Mount Everest Case Leadership, Entrepreneurship, & Learning Professor Higgins Harvard Graduate School of Education

Everest at Three Levels Organization Level System Complexity Mt. Everest Tragedy Individual Level Cognitive Limitations Group Level Shared Beliefs Source: Roberto, M. (2002). Lessons from Everest: Cognitive bias, psychological safety, and system complexity. California Management Review 45(1), 136-158.

Cognitive Bias Systematic biases impair the judgment and choices that individuals make They affect experts as well as novices, and they affect individuals in a wide variety of professions Evidence of at least three biases in this case: Sunk cost effect Overconfidence bias Recency effect Also Mike’s. Source: Roberto, M. (2002). Lessons from Everest: Cognitive bias, psychological safety, and system complexity. California Management Review 45(1), 136-158.

Team Effectiveness Psychological safety: “shared belief that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking”* Team members demonstrate a high level of trust and mutual respect for one another Team members do not believe that the group will rebuke, marginalize, or penalize individuals for speaking up or challenging prevailing opinions Source: Edmondson, A. “Psychological safety and learning behavior in work teams.” Administrative Science Quarterly 4 (December 1999): 350-383.

Conditions Affecting Psychological Safety Member Status Differences - Leader Coaching & Support Team Psychological Safety Team Learning Behavior + + Level of Familiarity/ Prior Interaction Source: Roberto, M. (2005). Why great leaders don’t take yes for an answer: Managing for conflict and consensus. Philadelphia: Wharton School Publishing.

Complex Systems Two characteristics of a complex system Complex interactions: different elements of a system interact in ways that are unexpected and difficult to perceive or comprehend Tight coupling: time dependent processes, fairly rigid sequence of activities, one dominant path to achieving the goal, and very little slack Breashears: “I think of an expedition as a very complex organism . . . Rob Hall had designed a complicated system that was very rigid.” Source: Roberto, M. (2002). Lessons from Everest: Cognitive bias, psychological safety, and system complexity. California Management Review 45(1), 136-158.

The Myth of a Specific Cause “To cite a specific cause would be to promote an omniscience that only gods, drunks, politicians, and dramatic writers can claim.” - Boukreev & DeWalt, 1998 Source: Roberto, M. & Carioggia, G. Case Study: Mount Everest – 1996. HBS # 9303061.

Back to You… Have you been a victim of the sunk cost bias? the overconfidence bias? the recency effect? Can you identify a situation in which some of these factors led to team failure? How might you take corrective action to prevent these from occurring in the future? Have you ever led a group that did not feel psychologically safe? What did you do to try and help the situation? What didn’t you do?