Summary

Mount Everest case study focuses on two mountaineering companies, adventure consultant and mountain
madness, and what went wrong on May 10 1996. While descending from the summit a total of 5 people
from these two teams lost their lives, including rob hall and Scott Fischer the two leaders of the team.
Possible factors contributing to this demise are weather, incapability of climbers and sickness on most
part. However, one potent cause of this tragedy, that could have been avoided was neither Fischer nor
Hall enforced a turnover time for descend. The case study shows importance of structured, organised
team work and how well this tragedy could have been avoided with a mere enforcement of time.

Q3: What is your evaluation of Scott Fischer and Rob Hall as

leaders? Did they make some poor decisions? If so, why?
After reading the mount Everest case following points about Fischer and Hall can be made:
Scott Fischer-in an instance where he himself takes his fellow climber back to the base, shows how
strongly he feels for those for whom he feels himself responsible. Although he is strict in his ways and
doesn’t believe in delegation, he somewhere lets his emotions effect his leadership ability.
Rob Hall- Hall portrays good organizational skills while leading his group. What he lacks is focus, he
forgets his rules and also portrays less authority than supposed to be.
One standout poor decision is procrastination. For instance, where they hadn’t fix a particular time to
reach the peak. The team was vague about the actual time, whether it was 1 pm or 2 pm. Second,
ignorance of their own health. Many a times its seen Fischer ignoring his own health. Third inadequate
excess supply of oxygen. And lastly not giving enough authority to Krakauer. Krakauer on one instance
refrains from telling Fischer about his gut feeling because his feeling of having less authorities than
Fischer and Hall. Had these decisions been looked after there might have been a slight possibility of
escaping the tragedy.

Q4: What are the lessons from this case for General Managers in
business enterprise?
After going through the case, we find that there are few lessons which a manager can undertake
which are listed below:

 Communication breakdown: Reduction in communication breakdown should be the first

priority for any manger within the organisation. Communication breakdown results in to
unhealthy competition in employees which will reduce the morale of employees at workplace
as well as productivity will be reduced. So, manager should always try to set an environment
at workplace where there is no problem of communication breakdown.
  Clarity of job role at workplace: Each and every employee at the workplace should be well
aware with the job role they are offered and they should work accordingly. I.e. the employee
should have the idea of the work that is to be performed by him/her. Otherwise employee will
not be able to work properly and the chances of arising confusion at workplace will be higher.
 Excessively confident: The manager should try to set an environment where no employees do
work in overconfident way because that will reduce the sucess of any organisation. Proper
training should be provided to employees so that they can work in confident way rather than
doing things in overconfident way.
 Cohesiveness within the team: A team is combination of various human characters. There
should always be team spirit within the team or organisation. Employees should work in such
a way that it it unites whole organisation together.
 Allocation of resources: A manager should properly estimate the availability of the resource
and then allocate It in the efficient way I.e. by doing the estimation the manager will be able
to assess the potential of the company and then can set the target or goal accordingly.
Employee satisfaction: Employee at workplace should be given great perks in order to enhance their
productivity at workplace. Proper working environment should be maintained within the organisation.