Reflection: Mt. Everest Simulation

Reflection: Mt. Everest Simulation

It is a dangerous expedition to climb Mount Everest, a Herculean task for human to fight against volatile weather conditions, supplies challenges, mental and physical difficulties and dangers. Unpredictable events can strike without any warnings, complexities and disasters desperate the most experienced professional climbers in high altitude and fight for living. Death is the shadow of all adventures, during the ascending, miscommunications, faulty judgments, wrong decisions, complacency or a simple mistake can cause catastrophic consequences. In fact climbing Mount Everest cannot be completed by a single person, it is a teamwork. The individual relies on one another’s capabilities as well as cooperate and

collaborate with one another to reach the summit successfully.
The Everest V2 – leadership and team simulation – is using the dramatic context of a Mount Everest expedition to reinforce learning in group dynamics and leadership. It requires participants to work as a team, a unit, and communicating and collaborating information in order to make effective decisions which will benefit the group and individuals in achieving their goals. The simulation gives the opportunities to the participants to simulate real life scenarios, and helps understanding how different leadership methods can affect the team performance; and how team deal with tradeoffs between individual goals and the team goals.
Team 2 Teamwork
Before team 2 officially started the simulation, team members established a quick bond by communicating through the email and shared the common interest in completing the task together. After six rounds of simulation, team 2 was able to work as an entity, everyone was engaged and had the opportunity to contribute to the team. In the process of simulation, there were confusions and hesitance, but the team was clear about the goal and team members were straightforward and not withholding any information, which greatly helped in the team decision process. Although team 2 did not succeed in ascending to the summit, the simulation well demonstrated multiple factors could possibly affect the team performance even with fully engaged team member.
Team cohesion is one of the most important components to form a team. Team cohesion refers to the degree to which team members exhibit interpersonal attraction, group pride and commitment to the task (Zaccaro et al., 1995). Members are committed to one another and are motivated to stay in a cohesive team. Team 2 members were fully committed and built the trust at the very beginning of the simulation. Being a cohesive group may affect the member behavior because of the internal pressure to conform (Beard, 2015). When the team was challenged by the weather in round 3, I had the ability to inform the team about the weather as the Marathoner with previous day’s data, after sharing the information, I realized the majority of the team tended to stay and wait the weather report function to be fixed during the communication, I conformed the team’s decision to stay in the end.
Social loafing refers to the tendency of individuals to put in less effort when working in a group context (Beard, 2015), team 2 demonstrated more on the collective efficacy rather than social loafing. All team members put substantive effort in order to make every decision.
According to Stasser & Davis’ (1981) study, team 2 is recognized as a decision-making group. Team 2 recognized this typology even before the simulation, all team members naturally agreed to communicate through email and the simulation chat function with the mutual agreement of an open speaking teamwork environment.
In order to work as an effective team, there are several barriers need to be aware of, firstly, the team may face challenges knowing where to start; secondly, some team members are dominating the group; thirdly, members performance are weak; lastly is the poor management of the team conflict (Beard, 2015). Based on my experience and understanding of the barriers in the simulation, it is appreciated that team 2 members were considerate of one another, and all members were engaged to fulfill the ultimate goal even at the cost of risking personal goals.
Common and Individual Information
In the Everest simulation, team 2 has six days to reach Mount Everest’s summit with the team goal of ascending to the top together. Before the simulation, each member went through personal profile and was able to share the information within the simulation chat function. As a team, all members agreed to share as much information as needed in the process, the easiness and transparency of communication kept team 2 to stay in positive team environment from the beginning to the end.
As the simulation went, more individual information revealed on each round. We were agreed to share all information provided in each round. The extrovert members prefer to share them proactively, and introvert members tend to share information better when others ask the right question. Although with the mutual agreement of sharing information, different personalities exhibit different approach to share individual information.
Everest Simulation Decision-Making Process
In the Everest simulation, team 2 has five characters – Leader, Environmentalist, Physician, Photographer, and Marathoner. Before the simulation, each character has been assigned to specific profile and individual goals. Before team 2 began the simulation, the leader initialed the first communication through email, and all team members provided preferred way of communication and planned what need to be prepared before the simulation. Since not all member locate in the same region and different work schedules, team 2 agreed to use the Everest Chat function as the main communication tool along with emails. This is very different than starting a project in the workplace, it is preferable to meet in person if the team is going to work on a project. With meeting in person, it greatly reduce the unnecessary waiting time like in chats, it also provides a better interaction environment to start working. In addition to that, it reduces misunderstandings while transferring information.
Team 2’s overall performance regard to decision making was good. But there were hard decisions during the process, and it took significant time to reach a decision.
Making Great Team Decisions
Maruska (2004) states fear can cause people to see scarcity even in an environment of abundance, and the consequence of fear impaction during the decision making process is disastrous. In order to overcome fear, use hopes to deliver positive thoughts, encouraging feelings, better behaviors, and constructive relationships within the team in the decision making process (Maruska, 2004). Team 2 agreed and welcomed to share the shared hope – reach the summit as a team - among the group. After identified the shared hope, team members were patiently listen to others and invited supports from other members. Team 2 remained positive and upbeat spirits, and focused on the team goal during the simulation, the uncertainty exists but it never overtakes the team.
Self-Evaluation and Team Performance
A team is a congregation of individuals with each of who has a role which is understood by other team members.

The leadership plays a significant role in the real business world, it is the same in the Everest simulation. The team members were not familiar with each other before the professor assigned the group, and there was limited time to develop a trust relationship before the simulation. But in the process of the simulation, the team exhibited team camaraderie, friendly atmosphere, and strong bond. In the sense of that, team members rarely disagreed or being offensive; conflicts and dissent avoided by all team members implicitly. This may lead to a breakdown in critical thinking among all members. The strong team cohesiveness reduced willingness to challenge each other’s views, and this may lead to the fact of team 2’s result in the simulation. Team 2 was united on the pursuit to ascend to the top of Mount Everest, and achieve the team goal first. At the end of the simulation, one member was rescued, both team goal and individual goal were not accomplished.

As the Marathoner in the team, and an extravert and strong achiever, it is critical to share opinions and tackle on the task quickly after the instruction had been provided. With the mindset of being successfully reach the summit as a team, there was no holding back on information and was willing to sacrifice for the common goods. The challenge in the simulation for me was waiting on other participants’ information and decision, the decision process was not organized at the beginning, which caused confusion and doubts while I was processing others

information.
In conclusion, team 2 developed strong norms which support information collection and disclosure; open communication and positive feedbacks among team members are well constructed; team members were willing to give and receive other’s opinions. The overall performance as a team is good, team 2 were committed to the team and the team goal.