Mount Everest 1996

Adventure Consultants
Mountain Madness
Why did this tragedy occur? What is the root cause of this disaster?

Poor decision and leadership

Sherpas underutilized

There were so many causes that led to the occurrence of disaster, but some
prominent cases included were the leadership issues. Analyzing both the leaders
Fischer and Hall, it became evident that both of them were quite over-confident
about the expedition and didn't put much concern to the factors that were
supposed to be analyzed every time rather than depending on the past
experiences. Hall, particularly who guided 39 people in his last four expeditions
to Everest recently is solely due to his skill set and capability to manage clients in
the expedition to climb Mount Everest. History revealed that the cause of failure
is the over-confidence showed by the leaders or anyone else in the team. On the
other hand, Fischer was of the view that if Hall can guide people to the Everest
and earn a handsome amount of money and enjoy success, he is also good
enough to do because he has nothing less than Hall. This sense of envy and
competition led him towards over-confidence which also reflected in his words
when in an interview he shared that he and his family are 100% sure of guiding
and managing the people successfully in the expedition and were 100% sure of
his return thus eliminating all the risks involved although he never guided a
team before. On the contrary, Fischer was of the belief that the cause of
accidents is mostly due to human error and that need to be eliminated.
Overconfidence is also the cause towards poor decision making and prohibits
leaders to analyze the situation more clearly and avoid planning rather
depending heavily on their skills, abilities, confidence and luck before taking any
decision.
The second cause that led to the disaster was the inability and lack of experience
of the clients that were selected for an expedition by both the teams. For many
clients, this was their first experience to the Everest and some were even lacking
the experience of climbing high altitudes thus lacking in skill required for
climbing the Everest. A team lacking in prior experience can always lead towards
failure without proper guidance. Both teams have members or clients for whom
this expedition was their first experience towards high altitudes, which means
that the responsibility on the leaders become more vital. Guiding people with no
prior experience with lack of skills required in such expeditions was a difficult
task as teaching the techniques and rules was a difficult task. Besides that
allowing people of the expedition without analyzing their health, was a big flaw
towards the failure and disaster. One of the clients in Fischer’s team fell ill during
the acclimation exercises and was guided by Fischer back to the base camp.
The third and very important reason leading towards disaster was the lack of
teamwork and coordination among the team members. The name team was
associated only for the sake of having it otherwise the teams were lacking badly
in coordination as explained by the members of the Hall’s team. The team
members in both the teams were unfamiliar to each other that is why a sense of
confidence should have been developed between them to build trust among
team members which was necessary for such expeditions. But this fact was
completely neglected and was not given much importance by the leaders and
people showed less confidence and started doubting their team mates. This
factor was related to the inability of the leadership in both the teams.
Discouragement

Question# 2: What is your evaluation of Scott Fischer and Rob Hall as team
leaders? Did they make some Poor decisions? If so, why?
Scott Fischer and hall both were very good at climbing mount Everest and were
accomplished and experienced in climbing high altitudes, but failed badly in
leading a team towards the same goal. Both have individual expertise and skills
for climbing such high altitudes, but didn’t have sufficient knowledge and
abilities and grouping, organizing and leading a team. Especially in the case of
Fischer it was prominent that he is arranging the expedition in order to compete
with Hall and lack prior experience in leading a team.
Bad leadership is highlighted through poor decision making, which was
transparent in their decisions. Hall poor decision making is reflected in many of
his decisions, such as by not adhering the 1pm turnaround time rule. This
decision was very crucial and was vital towards his death as his other
teammates, including the Sherpas, Taske and Hutchinson strictly followed the
rule and survived although they were very close to the summit.  A second
example of a poor decision by Hall was reflected in his decision of assisting a
single member to reach the summit by moving ahead and leaving all the other
team members behind. The decision was a poor reflection of setting priorities as
the team was expecting a storm which turned into a hurricane and the team
members that were left behind by Hall caught into it and couldn’t retrieve their
way towards the tents. The decision to assist a single member while leaving and
ignoring the safety of other members was clearly a poor decision by Hall and
bad choice in setting the priorities.
Other important reasons were the leadership style of Hall, which had no room
for difference in opinion that was very discouraging towards communication
between the members and the leaders. The hall’s decision of allowing Boukreev
to climb the summit with supplemental oxygen forced Bouyrkeev to move
downwards quickly, which left the team without a guide in their downward
movement. This decision was not questioned by anyone due to the rigidness in
the style of Hall, which further led to other disasters.
Analyzing the decisions of Fischer, the first very important fact that is prominent
was the lack of experience of Fischer as he was only competing with Hall and in
doing did not focus on many aspects. The lack experience led him towards not
paying attention to many key aspects relating to safety of the team and things
that were necessarily required for the expedition. Another major decision that
went wrong was not putting the right man to lead the team or guide the team
upwards. On the contrary, Fischer ordered the most experienced guide from the
Sherpas, who was moving ahead without supplementary oxygen to guide a
single team member upwards. The man with the experience and who was
supposed to lead and guide the entire team was assigned a less important task
which was not correct and reflected poor decision making of Fischer. Fischer was
climbing the summit without supplementary oxygen as he was overconfident
about his goal that led towards a decline in his health and made him weak
during the course of the expedition. This eventually became the reason of his
death and was a poor decision.
Poor decision making reflected in almost every decision taken by hall and
Fischer as they paid no attention in choosing and selecting the team, security
measure, developing teamwork and improving communication among the team
members, and following the rules that were set and most importantly not
focusing on developing a plan B.
Question # 4: What are the lessons from this case for business managers?

Plan B
Managers in organizations need to develop goals, aims and objectives, vision
and mission of the company and need to dictate and clearly communicate these
to their employees as they are the most valuable assets of any organization.
Employee’s participation and dedication tremendously depends on the clear
communication of the firm's vision and only then employees can support the
vision of the firm. Getting the employee input is also important in decision
making and best leaders not only communicate but also encourage feedback to
shape their decisions. Teamwork is vital for success in any organization and the
firms that pay a considerable amount in developing a team centric approach and
developing communication not just to employees but between employees as
well will see fruitful results.
Managers can analyze the Mount Everest incident and can learn many
techniques that will help them avoid failure in their organizations. The first and
the most important lesson is to encourage teamwork in an organizations as it
helps in improving not just the productivity of the employees but also improve
the organizational culture as well.............................

The lessons to be learnt

It goes without saying that the expeditions led by Hall and Fischer can be
regarded as important lessons for leaders in different fields of management,
leadership and decision making. In the first place, leaders should always
remember that they are responsible for well-being of people they are in charge
of. Thus, leaders should always remember that they are just like Hall and
Fischer, i.e. they also need to guide members of their groups trying to avoid any
possible dangers.

Leaders should always associate themselves with the climbers who were
responsible for their tourists’ lives. Thus, leaders should think of all challenges
their subordinates can face. The leader should foresee difficulties to make
his/her subordinates ready for upcoming challenges.

Apart from responsibility, leaders should estimate their own abilities properly.
Thus, Hall and Fischer overestimated their abilities and this led to the tragedy.
Therefore, successful and responsible leaders should be critical. In the first
place, they should make sure they know exactly what can be expected from
them. They should also be sure they can meet their groups’ expectations.

For instance, the leader should take into account all possible scenarios and know
how to deal with this or that issue. At that, the leader should make sure he/she
can cope with all possible issues to occur. Therefore, if the leader has any
doubts concerning his/her abilities, it is important to think of other ways to deal
with a problem.

Perhaps, the leader should delegate some of his/her responsibilities. Admittedly,

it is important to understand which duties can be delegated, and which should
be handled by the leader only.

Besides, the leader should always have a precise plan which will help to
complete certain tasks. More so, the leader should never forget about the plan.
The present case study perfectly illustrates the importance of sticking to the
plan.

Thus, the two climbers violated their own rules and this also negatively affected
the outcomes of the ascent. Of course, the leader should be really precise
especially when it comes to a plan implementation. Therefore, checklists and
timelines can help to stick to the initial plan.

Of course, the plan should also be flexible. Nonetheless, it is inappropriate to

change central points in the plan as this can lead to failure. The leader should
remember this when making his/her subordinates follow the plan.

Finally, the leader should be ready to take hard decisions. The case study shows
that some of Hall’s and Fischer’s decisions were arguable. Something could have
been delegated while sometimes the climbers should have been stricter.

The leader should be ready to take on responsibility to make decisions which

can seem controversial if the leader knows perfectly well that this decision will
make the project successful. Thus, the leader should weigh each decision and
he/she should prioritize activities, projects, etc.

Finally, the leaders should also remember about the importance of proper
communication between their subordinates. The lack of communication in the
case with the expedition played a very tragic role. Likewise, the lack of
communication between the members of the group can lead to the project’s
failure.

Therefore, the leader should make sure there is proper communication between
the members of the group. It is one of the leader’s responsibilities to establish
appropriate communicative channels. Thus, the leader as well as members of
the group will be able to trace all possible problems (deviations from plan,
changing of settings, etc.) in time which will enable the group to solve all the
issues.

Conclusion
To sum up, the present study dwells upon one of the most tragic ascents of
Everest. The case study focuses on Hall’s and Fischer’s actions during the ascent.
It is possible to state that the present case study can be a perfect guidance for
leaders in such fields as management, leadership and decision making.

Leaders in many spheres of life can benefit from learning valuable lessons. Thus,
the case study reveals the importance of the leader’s precision. Obviously,
leaders should be responsible and they should critically estimate their own
abilities to guide people in this or that situation.