CASE REVIEW
Integrative HBS case: Mount Everest 1996
Oscar Ramos
UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS – RIO GRANDE VALLEY
ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR
MANAGEMENT 6330
FALL 2018
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 did these biases,
“shortcuts,” and errors did contribute to the tragedy?
Although many errors and biases contributed to the demise of several people, in my
opinion, they are as follow: 1) randomness of error. The reason being that several people tried
to predict weather in the peak of the mountain saying it would not prevent them from reaching
the summit safely. The randomness error states that you believe you can predict the outcome
of random events. Although meteorology is accurate, the behavior of the snow in the mountain
cannot be predicted easily. Several of the climbers expressed their concerns regarding the
weather, and yet, many of the climb leaders decided to continue ignoring the weather of
critical red flags. Prior decent weather gave peace to the climbers, but some of them recalled
how in the ’80s there were several consecutive seasons nobody was able to climb due to
ferocious weather. Boukreev, another one of the guides, also had comments regarding the
weather. However, his comments entered into another important error or shortcuts which is
the escalation of commitment. Escalation of commitment states that someone maintains firm
on a decision even when there is evidence he or she is wrong. Boukreev questioned whether
the climb was a smart move by seeing the weather and team problem conditions at the
mountain. He mentioned in the case how his first intuition was to tell Scott Fisher that nobody
should continue climbing Everest but he knew Scott Fisher wouldn’t care much for his advice,
Fisher continued without changing the plan. The climbing leaders could easily see the
conditions on the mountain were not as manageable as they had predicted before. The
weather was harsh; yet, they remained firm on continuing the climb simply because of the prior
experience of the leaders and experts. Moving on, the next bias is the hindsight bias. This bias
cannot necessarily be to blame for the tragedy, but it certainly falls into the events that
transpired. The hindsight bias states that we could have predicted an outcome of an event after
that outcome has already occurred. It states that several analysts have pointed the tragedy to a
human error saying they could have been prevented if they had improved leadership.
Noticeably, there were many mistakes done at Everest and also it is impossible to state the
deaths could have been prevented after they have taken place. Another error was not taking
longer at the camps. There are four camps across the Everest, by the time they faced adversity
and unexpected issues, they should have stayed longer in the camps and/or re-consider turning
back due to low oxygen tanks, weak clients, and wounded Sherpas. Last error committed at
Everest was the problem of team disconnection. Many times expressed in the case the issue of
a disjoint group. As Krakauer said, “In this godforsaken place, I felt disconnected from the
climbers around me. We were a team in name only, I’d sadly come to realize. Although in a few
hours we would leave camp
as a group, we would ascend as individuals, linked to one another by neither rope nor any deep
sense of loyalty. Each client was in it for himself or herself, pretty much.” This was a huge
mistake from the leaders since there was not much of collective effort done, everyone was on
their own. Increasing the chances of individual miscalculations.
2. Briefly, can you pinpoint a single cause for the tragedy? If so, describe it. If not, discuss
why not and the various causes that drove it.
In my opinion, the tragedy was mainly caused due to a disjoint team effort. Due to the
extreme conditions, leadership by the two climbing leaders was not enough to get the team
afloat. As explained above, the fact that both teams, Adventure Consultants and Mountain
Madness could not coordinate as one was devastating for the final outcome.
3. What can we learn from this case about the following topics below? (discuss various points
or a major lesson from each one of them using theory from their particular chapters)
a. Perception and Decision Making
Not everyone sees things the same and based on that first perception decisions can improve its
precision and efficiency. The leaders and Sherpas were more experienced in that terrain,
therefore could continue at a faster pace. However, some of the clients could not keep up to a
point where their concerns could be noticed to the leaders. Decision making was the greatest
threat to this entire group of people because they did not have an evacuation plan. Not having
a hard call set up by leadership at the very beginning did not help the entire cause, therefore
caused the loss of many lives.
b. Teamwork
As explained above, teamwork was decent up to the point of weather chaos where there
seemed to be polar opposites between the clients and the leadership’s perception of the
situation. Due to that, both climbing teams were lacking off teamwork opportunities. However,
some of the climbing member did reach the Everest’s summit which means that the team did
have a certain degree of coordination mainly provided by the leaders and Sherpas. Overall, in
the good and in the bad, a team has to take care of its members and don’t let them behind in
order to achieve the goal. That is something positive I took from this case.
c. Leadership
On one hand, the leadership of Rob Hall and Scott Fischer was matured and wised. They knew
all the theory and practice about Everest and rock climbing. Confidently, these clients were in
good hands when they were convinced to do this trip. The real issue with leadership was
created when the weather conditions got out of control. Then the leadership could not focus on
the objective which was the Everest’s summit because they had their minds on taking care of
the clients. It may sound harsh but, leaving the weak and keeping the strong members could
have prevented saving more lives instead of letting more people die.
d. Personality
As explained in the case, Fischer had a charismatic personality and a desire for respect
among his peers; his publicist noted, “Recognition was important to Scott. He ached for it. From
this case, I learn that different personalities contribute to a richer product in order to produce a
more successful outcome. However, if difficult and stubborn personalities cannot be adjusted
to the required attitude to succeed, the team may suffer unplanned consequences as it
happened in this case.
e. Conflict
Personal conflict occurred when the weather got out of control, clients were expressing the
pain they felt, and unexpected events happened. Then, the leaders experienced intense
pressure to keep every little thing on its place. This occasioned them to forget about their own
well-being, causing severe physical damage to their bodies. Certainly, all climbers felt an
immense amount of fear and desperation causing conflict amongst themselves and the team.
In sum, in 1996 fifteen people died on Everest, the most deaths in a single year. It all
came down to not knowing oneself limits, the leaders had a lot of internal conflicts that did not
communicate out loud, therefore the clients could not help or serve for any purpose. In the
end, people died because of unexpected events combined with foreign decision making. Not
sticking to the basics cost a lot for the entire team.
