...usiness leaders and scholars have learned important lessons from tragedies such as the Challenger disaster, the Bay of Pigs fiasco, and the Three Mile Island accident.' Similarly, we can leam important lessons about leadership and decision making from the unfortunate events that took place on Mount Everest several years ago. Survivors have offered many competing explanations for this tragedy. While they have focused on the tactical blunders, this research examines the underlying cognitive, interpersonal, and systemic forces that played a role in the incident. This conceptual analysis suggests that cognitive biases, team beliefs about interpersonal risk taking, and system complexity interacted to create a fatal disaster. Incredible achievement and great tragedy unfolded on the treacherous slopes of Everest on May 10, 1996. TVventy-three people reached the summit along the South Col route in Nepal on that day, including Rob Hall and Scott Fischer, two of the world's most skilled and experienced high-altitude climbers. Unfortunately, Hall, Fischer, and three members of their expeditions died as a storm enveloped the mountain during their descent. Others barely escaped with their lives after many hours wandering in the dark while braving subzero temperatures. Hall, the leader of the Adventure Consultants expedition, had established an impressive track record of Everest ascents, guiding thirty-nine climbers to the summit over the previous six years. Fischer, the leader...
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...Mt. Everest Case Study Review Jackie Cheng, J.P. McIntosh, Josephine Richardson, Stephen Winfree Harding University Abstract The 1996 Mont Everest tragedy, no doubt-ably, has marked terror in the lives of the survivors and climbers alike. The analyses do a fantastic job of sifting through the different situations that the climbers came across on the mountain and the possible reasons for the outcomes of each situation. In retrospect, effective and ineffective leadership skills are displayed in various situations, prudent verses imprudent decisions are targeted, the trust and faith in each climber, and in oneself, is identified and the planning and timing of the hike is examined. Overall, each situation has been analyzed from different angles and suggested decisions have been implemented to help the reader in collecting a better understanding of why this climb ended up becoming so disastrous. Introduction The journey to Mount Everest was a tragedy and a sorrowful one at that. A journey that was expectant on great victory turned to a grave catastrophe. A reflection of what happened nearly two decades ago reveals likely flaws taken at the time. Rob Hall and Scott Fischer were the leaders of two of the largest commercial expeditions on Everest in the spring of 1996. In the years leading up to the expedition, the climbing seasons had been tame and had drawn much less experienced...
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