The Harvard Business School case Mount Everest – 1996 narrates the events of May 11, 1996, when 8 people-including the two expedition leaders— died during a climb to the tallest mountain in the world (five deaths are described in the case, three border police form India also died that day). This was dubbed the “deadliest day in the mountain’s history” (at least until April 18, 2014). The survivors and many analysts have tried to decipher what went wrong that day, find an underlying cause, and learn from the event.
As the last assignment, this is an integrative case. Please refer to all previous chapters that may be applicable. The case analysis is worth 60 points.
1. Relying on the book chapter for perception and decision making, describe the role of the perception biases, “shortcuts”, and errors that the climbers — as individuals and as a group— made during the 1996 expedition to Mount Everest. Describe at least 5. How these biases, “shortcuts,” and errors did contribute to the tragedy?
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Some errors were committed due to lack of judgement, which led to wrong decision making.
1. Perception biases is demonstrated by Fischer when going from Base Camp to Camp II. Fischer was unfair to the Mountain Madness expedition set because while navigating through the Khumbu Icefall, he decided to turn back to take Kruse back because it was his friend. However, I believe Fischer, being the leader, should have let somebody else return Kruse to the Base Camp. The team could have encounter another error and in that kind of situations, evidently, errors can be deadly. This made Fischer to start feeling
Into Thin Air, a book about the Everest disaster in 1996, represents the human experience because Earth's elements are impartial and cannot comprehend ethnicity, gender or culture. People from various backgrounds were flocking to Nepal, with little in common, besides their hope of reaching the summit of Mount Everest. The 29,029 foot mountain, was incidentally forcing all who were facing it, to go through a similar journey of severe sickness, emotional crisis, extreme self-reliance and deadly encounters. The book speaks to all humanity because emotional and physical struggles are common experiences, diminished by human spirit and self-reliance. A true example of self-determination, Beck Weathers, was left for dead beside Yasuko Namba after
On the day of May 10, 1996 a total of eight people died during the storm of Everest. Rob Hall and Scott Fischer were the main leaders of two different groups; Rob Hall being the leader of the group “Adventure Consultants” and Scott Fischer “Mountain Madness”. These leaders had an impressive reputation of being skilled and being an experienced high-altitude climbers. Each expedition included the team leaders, guides, clients, and assisting sherpas. Some question the cause of the fatal disaster. There are many theories and disagreements concerning the 1996 Everest disaster; some blame the powerful blizzard-like conditions, others put the blame human errors such as lack of communication, inexperience, and wanting a positive reputation. It is argued
Did you know that more people die than succeed while attempting to climb Mt. Everest? There are many people who are opposed to having people climb the mountain and who are trying to close the mountain to climbers. However, people should be able to climb Everest. If it were to be closed there would be great consequences. First, it would severely affect all of the towns surrounding Everest by taking those jobs away from the Sherpa’s who help the climbers carry their stuff. Second, those who attempt and succeed in getting to the top of Everest feel accomplished and feel good about what they accomplished. Without being able to climb the mountain, there would be a huge amount of people disappointed that they would never be able to achieve that
I agree with Jon Henley that human lives should be worth more to us than completing any goal, even one as big as making the summit of Everest. In the article, Jon Henley writes about how around 40 climbers without even thinking twice pass a dying British mountaineer named David Sharp. Knowing that the people just let a living human being die breaks my heart that anyone would chose a chance to be on top of the world rather than save a life. When someone is ignored or wrongly treated, I want to ask that person how they would feel if they were the one ignored. Every life on Everest matters because that person has people who love them and Don Mazur and his team understood that. They saved a man instead of accenting to the summit,and I bet the
The guides have what could be considered the most dangerous job in the world. In April of 2014, there was an Avalanche on Mount Everest which killed 13 of the Sherpas and kept three to never be seen again. The families who had lost a loved one in this tragedy only received
Multiple oversights occurred on the 1996 expedition to Everest, both due to human error and natural causes. When asked to write an article about Everest, excited Krakauer sees this as an opportunity to fulfill his long lifelong dream to climb the mountain. Though all does not go as planned. For instance, at the summit, Harris turns Krakauer’s oxygen tank to full flow instead of turning it off like the journalist had requested (10). Later, an undesired storm strikes and wounds and takes the lives many of the climbers(). A small number survived and Krakauer was thrilled as he was overjoyed nothing went even worse. Indicating when Krakauer went through the hazardous perils of human life he learned to respect it more. As he then to focused on
However, one glaring error no the part of each company’s leadership stands out as a decision that may very well have cost all five lives: Neither Hall nor Fisher established or enforced a turnaround time for
Mount Everest is one of the tallest mountains in the world. It is part of the Himalayan Mountains. They were formed in the last few million years. After the supercontinent of Laurasia broke up millions of years ago, India moved slowly north towards Asia and then crashed into it. The seabed between the two plates(the earth's crust is divided into large areas of land called plates) was crumbled and pushed up on the northern rim of India to form mountains. These two plates of the earth's crust are still moving, so the Himalayas are being pushed up higher. The highest mountain on the planet, Mount Everest is growing two inches taller each year. Satellite technology says the mountain is currently 29,107
This paper is a compare and contrast between the Everest and Shackle ton events in terms of leadership. Recounting the effectiveness of their team’s leaderships.
Lack of psychological safety within the team members failed to fix cognitive bias of irrationality. If members developed trust within the team, cognitive bias could have been prevented or at least minimized. The truth that climbers might make irrational decisions and find it hard to turn back when they are so closed to the summit was obvious, but teammates seeing this problem did not speak up since they did not feel that their thoughts were welcome and felt uneasy. More cognitive biases could also been prevented to lessen the complex system of the expedition. Since climbing Mt. Everest is already a high risk venture, any additional problems such as irrational decisions can cause a crisis. Using the early sign of issues with Hall’s team’s progress, it was obvious that the probability of failing the expedition was high before the team even started. Hall could have used the issues as a sign of the complex systems that exist, and could have used this knowledge to prevent any irrational decisions. The complex systems and the lack of psychological safety also contributed to the tragedy. The team members failed to communicate and trust each other, which then added more problems to the complex systems. For instance, Boukreev’s could have spoken up to his team leader, Fischer, about his concerns regarding his team members lacking experience to begin with. By speaking up, he could have prevented more chain reaction due to lack of communications and feedback within the
There is no doubt that anyone has heard about the famous Mount Everest. A majority of people go every year, whether they want to just see the sights or they actually dare to climb it and reach one of the greatest achievement of anyone's life. But for some people they do not enjoy the thought of people climbing the mountain and risking their life, in some cases taking their lives. In my opinion, I believe that if someone chooses to take the risk of climbing this potentially dangerous mountain, then they should understand every risk and every dangerous situation that they are going into.
Imagine climbing the tallest mountain in the world….Mount Everest. Imagine going to Mount Everest and feeling ready to climb the tallest mountains in the world, but then only to find it being closed down, for good. In my opinion, I want Mount Everest to stay open so people can experience that wonderful feeling. Most people don’t care about the rules, and I say if they do close down Mount Everest people will just try and climb it no matter what.
Fischer had traits of a charismatic leader, for example, he coveted the spotlight and was fueled by respect from others. He was daring in his mountain conquests and had the initial mindset that all of his clients will be safe as “I will eliminate human error” mentality. Nonetheless, human error impacts abound, for example, sufficient oxygen supply was lacking; Fischer allowed oxygen to be used at lower altitude descents. Both leaders use of antiquated radios which were dispersed only to the guides, the clients had no way to communicate if they became stranded from the group or injured and left behind.
In 1996, climbers on Mount Everest suffered through the worst disaster to date on the mountain. A huge storm hit as they were climbing towards the summit. Eight of the climbers ended up dead. Jon Krakauer, one of the few survivors, told the tale of all the survivors in his book Into Thin Air. After surviving, he questions multiple things about the world, such as the concept of mortality. He questions who is responsible for the deaths of the others in this book, or if self-preservation is the bottom line. I believe that Jon Krakauer is most responsible for everyone who died to an extent. However I also believe he cannot be fully blamed and self reliance is needed. Jon Krakauer is responsible because he took inexperienced people who weren’t well
There are a lot of dangers in the world. One of the worst are mountain climbing. One of the worst mountains to climb in my opinion is Mt. Everest, the 29.029 feet beast. The tallest mountain in the world. There are a lot of risks I would have to take. But climbing Mt. Everest would be a great accomplishment and achievement in my life. It left me thinking should I go, or should I stay?