MBA 506 – Leadership and Organisational Effectiveness

Unit Coordinator: Mr Brendan Ho

Assignment 1

Due: 19th December 2009

Lesson Learnt from May 1996 Everest Tragedy

Student ID: Mr YEW ENG TEIK (10166320)

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction 3

Analysis of the Mount Everest 1996 Case study 3

Hall and Fisher’s decision making during ascent of Everest 4

Strategies by leaders to avoid catastrophic crisis 6

Roberto’s Multiple Theoretical Perspective Models 7

Evaluation on leadership Hall and Fisher and 9their impact on team process and outcomes

My own decision-making styles, my strengths 10and weaknesses

Conclusion 13

References 14

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“Lesson Learnt from May 1996 Everest Tragedy”

Introduction

To quote Bernard Shaw: The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the

unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress

depends on the unreasonable man.

In this age of constant rapid change, business leaders must develop the wisdom of

learning from past tragedies so as not to succumb to bad and sometimes destructive

outcomes when making hasty and wrong decisions for their team or organization.

Once in a while, each of us will have to face our own Everest with a situation and

obstacles that seems so insurmountable. However as leader we should not retreat when

face with such obstacles. Rather, we can take a higher road and become an over comer

and in that process discover our very own self. Thus the journey of any leader to the top

is a process of discovering our very own self.

Analysis of Mount Everest 1996 Case Study

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Mount Everest with height of 8848m is the highest summit and considered the roof of the

world has been the greatest challenge to the ambitions of so many men and women who

seek to conquer it since Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay successfully ascended

its summit in 29th May 1953. As much as we human like to ascend to the summit of

Everest it also come at a very heavy price in term of possibility of failure, serious injury

and death. On May 11, 1996 a major tragedy happened on Everest with the lost of 5

lives, among them the two top expedition leader. The first was New Zealander, Rob Hall

the team leader of Adventure Consultant and the second Scott Fisher from Colorado,

team leader of Mountain Madness with 3 other of their climbers Doug Hansen, Yasuko

Namba and Andy Harris a guide. Both the leaders Hall and Fisher are very skillful high-

altitude climbers yet perished during the ascent from summit of Everest. That incident

was also the deadliest days in Everest history.

Hall and Fisher’s decision making during ascent to the summit of Everest

Personally, my own analyses of Hall’s decision making found out that Hall failed to

adhered to the decision on the 1pm turn-around time, this is vital since some of his other

climbers like Huthison, Taske, Kasischke and 2 other sherpas decided to follow strictly

the rule and made the u-turn despite so close to the summit and they all survived the

expedition.

Secondly, on Hall’s decision to go ahead to accompany climber Doug Hansen towards

the summit has caused Hall to lost the focus on his priority for all his others members

and put all the others lives in danger when a storm turned into a hurricane and the group

consisting of Fox, Namba, Pittman, Weathers, Tim Madsen were all caught in that storm

for hours and could not find their way back to tent. This is a bad call from Hall since he

placed his self-interest to assist a single member up the summit while losing sight of the

safety of all other team members.

Thirdly, with Hall leadership style of not tolerating any dissent had resulted in nobody

questioning his wrong actions and no one saying a words when things starting to go

wrong. On this note, the communications between the team members has broken down

resulting in more errors after that. Also, Hall had allowed his Russian guide Boukreev to

climb the summit dangerously without oxygen tank and later Boukreev had to descend

fast and was not there to guide the other climbers to descend from the summit. To

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improve the quality of leader’s decisions making process, the leader must communicate

clearly and effectively the objective to all his subordinates and ensure that they fully

understood the pros and cons of that shared objectives. Failing to communicate

concisely the objective will result in team member becoming restless and disoriented as

the task becoming more complex and when they faced more obstacles. In decision

making, leaders must consider alternatives and seek the view and feedback of their

team members since the outcomes take into effect much of the involvement and

participation of all the team members.

As for Scott Fisher, he was obviously competing with Hall to get to the summit of Everest

for bragging rights and disregarded many safety aspects and failed to do his duty as the

expedition leader to focus on his team members. In fact, Fisher ordered his head sherpa

guide Lobsang to short-rope a client Pittman all the way up the summit. Lobsang was

climbing without supplement oxygen and was supposed to be the lead guide and be

front of the group. It placed the lives of the lead Sherpa guide at risk and he failed to do

his rightful role of guiding the team. Another case was that Fisher’s other Sherpa Ang

Dorje seeing that the lead Sherpa is way behind and not leading the group, then refused

to put up ropes as Ang had worked 6 long weeks and was too tired to take any further

orders.

Another possible bad decision from Fisher was that he was climbing the summit without

supplemental oxygen resulting in his deteriorating physical condition and ultimately

resulting in his own death during descent from the summit.

Finally, I conclude that while Hall and Fisher are both accomplished climbers they failed

to build a dynamic team that support one another resulting in an open race and

competition by individuals members to put own self interest and totally lacking in

supporting one another in the failed expedition.

In the context of managing team because the goal needs any leader to build his/her

team around people from diverse background and different skill sets. If the team

members had in the first place worked together and understand each other better, it

would have resulted in a far more successful expedition with a chance for more survivors

when hit with a storm.

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Strategies by leaders to avoid catastrophic crisis

In adopting strategies to avoid catastrophic crisis, the leaders need to know that there

are hidden traps in major decision making. They are 6 hidden traps listed below:

i. The confirming evidence trap, ii. The sunk cost trap, iii. The status quo trap,

iv. The anchoring trap, v. The overconfidence trap, and vi. Framing traps.

Here the lesson learnt from both Rob Hall and Scott Fisher is they got trapped by some

of the hidden traps in their decision making. Firstly, the sunk cost factor with their

commitment to get their client to the summit and disregard the safety and the lives of

themselves and their clients. Secondly, overconfidence trap, due to Hall’s past records

having ascended the summit 4 times and he bragged about his ability to get anyone up

the summit. Thirdly, the anchoring trap with the human minds giving disproportionate

weight to the first information receive is also regarded a hidden trap. Hall’s guide Harris

who had suffered illness radioed Hall that there is no oxygen tank at South Summit when

in fact there are. And finally, confirming evidence trap when we tend to look for reasons

to support what we like to happen, like Hall thinking he can still make descend on time

with client Doug Hansen as he has the technical skills and the past climbing experience.

As leader if we are aware about all the hidden traps we can anticipate the threats and as

such able to proactively plan ahead and prepare for any potential pitfalls especially in

complex situation. For that leader must be supported by good people that can speak-up

instantaneously and offer solution when things go wrong. This is very relevant to current

corporate world where crisis happen because no one speak up against a leader who are

does something unethical or broke the law. One such notable case is the fall of Enron

and the recent financial scandal of Satyam an Indian IT giant.

The strategies here for leader is simply to be aware about potential pitfalls in each

situation and anticipate the risk and develop ways to mitigate them with the help of team

participation.

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Roberto’s Multiple Theoretical Perspective Models

In taking Roberto’s Multiple Theoretical Perspective Models, it primarily deals with the

triple factors of team, people and organization.

Below is the breakdown of the organization of Team Adventure Consultant headed by

Hall

And Team Mountain Madness headed by Fisher

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Rob Hall ( Leader )

Mike Groom

( Guide )

Andy Harris( Guide )

Ang Dorje( Lead

Sherpa )

6 SherpasHansen( client)

Taske (client)

Fischbeck(client)

Kasischke(client )

Weathers(client)

Hutchison(client)

Krakauer(client)

Namba(client)

Scott Fisher

( Leader )

Boukreev ( Guide )

Beidleman( Guide )

Lopsang ( Lead

Sherpa )

7 SherpasPittman( client)

Gammelgad

(client)

Madsen(client)

Schoening(client )

Fox(client)

Kruse(client)

Adams(client)

Firstly, on the factor of team, we read that although both the team are lead by qualified leaders, guide and assisted by climbing sherpas the individual clients does not have much team dynamics and is merely a loosely form structure with a very individual objective of reaching the summit of Everest by themselves. As such, we can see the clients did not develop that personal relationship, trust and comradeship between them. In this situation, the leaders and his guides are at fault for not creating a synergy and team effort among their client and his team of guides and sherpas.

The lesson for us to takeaway is that the survival and success of any organization today relied heavily on teamwork and a trust developed among all co-workers contributing to an organization success. When a leader has a strong team they can reveal to him his blind spots and the collective experiences of a diverse team can in fact provide many other information and knowledge that can minimize error in a complex situation. In organization of today no single person can master all the knowledge in the company thus the reason why there is IT system like knowledge management that contained all the essentials data and intelligence gathered from all departments that can be utilized to make good accurate decisions. My own work experience has shown time and time again that so many huge mistakes are done by leader because they failed to listen to the valuable input from the team members resulting in great financial loss.

Also by having highly effective team, the process of preparing the project bid or getting a project deliver on time is likely to achieve a good result because of the commitment of the team members and their support of one another to make the project a success.

Secondly, on the factor of people, here we read that one of Hall’s guide Andy Harris had poor medical condition resulting in him being disoriented and giving a wrong information to Hall that the non availability of oxygen tank at South Summit. In an organization if we hired someone ill-equipped in knowledge and poor in communication it can be a disastrous outcome for the company. Besides that, Fisher himself a leader of team Mountain Madness has practiced unfairness and non equality when paying his guides. His experienced guide Boukreev pocketed $25k while another guide Beidleman pocketing only $10k creating an ill feeling and a gap in the pecking order. So, in organization of today when a leader earns huge salary and bonuses they should be vary that their subordinates and co-workers might not be too happy and could result in incidents of staff turnover and unhappiness work environment. In the case of human capital development and talent management, the organization’s human resources must get its act right by recruit, select and hiring the best people in order to achieve the organizations objective of continuous growth and profitability. Furthermore, in today globalised economy the best and brightest talent are very difficult to retain their service due to stiff competition from big companies. Especially now that we are in a highly competitive business world where there is constant change, we need people who are able to learn, unlearn and relearn new things to cope with a changing terrain. We now see knowledge worker as an essential factor that contribute to organizations competitive advantage. With good people that shared common value with the organization they are in they will be able to develop that trust and the buy-in into the organization mission and objectives.

Thirdly, the factor of leader which we read that both the leaders Hall and Fisher are in fact very much thinking about their own business and reputation. They overlooked the

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safety and lives of all climbers when they themselves bent the strict rule of the 1 pm turn-around time resulting in fatality to themselves and their people. To add to that Fisher was disregarding his own safety when climbing the summit without supplemental oxygen causing him to suffer serious illness. Personally, I can attest to the maxim by John C Maxwell that everything rise and fall on a leader. So, when a leader failed to walk his talk he lost the credibility and trust of his followers. In corporate world, we always listen, observe and follow an authentic leader who walked his talk. In my own personal work experience I make sure that I support my subordinates when they need to close all important sales and also ensure that I support my customer by building a long lasting customer relationship.

Evaluation on leadership Hall and Fisher and its impact on team process and outcomes

The Everest 1996 case suggests that both Hall and Fisher as the team leaders need to

engage in a delicate balancing act with regard to nurturing confidence, managing

dissent, and ensuring full commitment within their group.

Firstly, in complex interactions means that different elements of the system can interact

in ways that were unexpected. They are difficult to perceive or comprehend in advance.

This led to a series of small yet interconnected, breakdowns and ultimately failures that

became part of a dangerous "domino effect" like the case of Everest 1996 tragedy.

Secondly, there is also the issue of tight coupling meaning that there was a fairly rigid

sequence of time-dependent activities. Here, one dominant path to achieve the goal at

all cost had caused the 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.

Ultimately the Everest tragedy was the failure of personal integrity in the leadership style

of Hall and Fisher. Rob Hall, team leader of Adventure Consultant and Fisher from team

Mountain Madness, for instance, forbade their clients to climb beyond 1 p.m., yet both

were still out there attempting to race each other to the summit. The outcome of it is both

perished when descending from the summit.

In organizational life, there is decreasing tolerance for leaders who do not walk their talk.

We say all the popular things about corporate culture and valuing our employees as our

best asset, yet it does not show in how they actually treat its people. We talk a lot about

our approach to employees being better, but we have actually lost ground. Many

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employees would have agreed that most CEOs did not provide effective role models, nor

did their actions match their words.

Like being a manager in our own organization we had to develop a vision and objective

of the enterprise and then communicate that clearly to our fellow colleague and get their

buy-in. Only then, can we get the support of the entire team members to support us in

achieving the shared objectives. In modern times, with so much external factors that are

not within our control only team centric approach can achieve organizational success.

My own decision-making styles, my strengths and weaknesses

In my own journey of self awareness, I am cognizant of the fact that I am more of a task

oriented manager and the weakness being less of a people manager. Thus, my personal

goal is to build my people skills so that I am able to combine the approach of people and

task to ensure that I adopt a team management style. The team centric style will allow

the people in the team to become empower to accomplish work with the common

purpose to work together for the success of the organization.

Personally, in my own career advancement journey I have faced many obstacles just like

all the climbers attempting the Everest summit. I started my career in a technical role

with an engineering company in 1997 at the height of the Asian financial crisis. I saw

with my own eyes so many companies going under and many big corporations suffer

huge losses in the business due to the currency fluctuation and the Malaysia Ringgit

devaluation. I was fortunate, with most of our major client like Petronas still able to

sustain their businesses and are good paymaster. Almost 3 years in the job I moved on

to a sales role believing that my interest and passion is in selling solution and

maintaining good customer relationship. I enhanced my skills in management by

furthering my academic with Malaysian Institute of Management. I am aware that to

perform well in corporate world I need to develop conceptual thoughts and learning skills

through proper training programs. The other skills I worked on tirelessly is personal

communications skills which I attended the Toastmasters International program to honed

my public speaking abilities. With the newfound confidence I went on to start my own

small business in audio-visual system with 2 other friends. However, it was a major

setback as the business lasted only 2 years with the failure caused by financial problems

and the inability of the partners to work together for a common objective. Thus, I back to

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the employment world where I have now worked for almost 7 years mainly in the solution

selling in technology related business covering international region. I have developed the

essential skills in managing customer well, working with people from diverse

background, different culture, building my own self-confidence in my decision-making

and many others. In this constant journey to discover and explore my own strengths and

weaknesses it had taken me through a painstaking process and each time I had to start

all over again after failing. However, i now began to discover this are all lessons in life to

prepare me for something better in time to come. Turning from bachelorhood to

parenthood is another phase of change in my personal walk that set my priority on

putting the interest of my family ahead of my personal priority. Having had a chance to

be aware more about my own self and being totally honest with myself, I am grateful and

thankful to God for the opportunity that lives presented to me and will promise myself to

improve to be a good leader and a role model parent to my child.

With new found confidence and the right tools I picked up from this program, I believe

the only way for me is to march forward with resolute and purposeful in bettering myself

and to serve with a greater commitment together with my team. It served also as part of

my journey to become a true Level 5 leader. With situation like the Everest, an effective

leader’s decision making has often literally meant the difference between life and death.

Personally, if I had not had the proper training and self-awareness I can very well suffer

the same tragic mistakes of Hall and Fisher if I were to lead a team to the Everest. In

normal circumstances, I would be putting my self-interest above all other important

matter in my decision making and the outcomes could be as disastrous as the failed

Everest 1996 expedition.

In most of my decision making, I would firstly weigh the pros and cons and arrive at an

outcome which sometimes is not the best choice when I look back. An analogy will be

when I was offered share options by my former employer during the Initial Public

Offering. I did not consider the aspect of current business environment and the

professional advice from my analyst friends. The outcome is that I suffered huge

financial lost. Another example is when I over stretched my financial limitation when I

bought a brand new luxury car once I was offered a country manager role with an

American trading company during the height of the financial meltdown in 2008. To make

matter worse, I was retrenched by the company with 6 months period of unemployment.

Here are just a few actual situations of poor decision making on my part. The lesson

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learnt from this earlier mistakes is I had to analytically access each situation taking in the

view and suggestion of others before I hastily make a decision, it is no point to jump into

making a grave decision when situation are not access properly. From it I learn that I

had to mitigate the risk by considering all factors and be willing to listen the views of

others and not make decision on what I think is right. However, I am glad that I so far I

have not compromise my personal value of living with integrity and earning an honest

living. Clearly here my weaknesses are that sometimes I tend to be overconfident in my

own self just like both Hall and Fisher.

My second weakness is that I do not have sufficient competency in financial knowledge

and skills in managing money well enough. My third weakness was not seeking the

advice and counsel of good people and friend who can give me another perspective

when I make important decision like investing in stocks and shares. Finally, I believe my

other weakness is not willing to admit my own shortcomings and mistakes like insisting I

am right and the other party must be to blame like making the decision to work for the

American trading company thinking that the salary package is good and not consider

other aspect like the longer term prospect of the career and the work culture there.

On the part of my own personal strength, I like to believe that all individuals are all born

with inner greatness and talent. My individual strength would be my optimism in life, due

to my keen interest in wide reading and my love for travel. In my pursuit for happiness

and my journey to be a better person, it had taken me to diverse countries like Mexico,

Venezuela, USA, India, Thailand, South Korea and Spain. I learnt that I can foster good

ties with friends and business partners despite our differences and culture. Secondly,

my other strength is that I am very responsible person and will attempt to finish what I

started on despite all resistances. Here, I have had the experience in helming two

leadership role in the NGOs, working very hard to improve the people and the team. I

have had my fair share of luck of meeting and learning firsthand from great teacher like

the late Anita Roddick, President Bill Clinton, Edward de Bono, President Hugo Chavez,

Tun Mahatir Mohammed and my own senior pastor of SIBKL church Dr Chew. I am

convinced that I must always take a higher road and do the right thing which is

sometimes less traveled and that in our life there is a higher calling and greater purpose

which I must find out for my own. As the saying goes like any medication that which

does not kill me, will make me stronger. So despite some setback in my early years I

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must learn to thrive and be back on my feet again to take another attempt towards my

own summit. Once I can overcome my limitation I can choose to be the real me, and

being the authentic person I am.

Thirdly, my other strength is that I have the courage to say No and to speak out when I

see a wrong or unethical things happen. An example here is I resigned from a former

employer which I worked for 3 years, after discovering their unethical approach in

falsifying the company audited account. Fourthly, my strength is I am keen to improve

myself and develop my innate talent to become a better individual and a leader. After

knowing myself better from the self-awareness, it has given me the hope that I can

better myself when I choose to be a leader who served his team and his organization

first. And that in life we can go far as long as we are willing to give other their credits

first. Here, I would choose to forgo my personal ego and to remain a humble person. I

will constantly commit myself to remain open to learning new knowledge and build better

people relationship. This is on of the hallmark of Level 5 leadership mentioned by Jim

Collins in his book “From Good to Great”.

Finally, I would conclude that in this current time the lesson of leadership that I learn is to

build on the right traits that include integrity, being inspiring, competence, having the

courage, creativity and forward looking.

Conclusions

To quote the words from Miley Cyrus hit song The Climb –“ There is always gonna be

another mountain I am always gonna wanna make it move. Always gonna be an uphill

battle sometimes I am gonna have to lose. Aint about how fast i get there, aint about

whats waiting on the other side. Its the climb”. 

Yes it’s the climb and the journey that matters in our pursuit for excellence and being a

better leader. When we are able to combine our passion and interest into what we love

doing the outcomes would be great. The lesson from this MBA program has taught me

that in order to lead better I need to put the interest of the company and my colleague

before me and to win their heart and mind to contribute towards realizing the set

objective of working as a team. And, as we faced setbacks and obstacles we as leader

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must have the courage and the resilience to motivate others to give it another shot and

finish strongly.

Although scaling up the summit of Everest is very challenging and tempting, we as

leader need to know what the risks are and the price to pay for this dream. The risks are

probably serious injury, lost of our loved ones and even our personal lives. One day

each of us will face our own mighty Everest and it is at this moment that our courage,

resilience, people skills, technical abilities, physical and personal integrity will be put to

the test. When you are at the crossroad of a major decision it will ultimately test your

courage to take the higher road which are less traveled but your experience in dealing

with crisis, your intuition and your personal values would ensure you made a right

decision. And like any great leader, continue to find your north compass that will take

you to your own destination and also realize your true calling in life. Then you find your

happiness and fulfillment in knowing that you have live you life to the fullest of what our

Almighty made you to be. Rosalynn Carter said this "A leader takes people where they

want to go. A great leader takes people where they don't necessarily want to go but

ought to be." 

REFERENCES

1. Krakauer, Into Thin Air, NY Anchor Books, 1998

2. Burns, Everest Takes Worst Toll , Outside Magazine, May 14 1996

3. Roberto, High-Stakes Decision Making: The Lesson of Mount Everest, Aug 26 2002

4. Storm over Everest, PBS Frontline video

5. Boukreev, The Climb : The Tragic Ambitions on Everest, NY St Martin, 1999

6. Roberto, Lessons from Everest : The Interaction of Cognitive Bias, Psychology System Safety & System Complexity, California Management Review, 2002

7. Useem, Upward Bound, Wharton School University Pennsylvania, 2008

8. Roberto, How Great Leader Prevent Problems, Wharton, Feb 2009

9. Bentley, Lesson from Everest Disaster, Panoramic, 2008

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10. Breashears, Everest for IMAX, 1996

11. Useem, The Leadership Lesson of Mount Everest, Harvard Business Review, Oct 2001

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