The Rescue

Group 5 - Yellow
3209468 - Abhigna Manishkumar Shah
3222723 - Debanistha Khan
3209032 - Dhruv Sunilkumar Arya
3221014 - Isha Shah
3206142 - Ritik Pramod Mangla
3213476 - Rutu Sanjeev Desai
 How do you judge the team composition on the basis of Mix
Q1 & Match framework?

Explorers Rick Stanton, MSgt Derek Anderson, Saman Gunan, Other divers

Thai Navy Seal, Thai authorities, John Volanthen, Football coach, American
Optimisers
troops, All volunteers

Brokers Ben Svasti, Joshua Morris, Kids

Trust Builders Kruba Boonchum (Monk),Vern Unsworth, Richard Harris

 The Explorers
1. Rick Stanton: He was the one who kept
exploring various options to recue the kids
and finally came up with the idea of sedating
the children for bringing them out.
2. MSgt. Derek Anderson: He was the one
who along with Rick Stanton explored all the
possible ways to bring the kids, and helped
Rick Stanton to convince Thai officials about
the sedation plan.
3. Saman Gunan: This Navy Seal veteran had
a spirit of an explorer as despite of the fact
he didn’t have any prior experience with cave
diving he was always up for pushing his limits
for the mission.
4. Other divers: To follow cave diving as a
passion is evidently a sport of an explorer, as
it needs certain sprite of exploration and a
sense of adventure.
The Optimizers
1. Thai Navy SEALs : They were inclined towards saving the children without
relying on the cave divers.
2. Thai Authorities: They were mindful about resorting to unorthodox
answers and rather focused on the obvious ones (e.g. waiting till monsoon,
drilling a hole). They were looking for a foolproof plan and were hesitant to
try something new.
3. John Volanthen: He was systematic in his methodology and was well
aware of his skill set; He did not want to investigate other alternatives, so he
lost hope and gave a second thought about re-beginning.
4. Football Coach : Ekapol Chanthawong - He was in charge of the squad;
given the environment and resources, he looked after the kids and
maintained their spirits up.
5. The American Troops - They contributed wherever they could, assisting in
the creation of a safe passage until chamber 3.
6. All Volunteers- This group covers all members of various teams (Ground
Water, Pumping, Equipment Carriers, Divers etc.) They were prepared to
follow directions and carry them out diligently.
 The Brokers
1. Joshua Morris: Joshua was a great team player, at
various instances he was the one who negotiated terms
between the concerned stakeholders and helped avoid
between Thai administration and UK divers team.
2. Ben Svasti: This Honorary British Consul brokered
agreement and brought Rick Stanton to the table when
he refused to go along with the idea to bringing
amulets to the children stuck in the cave.
The Trust Builders
1. Kruba Boonchum (Monk): People's morale were boosted
by Boochum's presence and his assurance that the
children would be rescued.
2. Richard Harris: He assured the divers and Thai
authorities of their plan to safely return the children. He
also gathered the team despite inhibitions and hazards
and made sure they do not panic under pressure.
3. Vern Unsworth: Vern was instrumental in ensuring that
the Thai authorities transferred the rescue permissions to
the UK divers due to his internationally recognised
competence in cave exploration.
 How can we apply the team lifecycle model to this
Q2 situation?
The team life cycle consists of the following stages: forming, storming, norming, performing, and
adjourning. All of these stages were passed by the team during the course of rescuing the Thai football
team.

Forming: Vern Unsworth, a foreigner residing in Thailand understood the gravity of the situation and
informed Governor Narongsak that the Thai Navy Seals lacked the equipment and expertise to carry out
the mission. John Volanthen and Rick Stanton arrived at the scene and they had been performing cave
diving as a hobby. Rick had created his own tools to facilitate cave diving and thus it gave him an upper
edge over other people. However, cave diving and other extreme sports cause a strain on the relationships
of the people performing them.

Storming: There were some arguments between the cave diver’s team and the Thai team at the beginning
of the rescue mission when the dive team was planning to enter the cave. Rick got a little heated up
because the Thai team was not letting them enter the cave as soon as they arrived. But later the Thai team
understood them and allowed them to enter the cave. On their very first inspection, they found a few
pump workers stuck in chamber 3. It was a really difficult task to get them out and understood that the rain
was making their task difficult. However, disagreements were not serious, without any emotions attached,
and came as a natural part of the rescue.
Norming: Towards the end of the 7th day, both the teams tried to get to a mutual understanding and
started forming teams consisting of civilians, navy seals, and volunteers. US military also arrived at the
scene to help them out. US military had a few cave diving experts among them who would support Rick
and John’s teams in searching the cave and creating a route. The Thai Navy team started to use pumps to
remove water and formed water walls to stop rainwater from going inside the cave. They created teams to
find out if there are any other exits for the tunnel. The rescue team divided the tasks among each other
and with everybody’s consent.

Performing: In each of the team sessions, a particular task was finished in accordance with the plan that
had been created during the initial meeting. Thus, they were able to locate the boys inside the cave. But at
this moment the task to rescue the boys from the cave was extremely difficult as they had learned from
their previous experience with the pump workers that the boys would not be able to swim and would
panic. In order to facilitate a smooth process, they kept two navy seals with them among them one was a
medic and helped the children recover. They got food and blankets for the kids as they were suffering
inside the cave. After coming out of the cave Rick realizes that sedating the kids and getting out of the cave
would be the only option that they have. Initially, he was opposed by the other team members but later
they got on the plan with him as this was the only available option to them. In order to use this method the
whole team planned out various scenarios and how they would use the sedatives, what chambers they will
stop in and what supplies they would need to execute this mammoth task. Each member contributed and
they were successfully able to carry out the task.

Adjourning: The team has finished its lifecycle as they were able to achieve the task and the kids were
successfully rescued.
 What were the sources of conflict at the individual and
Q3 team levels? How would you judge the conflict they had?

This event was quite a rare catastrophe that had caught the authorities unprepared,
there were no defined disaster management protocol in place, apart from this there
Inefficient was no clear authority of expertise who could claim the responsibility of dealing with
Management the task at hand, which led to unnecessary delays in the process of decision making.
Structure: All these factors contributed to frustration and conflict amongst the different
stakeholders as there was no set chain of command to guide the operation in the
proper direction.

The divers were skilled in their domain of expertise, but they weren’t able to relate to
Clash of the ideological belief system of people of culturally different country in which they
ideologies & were operating. This arose conflicts wherein the divers were unwilling to adhere to the
belief: religious believes of the locals who wanted them to take an amulet to the children
stuck inside the cave.
 There was a clear lack of communication between the Cave divers and Thai
rescue team wherein they were not able to convey their plan and expectations to
the other party in effective manner. The Thai Government wanted a risk-free
rescue, but they couldn’t acknowledge the lack of options and numerous
Lack of
challenges that each options posed to be the divers in the operation. On the
communication
other hand, divers had only concerned themselves with the technical aspect of
the situation and turned a blind eye towards social and political aspects of the
situation. This lack of communication between these important entities of the
rescue operation induced conflicts.

Within hours of this unfortunate event, it was in the headlines of all the major
international media houses, which politicized the operation wherein the aim of
local government shifted from “Rescuing the people” to “Rescuing the people by
Politicization of the
Thai Navy Seals” to invoke nationalism and prove its prudence and efficiency to its
issue:
people. These motivations of the government added to conflict and led to
favouring the Thai Navy Seal’s authority in operation even though the body was
evidently ill-equipped to deal with the complex task at hand.
 Contrast and compare the self-awareness of the navy seals
Q4 team, the divers, and the mayor?
Cave diving is a difficult and sometimes life-threatening activity. Divers should be well-trained to overcome
any situation and come up with a strategy to conduct missions keeping in consideration the worst-case
scenarios. The Thai Navy seals were inexperienced in executing a rescue mission of this scale and hence
failed to rescue the victims despite their best efforts. Limited training and skills also led to one Thai navy
seal's demise during the dive.

A team of 10 divers from the USA, UK, Australia, and China was appointed to carry out the rescue mission.
These divers were well-trained to cave dive in hostile environments. The divers also strategized a plan to
rescue the children.

The strategy was to first locate the children, reach the location, tranquilize them and rescue them by
floating their bodies with the aid of navy seals. The rescue team carried extra injections to administer in
case the effect wares off and the victims woke up, which did happen with one of the victims as one shot of
tranquilizer only keeps the patient unconscious for 2hours. The diving team also set up guiding ropes and
placed oxygen tanks in key locations. This mission was coordinated skillfully by the mayor who stayed
connected with several government agencies, the press, and medical facilities. He kept tabs on how the
divers' strategy was being implemented at each stage as if somehow the plan was unsuccessful, the laws
were stringent. Initially, the mayor was skeptical about the sedation strategy as it seemed to be risky but
eventually decided to give it a go. The mayor was conscious of his duty and the repercussions he would
have to face if something went wrong.