Mt Everest Simulation

The entire journey up the mountain is full of danger. You constantly have to worry about the oxygen you are getting and people around you are dying. The air is thin and if there is any air, it’s contaminated. You have to worry about getting the disease H.A.P.E. You have to worry about your health 24/7. You have to get past impossible obstacles. You just have to be strong. Climbing the mountain is an endless, painful battle. No matter what is happening outside of the mountain, on Mount Everest all that matters is Survival.

Mount Everest, as the highest mountain in the world, is famous for the enormous challenge of reaching its summit. This analytic essay is an analysis of the management involved with the Everest Simulation created by Harvard Business School. During this 3hour simulation I was the team doctor and achieved all ten of the possible ten points available, therefore 100% of goals were achieved. This score is related to the goals I accomplish as an individual and as a team. I enjoyed the simulation and expanded upon my knowledge as it taught a profound understanding of team dynamics, the capability to accept change, a stronger ability to analyse available information and create effective communication. Our team as a whole obtained 94% of our goals.

In order to continue climbing Everest, many aspects of climbing need to be improved before more people endanger their lives to try and reach the roof of the world. The guides have some areas that need the most reform. During the ascension of Everest the guides made a plethora mistakes that seemed insignificant but only aided in disaster. The guides first mistake is allowing “any bloody idiot [with enough determination] up” Everest (Krakauer 153). By allowing “any bloody idiot” with no climbing experience to try and climb the most challenging mountain in the world, the guides are almost inviting trouble. Having inexperienced climbers decreases the trust a climbing team has in one another, causing an individual approach to climbing the mountain and more reliance on the guides. While this approach appears fine, this fault is seen in addition to another in Scott Fischer’s expedition Mountain Madness. Due to the carefree manner in which the expedition was run, “clients [moved] up and down the mountain independently during the acclimation period, [Fischer] had to make a number of hurried, unplanned excursions between Base Camp and the upper camps when several clients experienced problems and needed to be escorted down,” (154). Two problems present in the Mountain Madness expedition were seen before the summit push: the allowance of inexperienced climbers and an unplanned climbing regime. A third problem that aided disaster was the difference in opinion in regards to the responsibilities of a guide on Everest. One guide “went down alone many hours ahead of the clients” and went “without supplemental oxygen” (318). These three major issues: allowing anyone up the mountain, not having a plan to climb Everest and differences in opinion. All contributed to the disaster on Everest in

Students enrolled in MGTS1301 participated in a three-hour Mount Everest Simulation which involved a team of five people. Each team consisted of a team leader, physician, photographer, environmentalist and marathoner with a common goal of reaching the summit and avoiding rescue. On our team, I was the team leader and completed 40% of my personal goals while our team achieved 44%. After the simulation, I realised I lacked in developing managerial efficiency such as strategic thinking and decision making which led to poor task-structure related to task clarity and the means of leading my team as we progressed through the simulation.

Success in the Mount Everest Simulation was not defined as reaching the summit of a mountain, but rather in terms of strong leadership, positive team work, logical decision making, and effective communication and dispute resolution to accomplish a specific task. Based on my personal experience, I realize the importance of knowing and understanding all team members. Fluid, open communication and positive feedback are key factors. Active listening, motivating, engaging, and valuing each team member’s contributions create an effective work environment. Mistakes happen, but valuable learning comes from the mistakes and our understanding of the challenges and opportunities to overcome them. If we, as team members, learn from our mistakes and are fully committed to the success of the team, we all

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

Leadership failure is rarely discussed, and yet often represents the greatest potential risk to an organization or group in an unfamiliar situation. For the Everest Simulation, I held the role of team leader, in which I was required to achieve goals relating to a combined ascent and maintaining team safety. At completion, 13 of 20 individual goals, and 65% of overall team goals were accomplished. The lower rate of success was due to several ethical and leadership related failures, resulting in a team member being evacuated on the final ascent. Although the simulation could have been more successful, the team dynamics witnessed were enlightening as to what constitutes effective leadership and ethical decision making in a high-intensity situation.

This report discusses the Everest simulation in relation to important management concepts. Particularly the report explores the role of leadership, communication and team work in task success, where success is defined in terms of task accomplishment, team member satisfaction and dispute resolution. Moreover, the requirement to eliminate communication barriers through changing mediums, cohesive and coherent team work and democratic leadership styles is explored throughout the report.

Have you ever wondered what kind of hardships come with climbing the tallest mountain in the world before? Expectantly, the book Peak by Roland Smith and the movie Everest have a lot of similarities with some exceptionally prominent differences. From personal conflict and character conflict to the general aspect of climbing Mt. Everest, the book and the movie explore all different types of similarities and differences. Being similar, in both the movie and the book, the mountain always decides. The morals were constant and everyone experiences the same deal in similar ways. One significant difference came between Peak, the main character in the book, and Rob(5th summit attempt), the main character in the movie.

The Everest simulation was a unique experience. Before the actual simulation started, my team discussed the approach we would take and how we will deal with situations wherein the personal goals collided with the team goals. We shared our character profile information with each other and began the exercise with excitement and a firm resolve to do our best.

This report provides an analysis of the following: the experience in the two Everest teamwork simulations, the results of the two sets of simulation and the communication structure and experience in the two Everest simulations. Method of analysis includes incorporating theories and concept in the course and discussing about the observation during the simulations. There are many concepts and theories which are discussed in this report such as the grouping modeling elements, communication structure, the effects of conforming and the benefits of conflicts and the benefits of effective communication. The report ends with a recommendation that the report could be improved if there is a comparison of the results of two teams

Not only climbing Mount Everest can affect the climber, environment, but it can affect the local population of Nepal. According to the textbook Geography Alive! Regions and People it says on page 422 “ Porters are sometimes overworked and they are mistreated.” It is clearly testified that not everyone is nice to the porters, when they are only trying to help the climber climb safe to the summit. Another evidence, on page 216 from the book Peak, where it says “I had seen a dead person, let alone a frozen dead person.” Peak has testified that he saw a corpse just laying down face down on the cold snow on camp 4. This was new to him because he was not expecting this new thing for him. Concluding with this, climbing Mount Everest is not the best

On May 10, 1996 six people died trying to reach the summit of Mt. Everest. These people were parts of two expeditions that were in the Himalayas, preparing to ascend the summit for six weeks. The first group was under the direction of Rob Hall, who had put 39 paying clients on the summit in five years. Hall was considered the leader of the mountain and the man to see no matter what the discrepancy. Group two, headed by Fisher, who like Hall, was trying to start a profitable business in providing the experience of climbing Mt. Everest to all for the price of 60 to 70 thousand dollars. Unfortunatly, neither man would live to tell the tale of this expedition.

The Everest simulation allows participants to explore varying forms of communication, leadership and different attributes of teams to determine what alternative best suit the given situation. The simulation entails decision making processes, which must be effectively executed in order to maximise team efficiency and attain set goals. The simulation involves ascending towards the summit of Mount Everest along with other team members, each with predefined roles. The interdependent nature of the task requires members to work in collaboration to achieve goals and later evaluate the outcome and the shortcomings that may have hindered success. This report explores communication, leadership and groups and teams as themes for examining the outcomes of the task, as well as determining what implications this experience holds for future teamwork based activities.

The Everest simulation, a team of five (or six if an observer is present) with diferrent roles, communicate and work together to produce decisions to climb to the peak of mount Everest, while trying to accomplish their own respective goals as well as the team’s goals. Our team of six, named The Rock Stars, are required to finish two sessions of the simulation, one of which we have to complete as a virtual team, meaning that each members must do the simulation at the same while being in diferrent locations, and the other as a standard face to face team. This report will analyze and discuss the issues that the team faced during the two simulations, and how those issues reflects to business theories, such as Tuckman’s theory of group development, McGrath’s theory of team effectiveness, and Kirkman & Malthieu’s argument about teams. This report will also use Neubert’s empirical research about informal leaders to analyze the leadership structure that is present in the team, and wether informal leaders are present, and lastly, this report will contain my personal reflections and the things I have learned throughout the simulations as a team member.