Source Regions on Mt. Everest in the Khumbu, Nepal,” an Article publishing in One Earth (ONEEAR258)
• Matthews et al.: “Into Thick(er) Air? Oxygen Availability at Humans’ Physiological Frontier on Mount Everest,” an Article publishing in iScience (ISCI101718)
• Elvin et al.: “Behind the scenes of a comprehensive scientific expedition to Mt. Everest,” a Backstory publishing in One Earth (ONEEAR253)
• Mayewski et al.: “Climate Change in the Hindu Kush Himalayas: Basis and Gaps,” a Reflection publishing in One Earth (ONEEAR254)
• Miner et al.: “An overview of physical risks in the Mt. Everest region,” a Primer publishing in One Earth (ONEEAR255)
• “Voices from the roof of the world,” a collection of 6 Voices publishing in One Earth (ONEEAR252)
• Mayewski et al.: “Pushing Climate Change Science to the Roof of the World,” a Preview publishing in One Earth (ONEEAR268)
• Elmore et al.: “Understanding the World’s Water Towers through High-Mountain Expeditions and Scientific Discovery,” a Preview publishing in One Earth (ONEEAR264)
• “Everest Night Lights,” a Visual Earth publishing in One Earth (ONEEAR265)
• “Birth of Sagarmatha,” a Visual Earth publishing in One Earth (ONEEAR269)

This work was supported by the National Geographic Society and Rolex. To learn more about the Everest Expedition, please visit: https://www.nationalgeographic.org/projects/perpetual-planet/everest/ and tune into our YouTube page to get a closer look at the 2019 National Geographic and Rolex Perpetual Planet Everest Expedition

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Mount Everest – 1996 – Case Solution

This case study discusses the Mount Everest tragedy which happened sometime in May of 1996. It looks into the critical decisions that the climbing teams came up with before and during the event.

​Michael A. Roberto; Gina M. Carioggia Harvard Business Review ( 303061-PDF-ENG ) November 12, 2002

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We have uploaded two case solutions, which both answer the following questions:

• Why did this tragedy on Mount Everest occur? What is the root cause of the problem?
• Are tragedies such as this simply inevitable in a place like Mount Everest?
• What is your evaluation of Scott Fisher and Rob Hall as leaders? Did they make some poor decisions? If so, why?
• What are the lessons from this Mount Everest – 1996 case for general managers in business enterprises?

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1. Why did this tragedy occur on Mount Everest? What is the root cause of the problem?

Hiking Mount Everest is a risky activity and the aim of every professional climber. It looks like the power of nature and mountains is unconquered. However, every year, the best of the best is trying to prove it wrong. They find themselves in Nepal to fight the elements and to summit the top of the world.

In my opinion, there is the only factor that generalizes all the roots of the tragedy. This is, let us say, a base of the source. At the beginning of the 1990s, the commercialization of Everest began.

The first commercial expeditions to Mount Everest started to offer mountain tour guides who were there to realize the dream of every climber. They deliver it all-inclusive. It includes the delivery of participants to the base camp, organization of the routes, and settlement at the camps on the way, training, acclimatization, and others.

However, summiting is still not guaranteed. Simple huh? All of that was for 65,000 USD back in 1996. In pursuit of big money, the mountain guides and the companies accept to take clients with little climbing experience. This they do even if it is clear that they would not have a single chance to summit.

Organizers start to act extremely irresponsibly towards the mountain, which takes away the lives of people year by year. In the history of Mount Everest, there have already been up to 250 deaths (only known ones).

The main reasons for tragedies are avalanches, severe weather conditions, fallings from height, health issues such as lack of oxygen, frostbite, etc.

Back to irresponsibility. During the expeditions in 1996, the climbing was not well prepared. In the preparation stage of the voyage of Mountain Madness, it was purchased an insufficient amount of oxygen equipment, which was a critical moment later.

There were also old-fashioned radio sets that weren’t working regularly, which did not allow guides to stay connected to the base camp during the climb.

Tour guides were even ignoring the precautious measures and continued the planned summiting the day when the weather was not expected to be good. They also did not follow instructions when it was agreed to start descending at 2 PM, and they did not turn back those who were running late.

Of course, hacking Mount Everest is all about natural power, weather conditions, experience, and probably some luck. However, the rules that started to be broken in pursuit of huge revenues with the commercialization of Everest appeared to be fatal back in 1996.

” We don’t need competition between people. There is competition between every person and this mountain. The last word always belongs to the mountain” – Anatoli Boukreev.

2. Are tragedies such as this simply inevitable in a place like Mount Everest?

This sort of tragedy is inevitable in a place like Everest. That’s totally true. Climbing is a dangerous activity by itself, but it becomes too risky when it comes to the summit, almost reaching 9000 meters above sea level when the human body is not supposed to function at this sort of altitude.

The smallest mistake or recklessness will cost a life. Every person deciding to summit Mount Everest realizes that it can be their last climb.

The best thing a human being can do is to maximally prepare physically and mentally, plan the schedule of acclimatization and summiting, observe the weather forecast, acquire necessary equipment, and follow regular instructions for hiking an 8000-meter peak. This gives no guarantees; however, it minimizes the risk of fatality by human mistake.

3. What is your evaluation of Scott Fisher and Rob Hall as leaders? Did they make some poor decisions? If so, why?

Rob Hall and Scott Fisher were among the first mountain guides to start the commercial guided tour to Mount Everest. Beginning in 1992, Rob Hall founded the first expedition-guiding company, Adventure Consultants.

With vast experience in climbing at a high altitude, he successfully summited Mount Everest 5 times and guided 39 clients to the top. Rob was considered the safest guide, and that’s why he was charging more than his competitor companies.

Rob seemed to be determined to his rules and always explained the process of climbing the summit. He was well-organized, experienced, and responsible.

He did a great job providing an acclimatization routing. His team of tour guides consisted of two climbers: one with more experience and the other with less. Rob did not have…

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1996 Mount Everest Disaster: Leadership Perspective Case Study

Introduction, peculiarities of the mount, evaluation of the two leaders’ actions, the lessons to be learnt, reference list.

Everest has attracted many people throughout decades. Successful expeditions to the summit encouraged many people to try their strength. However, many people lost their lives in such attempts. For instance, the expeditions led by Rob Hall and Scott Fischer in 1996 illustrate dangers associated with ascent of Everest. On May, 10 five people, including Hall and Fischer, lost their lives during this ascent (Roberto & Carioggia 2003).

Many people strived to find out what exactly led to such dramatic outcomes. Some argue that Fischer and Hall turned out to be bad leaders as they made far too many mistakes. However, others claim that there can be no lawless ascents of Everest. Admittedly, there can be no single answer to this question though it is inappropriate to blame Hall and Fischer as they were not totally responsible for the tragedy that took place.

Everest and its summit became known to the western world in the beginning of the twentieth century. Since then many people have tried to reach its summit. By 1980s more than hundred climbers reached the summit (Roberto & Carioggia 2003). However, a lot more people died during their attempts. Notably, many experienced and highly skilled climbers lost their lives. Admittedly, one of the major reasons why people failed to reach the summit was very changeable weather.

Nonetheless, it is necessary to note that though weather conditions are crucial, people are also responsible for tragedies that often take place there. Admittedly, the spread of touristic tours to the summit increases cases of deaths in Everest. The expeditions of Hall and Fischer prove that even those who reached the summit of Everest cannot guarantee safety of such tourists.

In the first place, it is important to note that Hall and Fischer were experienced climbers. Apparently, they could not make any mistakes. However, it is possible to point out some erroneous actions which, in combination with extreme weather conditions, led to the tragedy. In the first place, they knew challenges that an individual could experience during the ascent. More so, they took the responsibility to guide their tourists to the summit.

Apart from this, Hall and Fischer overestimated their abilities during the ascent as well. For instance, even though Hall himself stressed the necessity to stick to the schedule, he let his people waste a lot of time and he did not make those who were too slow to descend when necessary. Hall overestimated his abilities as he decided that he would manage to guide everyone safely.

As far as Fischer is concerned, he also overestimated his physical abilities. Thus, he ignored the necessity to get ready for the ascent and turned out to be unprepared for such physical loads. Finally, the lack of communication between the tourists and the instructors also played negative role.

It goes without saying that the expeditions led by Hall and Fischer can be regarded as important lessons for leaders in different fields of management, leadership and decision making. In the first place, leaders should always remember that they are responsible for well-being of people they are in charge of. Thus, leaders should always remember that they are just like Hall and Fischer, i.e. they also need to guide members of their groups trying to avoid any possible dangers.

Leaders should always associate themselves with the climbers who were responsible for their tourists’ lives. Thus, leaders should think of all challenges their subordinates can face. The leader should foresee difficulties to make his/her subordinates ready for upcoming challenges.

Apart from responsibility, leaders should estimate their own abilities properly. Thus, Hall and Fischer overestimated their abilities and this led to the tragedy. Therefore, successful and responsible leaders should be critical. In the first place, they should make sure they know exactly what can be expected from them. They should also be sure they can meet their groups’ expectations.

For instance, the leader should take into account all possible scenarios and know how to deal with this or that issue. At that, the leader should make sure he/she can cope with all possible issues to occur. Therefore, if the leader has any doubts concerning his/her abilities, it is important to think of other ways to deal with a problem.

Perhaps, the leader should delegate some of his/her responsibilities. Admittedly, it is important to understand which duties can be delegated, and which should be handled by the leader only.

Besides, the leader should always have a precise plan which will help to complete certain tasks. More so, the leader should never forget about the plan. The present case study perfectly illustrates the importance of sticking to the plan.

Thus, the two climbers violated their own rules and this also negatively affected the outcomes of the ascent. Of course, the leader should be really precise especially when it comes to a plan implementation. Therefore, checklists and timelines can help to stick to the initial plan.

Of course, the plan should also be flexible. Nonetheless, it is inappropriate to change central points in the plan as this can lead to failure. The leader should remember this when making his/her subordinates follow the plan.

Finally, the leader should be ready to take hard decisions. The case study shows that some of Hall’s and Fischer’s decisions were arguable. Something could have been delegated while sometimes the climbers should have been stricter.

The leader should be ready to take on responsibility to make decisions which can seem controversial if the leader knows perfectly well that this decision will make the project successful. Thus, the leader should weigh each decision and he/she should prioritize activities, projects, etc.

Finally, the leaders should also remember about the importance of proper communication between their subordinates. The lack of communication in the case with the expedition played a very tragic role. Likewise, the lack of communication between the members of the group can lead to the project’s failure.

Therefore, the leader should make sure there is proper communication between the members of the group. It is one of the leader’s responsibilities to establish appropriate communicative channels. Thus, the leader as well as members of the group will be able to trace all possible problems (deviations from plan, changing of settings, etc.) in time which will enable the group to solve all the issues.

To sum up, the present study dwells upon one of the most tragic ascents of Everest. The case study focuses on Hall’s and Fischer’s actions during the ascent. It is possible to state that the present case study can be a perfect guidance for leaders in such fields as management, leadership and decision making.

Leaders in many spheres of life can benefit from learning valuable lessons. Thus, the case study reveals the importance of the leader’s precision. Obviously, leaders should be responsible and they should critically estimate their own abilities to guide people in this or that situation.

Roberto, MA & Carioggia, GM 2003, Mount Everest – 1996′, Harvard Business School , no. 9-303-061, pp. 1-22.

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Mt. Everest case study

Murphy’s Law in Action Abstract At the time of the 1996 attempt to summit Mount Everest, Adventure Consultants was a four-year old company that had enjoyed financial success In spite of the death of one of Its’ expounders, Gary Ball. Mountain Madness, founded by Scott Fischer In 1984 was an older, but somewhat less successful, company. In retrospect, the adverse weather conditions, combined with logistical and other issues during the time preceding the ascent, combined to form a very challenging external environment for both teams.

Each group possessed strengths and weaknesses and had both opportunities and threats present, but the greatest threat faced by each team member was the possibility of death.

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Corporate and business level strategies for each company included using strategic spacing of guides during the ascent, the use of technology to aid In the mission, and a defined turnaround time to lessen the chances of being trapped on the mountain after dark. The structure and control systems of each company were focused on their leaders, Hall and Fischer.

Due to some poor decisions made during the summit attempt and a lack of delegation by either leader, these systems ultimately failed, leaving the team members In danger. One major recommendation that may have saved lives would be to have adhered to an agreed-upon turnaround time in order to avoid descending from the summit at night. History, Development, and Growth of Companies Over Time one of Its’ expounders, Gary Ball. Mountain Madness, founded by Scott Fischer In 1984 was an older, but somewhat less successful, company.

Each of the two groups In the case study had at least some team members who had high-altitude mountain climbing experience and had a good reputation in climbing. However, more and more scolders Walt n little or no experience In calming Degas to aspire to reach ten summit of Mount Everest.

The main reason why people wanted to conquer Mount Everest was that this mountain is very famous because it stands at 8,850 meters above sea level and it is one of the most challenging mountains in the world to climb.

Based on this high level of challenge, climbers know that, once they reach the peak, they will have cemented their reputation because not many people have successfully summated Everest. The two companies, Mountain Madness and Adventure Consultants, described in the case study, were started because some expert mountaineers decided to become guides to lead people to reach the top of Everest. This provided the founders of these companies with not only a good opportunity to earn money, but also the chance to help people who want to conquer Everest make their dreams come true.

Each of these two companies had a professional leader, assistants, and auxiliary personnel. The company leaders were full of experience and they felt comfortable that they were familiar with the extreme and challenging environment on Mount Everest.

However, for a number of different reasons and also due to the leadership styles employed by Hall and Fischer, the captains of each of the two groups, the 1996 expeditions resulted in very unfortunate consequences.

Identification of the Strengths and Weaknesses of Each Company Adventure Consultants Adventure Consultants was founded in 1992 by Rob Hall and Gary Ball. After Ball’s death, Hall continued to lead the company, including leading expeditions to climb Everest. One of the main strengths of the Adventure Consultants group was the professional mountaineering experience of Rob Hall. However, one of the primary weaknesses of this team was that Hall’s clients were less experienced or not experienced in climbing high-altitude mountains.

Another potential weakness of the Adventure Consultants team was that Hall also charged the highest fee to guide his clients on their summit bid to Everest. This may have increased the pressure to succeed on Hall, one weakness that could have led to him ignoring the turnaround time rule that he put into place. On the other hand, some clients might have considered this a strength, as it indicated that Hall had more inference to lead people who didn’t have any experience to successfully reach the peak of Everest.

Another potential weakness of the Adventure Consultants team was the somewhat dictatorial managerial style used by Hall, which led to his inability to successfully delegate tasks, another weakness exposed on the summit attempt. Mountain Madness Scott Fischer founded Mountain Madness in 1984. In terms of experience, Fischer climbed up to the peak in Everest in 1994 without supplemental oxygen.

This is the primary reason why Fischer had confidence that he could handle the extreme environment on Everest.

Scott Fischer was known as an ambitious and charismatic personality; that is to say Fischer was emotional in his leadership. While this is a potential strength, his desire for recognition from his peers, especially in retrospective analysis of the outcome of the 1996 expeditions, was a weakness that may nave lea to Nils poor calicles making aurally ten summit attempt. Another strength of the Mountain Madness team was that several of the clients and guides had at least some experience in high-altitude mountain climbing . In addition, Fischer also hired eight Sharper to assist the whole team.

Even though Fischer was very confident of his ability and that of his customers, this confidence alone did not guarantee the success of the Mountain Madness team in this challenge. Fisher’s overconfidence in his abilities is another example of a weakness. Nature of the External Environment Surrounding the Company Any analysis of the nature of the external environment surrounding the companies involving in attempting to summit Mount Everest in the spring of 1996 must, of necessity, include the actual environmental, or weather, conditions that confronted hose climbers.

The climate of the upper reaches of Mount Everest is extreme enough that it prevents sustained human occupation. In other words, members of both the Mountain Madness and Adventure Consultants teams, in spite of their previous experiences, were intentionally putting themselves into one of the most severe and challenging weather environments on Earth. As noted by Anatolia Bookkeeper, one of the guides on the Mountain Madness team, good weather is one of the critical requirements needed for a successful summit of Mount Everest.

The two expeditions targeted the early days of May for their summit attempts due to the fact that this time frame seemed to provide the best possibility for mild weather conditions at the higher altitudes of the mountain. Leaders of both teams recognized that there existed only a brief window of opportunity poised between the strong winds that typically occurred each April and the rainy season that would come later in the spring. The decision to select this timing was, in large part, based on the past several years of collective experience on the upper altitudes of the mountain.

During the early asses, those attempting to ascend Mount Everest had enjoyed relatively calm weather conditions during each climbing season. However, this had not always been the case.

As noted by David Breathers, who successfully summated Everest previously, there were times in the more distant past in which harsh weather conditions on the mountain prevented climbing attempts for entire seasons. While there is no single factor that can be blamed for the tragic outcome that occurred in 1996, there is no doubt that adverse weather conditions played a key role.

Other environmental factors also played a role in the catastrophic failure of these two climbing teams, as well. These factors include the polluted air and unsanitary conditions in the villages in which members of the teams stayed on their way up the mountain. Exposure to these conditions led to multiple team members becoming ill, which had a negative impact on team performance. Another major issue had to do with the logistics of the supplies for the Fischer team.

Shipping delays, weather-related issues, and other problems slowed the delivery of critical supplies and diverted Fisher’s energy and attention at the beginning of the expedition, a critical time during which the team leader should have been involved in preparing and acclimating his team. These diversions prevented Fischer from focusing his full attention Ana energy on ten stressful preparation AT Nils team, another Doctor Tanat, in retrospect, proved to have a very deleterious effect on the success of the mission.

SOOT analysts Strengths The primary strengths, or distinctive competencies, of each of the two teams were focused in the high-altitude climbing skills and expertise of their leaders ND guides, although this was offset somewhat by the lack of experience of some of the clients who were part of each group. Another notable strength of the teams was their attitude regarding the summit attempt and confidence that they would be successful in their efforts.

This is demonstrated in both Hall’s offering off 100% guarantee policy and by Fisher’s response to a Journalist prior to his departure: I believe 100 percent that I’m coming back.

… My wife believes 100 percent that I’m coming back. She isn’t concerned about me at all when I’m guiding because I’m [going to] make all the right choices. When accidents happen, I think it’s always human error.

So that’s what I want to eliminate. Weaknesses The primary weaknesses of the two teams centered on the overconfidence of the team leaders in their ability to successfully lead groups of inexperienced, physically unfit, ill-prepared climbers to the summit of Mount Everest and safely back again. Another key weakness exposed during this ordeal was that the performance of each team was ultimately only as good as the performance of the “weakest link” of each team, a critical factor when so many team members lacked experience in high- altitude climbing.

Another weakness was the lack of the efficient use of technology during the climb. Having a greater number of phones available for group members might have facilitated communication during the descent and the presence of lighter, more current, phones would have lightened the loads that were being carried. Finally, one critical weakness outlined in the case study was the lack of clarity regarding the turnaround time rule.

Given the lack of adherence to this rule exhibited by both teams, perhaps simply being clearer may not have made a difference in the tragic outcome.

However, given the nature of the potential dangers, both Hall and Fischer should have drawn a clear line for the turnaround time, ensured that each team member understood the critical importance of this deadline, and then rigidly enforced to this cutoff time for the sake of the safety of each group. Opportunities The primary opportunities present for each group involved the chance for the less- experienced team members to work with and learn from some of the best high- altitude climbers in the world.

Another key opportunity was the involvement of the Sharper, many of whom demonstrated heroic efforts to assist the teams in their attempt to reach the summit and return safely. For example, the case study notes Tanat Lopping Ganged personally towed client Plantain Tort SIX noirs rater leaving camp ‘V.

Other Sharper, upon learning that both teams were in danger during the descent, left Camp IV in extremely poor weather conditions in attempts to find and rescue members of both teams.

Threats The adverse weather conditions, as noted earlier, served as a primary threat to the success of the mission of each team. Another threat present, but perhaps not emphasized, was the pressure that each team leader felt to succeed. In part, this pressure arose from the pride and egos involved. However, it also involved the amount of time and financial resources expended in making a summit attempt, as well as the competition between the two teams and their leaders. Finally, the threat that ultimately claimed the lives of five of the members of the two teams was an existential one: death.

Corporate Level Strategy Adventure Consultants Founded in 1992 by Rob Hall and his partner Gary Bell, Adventure Consultants was in the business of guiding individuals to the top of the highest summits in the world. Both men were successful until Bell passed away in 1993, after which Hall continued to run the business by himself. After successfully guiding many to the summit of Everest, he decided to issue a 100% guarantee to Everest peak in 1995.

Giving out a 100% guarantee by any company relays one of two things: Justified confidence in their product or service, or overconfidence by the company in its product or service. In the case of Adventure Consultants, in dealing with one of the most deadly and unpredictable mountains in the world, overconfidence was backing their 100% guarantee. After failing to satisfy that claim in 1995, Hall set out to prove himself again in 1996.

Hall recruited eight climbers: three doctors, two climbers who had previously failed to summit Everest, a Journalist, and two climbers who had only Everest left to climb to complete climbing the seven summits.

The majority of the group lacked any experience with high-altitude climbing. Adventure Consultants believed that they could get anyone to the top of the mountain despite their background, or lack thereof, in climbing. The final summit climb would be led by one guide in the front, a second in he middle and finally Hall at the back to assist climbers as needed. Each guide would carry a radio.

Perhaps the most important practice was turning around by one o’clock or two o’clock no matter how close to the summit the climbers were.

Hall knew this to be a very important and needed rule, as noted by the fact that he relayed to his team that they should be, “abiding by it no matter how close we were to the top”. Scott Fischer founded Mountain Madness in 1984. Fischer summated Everest walkout supplemental oxygen In AY rater Totaling tenure previous times, Ana organized his first guided expedition to the summit of Everest in 1996. Fischer, like Hall, recruited climbers who also lacked the high altitude climbing experience demanded by Everest.

A Journalist, a sixty-eight year old mountaineer, and his nephew, a Wall Street trader, a ski patrolled, and two others who had previous climbing experience rounded out Fisher’s team of clients. Although Fischer recognized the inexperience of his team, he did not foresee a problem arising from the group’s lack of experience, but instead he focused on the attitude of the group to try to successfully get them to the top of the world and then back down again.

Fischer decide to imitate Hall’s climbing plan for the guides to climb spaced out between the clients, as well as specifying a turnaround time at either one or two o’clock. Nature of Business Level Strategy Counterclaiming Everest Despite, or perhaps because of, the vast climbing experience that both leaders had amassed throughout the years, they began to become overconfident in their guiding and climbing abilities. One key fact was that the client base had also hanged dramatically.

Instead of experienced climbers seeking to finish off the seven summits, these two groups instead included several somewhat narcissistic and entitled customers who wanted to pay for the chance at fame and accomplishment. It became apparent that, for Hall and Fischer, summing Everest was no longer Just about the achievement, but had rather shifted to the acquisition of wealth and increased stature in the mountaineering community.

Although this stature could still be achieved through guiding experienced climbers, y offering these services to the public, these companies were more likely to be more profitable as this shift gave them access to a wealthier clientele. Climbing Without Oxygen Climbing at high altitudes without supplemental oxygen puts a huge strain on the already exhausted human body. Two of Fisher’s guides, lead Sharpe Lopping and guide Bookkeeper, were climbing without supplemental oxygen.

According to a study done in the Wilderness and Environmental Medicine Journal: The use of supplemental oxygen was found to be strongly correlated with success in summing Mat Everest. It has been common practice since the first ascent of Mat Everest to use supplemental oxygen because of the extreme altitude of the mountain. Although using supplemental oxygen involves carrying a heavier weight, its benefits include an increase in physical strength and stamina, as well as mental clarity, better decision- making, and a more positive attitude. Washman, Freer, ; Hung, 2006) One of the primary responsibilities of a guide for an Everest expedition is to be accountable for making decisions for a group of people. Thus, having the physical and mental capacity to make decisions accurately is crucial.

It only makes sense that guides and leaders should always use supplemental oxygen as well as being strongly recommend EAI Tort use Day clients, as well. Adhering to the Turnaround Time Despite both leaders discussing the importance of the turnaround time agreed upon before summit day, neither team leader actually enforced this rule.

By one o’clock only three of the climbers had reached the summit and by two o’clock only three more climbers had Joined them. Seven other climbers Joined the group at two thirty. This rule was in place to prevent climbers from Ewing on the mountain after nightfall, yet because it was not observed, climbers found themselves stuck on the mountain through the night. Adhering to this rule alone could have possibly saved the entire group from the tragedy that ensued.

Structure and Control Systems of Each Company and Analysis of Fit to Strategy Structure of Adventure Consultants The Adventure Consultants team consisted of the owner along with several managers and assistants. As the owner and co-founder, Rob Hall was in charge of almost everything for this group. First of all, he employed Mike Groom and Andy Harris as guides and also employed seven Sharper as assistants. Secondly, he recruited eight clients for the 1996 summit attempt. Thirdly, he also served as a team guide along with Harris and the Sharper.

Finally, he designed the climbing route and schedule and was in charge of the safety protocols and training for his team.

Structure of Mountain Madness The Mountain Madness team had a structure very similar to that of the Adventure Consultants group. Scott Fischer had two guides, eight assistants, and several clients. It is notable that Adventure Consultants seemed to have rear servers, which can inferred by the final contact to base camp by Hall; in the other group, Scott Fischer worked as a rear server for the Mountain Madness team alone.

Analysis of Fit to Strategy As noted above, the structure of the two teams described in the case study was very straightforward. Rob Hall and Scott Fischer not only led each respective team but also recruited clients to Join each of the teams.

Client recruitment occurred regardless of a person’s climbing experience or physical conditioning. In fact, Hall’s death was directly related to his recruitment of ill-prepared clients. If Hansen had not been a part of the group, Hall would probably have not stayed on the summit and perished as a result.

As mentioned previously, Fischer was exhausted at the beginning of the summit bid because he had to deal with lots of unexpected problems that would normally not be things that a guide would have to deal with. In other words, Fischer should have made a strategic decision to delegate some responsibilities so that he could focus on his responsibilities as a guide. Along the same lines, neither team had technical support.

This left them badly prepared for the change in the weather, Eliminate In tenet communication, Ana Tackling a sonorant AT Tootles AT oxygen .

Based on the structure of each team, they used the following strategies: First of all, after they arrived at Base Camp, the two teams shared their schedule and the planned route to the summit of Everest. Thus, the leaders of these companies had begun to cooperate with each other. However, this cooperation alone did not guarantee good decisions. For example, on the summit day, when Krause and Nag Adored found that there were 500 meters long ropes that needed to be deployed in order to get to the top of the mountain, they made a wrong decision that led to spend over an extra hour in climbing.

Second, Fischer and Hall set up instructions that they required others to strictly obey.

The most important rule was that the rule about turnaround time which had been emphasized many times by both Fischer and Hall. Another was the rule that the three guides would be located in the front, at the middle, and in the end of each group, respectively. Even though the time at which the climbers should turn around and begin to descend was specifically emphasized, it turned out hat most of them, including Fischer and Hall, did not follow this very rule.

Another evidence of not following the agreed-upon rules was that Jangle, a Sharpe, instead of Bookkeeper or Bodleian, had the radio. Third, the vital decision that directly impacted the two whole teams’ survival was a result of the vote among Hall, Fischer, Bookkeeper and Cheesecake. Cheesecake recalled: It was a roaring storm out there at high camp, and I remember in our tent we were arguing .

.. And it was three to one that we ought to be waiting. We were concerned that we really hadn’t had a full day of good weather, and we Just …

Hough it would be smart to wait a day….

I mean, if it were this way 24 hours later, we were going to have a problem trying to get down. It is unclear why the other three guides did not participate in this vote or why Cheesecake, as a client, had the right to vote.

Overall, some of their strategies did not effectively fit the teams’ structures. For example, the group leaders, Hall and Fischer, were not clear about responsibilities and limits of power for each position and they did not set up highly effective ways of communicating among the leaders, guides and assistants.

This lack of communication had a negative impact on the success of each team. Recommendations Our team recommends the following changes that should positively impact the future performance of these two groups:

• Increase the use of delegation by the leaders of each team
• Employ a technical support staff to assist with weather notification, logistical details, and the use of the most current technologies
• Clear communication of the importance of and strict adherence to the turnaround time and other safety protocols
• Use of a baseline cutoff for client physical conditioning, health, and experience

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Riverside Ride Fest Brings Unique Student-Run Cycling Fundraiser to Campus

April 16, 2024 — Next week, the Marist community will turn Longview Park into Mount Everest for a unique and fun fundraising event. On Tuesday, April 23, a group of six cyclists will embark on a challenging journey to pedal the height of Everest as a team. 

The event, called 'Riverside Ride Fest,' involves cyclists repeatedly ascending the riverfront hill until they reach 8,848 meters (29,029 feet), symbolizing the elevation of Everest—an arduous activity known as "Everesting." While the bike riding serves as the centerpiece of the event, it will be part of a larger festival complete with food, music and games along the river for the entire Marist community and is being organized by a group of students participating in a special topics class this semester on event management.

The riders will include President Kevin Weinman, along with faculty members Dr. Nick Marshall , Dr. Johnny Galbraith , Dr. Henry Pratt and students Alex Weinman '25M and Matt Pater '25.

The fundraiser is a student-run production, organized by  Dr. Eileen Curley's  spring semester special topics class on event management and is the first of its kind at Marist. Dr. Curley is a professor in English and Director of the Theatre Program.

“This experiential class provides students with practical exposure to all facets of live entertainment event management,” explained Dr. Curley. “Riverside Ride Fest, being both a sporting event and an outdoor festival, requires them to consider elements uncommon in theatre, including weather, sporting regulations, participant requirements, and outdoor wildlife, while also fostering a festive atmosphere to attract the community to the riverfront.”

“This event will be a nice break from school to enjoy food, lawn games, and cycling,” said Jadyn Lance '24, a communications major who is serving as a PR coordinator for the event. “Hopefully this can be a new Marist tradition that our community can continue so all of the hardworking faculty, staff, and students can enjoy an afternoon of fun!”

“I’m really excited to be part of this event!” Kat Babija '24, a psychology major who is serving as a PR coordinator for the event. “I think it’s an engaging and creative way to bring Marist students together to support their President and enjoy the spring weather.” 

“Everesting” to Benefit Presidential Fund for Equity in Marist Experience

The event is aimed to benefit the Presidential Fund for Equity in the Marist Experience , a fund founded by President Weinman and his wife Beth. Where scholarships and financial aid focus on helping with tuition costs, the Presidential Fund fills gaps for undergraduates whose financial constraints are a barrier to their full participation in the Marist experience, with a current focus on internships and courses that conclude with a travel experience.

Attendees at the event, as well as those who wish to donate online, can contribute here.

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