The Everest Simulation: A Comprehensive Analysis

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 team leadership, the Hill Model is stated by Northouse (2016) as “to simplify and clarify the complex nature of team leadership and to aid leadership decision making for team leaders and members” (p. 366). This model has several key concepts and practices that this paper will look at and exploit the aspect of influence and processes that people in a groups or teams interact and the force within the group acting to unit all the members or leadership functions. Whether traditional leadership of teams or groups with a formal leader or a self-directed group with no specific leader all benefit from an shared leadership with the attention and focus of all members on the groups process dynamics. This is more so the case in virtual teams benefiting from shared leadership. Team-based structures in organizations have several positive characteristics and are capable of increasing production, allocation and use of resources, effective on making decisions and problem solving, increased quality and services as well as, fluent innovation and creativity, as listed by Parker (as cited in Northhouse, 2016, p. 364).

Being a leader is always a challenge, and assuming a new command is challenging. There are a lot of expectations to me as a leader. The organization has selected me to a new position, and they believe I fulfill their standards for their leaders. The organization trust and expect me to lead, develop and achieve. My superiors and subordinates have a lot of expectations. They expect me to lead them in the best way to solve our assigned missions. In my new assignment as commander of 4th Armor Brigade Combat Team (ABCT), the main critical leadership problems are the lack of cohesive teams, ethical and work standards and the level of stress. I will through analyze explain and defend my selection of critical leadership problems and apply a model for solving them, including implementing and measuring my vision as the new brigade commander.

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.

The Everest simulation used the dramatic context of a Mount Everest expedition as related to management concepts exploring the role of leadership, effective communication, and team work to achieve success. The simulation required students to work in cohesive teams consisting of five members, where each individual was assigned a specific role and a goal. The roles included the team leader, physician, environmentalist, photographer, and marathoner. Some goals were contradictory in order to assess how the team reacted to complex and sometimes conflicting situations. Before the actual simulation started, the group discussed the general approach and how to deal with

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

Leaders need to recognize that certain motivators may not always be the best motivators. Considering that some motives may be complex, they are usually a result of some initiative that an individual may have brought about based on their personality or experience. One way to persuade followers or employees is to offer them financial incentives to increase output and profits. However, the consideration of financial incentives should also consider the leaders behavior on the employees which may have influenced the employees to increase output and profits. A transactional leader focuses on tasks and behaviors rather than relationships. Traits and behaviors influence effectiveness of the followers not necessarily the motivating factors associated with the task, such as financial (Derue, 2011). Values of the individual need to be considered when considering which motivators should be used.

Toxic leadership and climate defines the critical leadership problem within 4th ABCT. In conjunction, a lack of care for Soldiers and their families, favoritism, SHARP issues, and hazing have caused a unit to lose all trust in the previous Command Team. To combat these issues I will develop and implement my vision and a way ahead for the BCT using the 7 Step Model. Furthermore, I will focus on specific portions of the Rocket Model, Organizational Culture “Iceberg”, and correcting the Five Dysfunctions of a Team to solve the problem.

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 first of the leadership qualities that I will mention being proactive versus reactive. According to the Holden Leadership Center at the University of Oregon (2009) being proactive is that “The exceptional leader is always thinking three steps ahead. Working to master his/her own environment with the goal of avoiding problems before they arise.” During the movie the soldiers are simulating being dropped off in a hot area. LT. Colonel Moore saw an issues that involved a “what if” situation. He walked up to a plane and tells the officer you’re dead and then asks the next man what to. He told his troops to learn the job of

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.

While in storming stage all the team members shared opinions and ideas of what to do during the simulation. Furthermore due to the limited amount of time given and clash of timetable for some of our team members, we had to rush through the first Everest simulation which resulted many decisions made thoughtlessly. For the first Everest simulation, two hour was allocated for it to be completed. Furthermore many important decisions such as allocating oxygen tanks and whether to proceed to next camp were made without much discussion. On the other hand it was observed that the marathoner in our group was the follower as she conformed with the fast moving pace of the simulation when she actually needed more time to forecast the weather of whether to proceed to next camp or not.

The United States Army has implemented models called the Troop Leading Procedures (TLPs) and the Operations Process in order to facilitate a commander 's capacity to effectively and efficiently organize a task. When these models are executed together, they create a framework for leaders at various levels to excel in any situations they might encounter. Understanding the significance of the relationship between these models requires an in-depth understanding of each of them specifically. Each step of the Troop Leading Procedures contains numerous factors which reflect upon the other steps as well as the entire Operations Process. Likewise, each aspect of the Operations Process profoundly influences the decisions made throughout the TLPs. When applied together correctly, the Operations Process and Troop Leading Procedures provide a structure for strong and adaptable operational leadership.