“Mount Everest is a peak in the Himalaya mountain range.

It is located
between Nepal and Tibet. At 8,849 meters, it is considered the tallest point
on Earth.” -National Geographic (Photo by Alexander Kaufmann)

In May 1996, Rob Hall and Scott Fischer, two extremely

accomplished mountaineers, each led an expedition to climb to the
top of Mount Everest. Everyone reached the summit; however, five
people, including Hall and Fischer, died during the descent on May
11. A huge blizzard swept through Everest that day, leading to
whiteout conditions and temperatures plunging to -100°F (Roberto
13). Since then, many survivors and outside observers have
questioned how this tragedy occurred. From a management and
organizations perspective, it is evident that factors in decision
making, through overconfidence, availability heuristic, and
escalation of commitment, as well as organizational culture, through
hierarchy and a lack of team bonding, played a significant role in
this disaster.

Overconfidence, when “we think we can forecast uncertain outcomes

better than we actually can,” played a key role in this tragedy
([Session 14] [October 29]). Hall and Fischer were both very
accomplished mountaineers: Hall had summited Everest four times
and guided thirty-nine clients to the top while Fischer climbed to the
top of Everest without any supplemental oxygen (Roberto 2). At one
point, Hall stated that “something bad” would most likely occur
during the climbing season, but he suggested that naturally, it would
be his team that would have to “save another team’s ass” (Roberto
2). Hall and Fischer’s past success climbing Everest made them
overconfident, clouding their judgements and leading them to
believe that perhaps their expertise and experience made them
invincible.

Furthermore, Hall and Fischer’s decision making was also

influenced by the availability heuristic, “the tendency for people to
judge an event as more likely to occur if it is more readily available
in memory” ([Session 14] [October 29]). The weather had been
abnormally calm during the past few years, but in the mid 80s,
nobody climbed Everest for three consecutive climbing seasons due
to the harsh weather conditions (Roberto 7). Both leaders fell into
the trap of availability heuristic, recalling only the agreeable weather
they had experienced the past few seasons without taking into
consideration the horrible weather conditions in the past. In this
case, overconfidence further exacerbated the availability heuristic
since both leaders credited their past success to the most readily
available information that came to mind–pleasant weather.

Escalation of commitment, “the tendency to continue commitment

to a failing course of expectation,” is one of the most crucial factors
that led to Hall and Fischer’s poor decision making and ultimate
downfall ([Session 14] [October 29]). Both leaders emphasized the
importance of turning back if their team had not reached the
summit by 1:00pm or 2:00pm at the latest, no matter how close they
were to reaching the top (Roberto 8). Even though they constantly
stressed this point, no members reached the summit at 1:00pm and
only six members did by 2:00pm. Instead of turning around as
originally planned, everyone kept climbing and the last member to
reach the summit only did so after 4:00pm. Escalating commitment
clearly swayed the group’s decision making as they struggled to
reason with the sunk costs of their expedition as well as a need to
feel competent (Roberto 11).

The final missteps that led to the tragedy were errors in

organizational culture. Hall and Fischer had unintentionally created
a hierarchy within their organizations through the different pay
grades they assigned to their guides. Since Beidleman, one of
Fischer’s guides, received a pay of $10,000 compared to another
guide’s $25,000, which “reflected his junior status,” he was too
afraid to speak up about turning back past 2:00pm (Roberto 12). A
seemingly small detail heavily influenced the guides’ understanding
of their status in the expedition, resulting in a lack of open
communication between the guides and leaders, which ultimately
had grave consequences.
In addition to the hierarchal structure, the organizational culture
also suffered because team members never truly bonded before
embarking on the expedition. Most members met for the first time
after they arrived in Nepal on March 31, and as time passed, the
group of strangers found it difficult to develop “a strong bond” with
each other (Roberto 4). Krakauer recalled, “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” (Roberto 8). In
focusing too much on the logistics of the expedition, the leaders
failed to build a strong organizational culture where members could
rely on each other.

By examining Hall and Fischer’s mistakes in decision making and

organizational culture, it is evident that remedies could have been
implemented to prevent the many negligent errors that occurred.
For instance, they could have easily avoided the availability heuristic
and prepared for volatile temperatures if they had thoroughly
researched past weather patterns instead of relying entirely on their
own experiences. Moreover, the leaders should have established a
concrete turnaround time, instead of deciding between 1:00pm or
2:00pm during the day of the expedition. In fact, they should have
set the turnaround time at precisely 1:00pm in order to allow for
“buffer time” and to prevent narrow confidence intervals ([Session
14] [October 29]). Escalating commitment and overconfidence all
could have been avoided if such measures had been put in place to
allow them to think rationally about their sunk costs. Furthermore,
it is clear that Hall and Fischer should have fostered an
organizational culture with lower power distance in order to
encourage all team members to speak up about any issues,
regardless of their perceived status in the expedition. Lastly, they
should have organized team building activities prior to embarking
Everest in order to encourage bonding and foster trust. Looking
back, it is clear that many steps could have been taken to remedy
Hall and Fischer’s errors in decision making and organizational
culture.

So, what ultimately caused this tragedy? Many have attributed the
tragedy to harsh weather conditions, while others attribute it to
many members’ lack of prior experience. Based on this analysis,
however, it is clear that a series of seemingly minor mistakes in
decision making and organizational culture eventually snowballed
into the 1996 Mount Everest incident. This tragedy illustrates that
crucial factors combined can result in far-reaching organizational
failures and as Boukreev concluded, “to cite a specific cause would
be to promote an omniscience that only gods, drunks, politicians,
and dramatic writers can claim” (Roberto 14).

Work Cited

1. Roberto, Michael, and Gina Carioggia. Mount

Everest — 1996. Harvard Business School, 6 Jan.
2003.

2. National Geographic Society. “Mount

Everest.” National Geographic, 6 Sept.
2019, www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/mo
unt-everest/.