The Everest Simulation

Everest Challenge

Executive Summary

The Everest simulation is the interesting online activity which imitates ascent of Everest, which cannot be made without good leadership approach and effective strategy.

Reflection paper is multipart:

Introduction covers method of team allocation, general information about Everest simulation, compares two attempts at the simulation and gives the purpose of this reflection.

Paragraph about issues during Everest comes with different issues that appeared in the team during the first and second attempt: Lack of leadership; Unfamiliar with the Everest Simulation; Not prepared with knowledge of the simulation; Carelessness during the simulation; Desire to rich the summit.

Analysis of the Everest Simulation includes information about my roles and the significance of them, team goals and challenges of two attempts of the simulation.

Learning Review is about my contribution to the team, leader’s approach, differences between two activities and my learning experience.

Conclusion covers similarities of the Everest simulation and an organizational environment and my findings from the reflection paper.  

Table of Contents

Introduction …………………………………………………………………………..…4

Issues during Everest ………………………………………………………………...…4

Analysis of the Everest Simulation……………………………………………………...6

Everest Simulation 1…………………………………………………………...6

Everest Simulation 2………………………………………………………..….7

Learning Review……………………………………….………………………………9

Conclusion……………………………………….………………………………….....10

Works Cited……………………………………………………………………………11

Introduction

The Everest simulation is Leadership and Teamwork online simulation. It shows impact of having different information and interests to the team development. Students can learn:

• “How to build, participate in, and lead effective teams.
• How opposing interests and asymmetric information affect team dynamics.
• How cognitive biases impair decision-making.
• How teams and leaders deal with trade-offs between short-term task completion and longer-term task effectiveness” (“Leadership and Team Simulation: Everest V2”).

First time I knew about the Everest simulation on the lesson of Service Leadership Strategy. Professor informed the group that we will have to bring laptops to the next class and send to us information about the simulation. We had to read instructions, watch video and register on web-site.  Groups were formed randomly. Teams were changes on several occasions, because some guys didn’t want to be in some positions or in some teams for different reasons

Firstly, there were four teams and four people there, but then because of groupmates’ arriving late groups were changed and eventually we had four teams: three teams of five people and one team of six people. Each team has two chances to complete the stimulation.

There are six roles Leader, Physician, Environmentalist, Marathoner, Photographer and Observer. All these have different goals and in some cases they are controversial and team has to decide what steps they need to succeed.

First time I was a photographer, this attempt was bad. We didn’t know what to expect, how to play and we did decisions very fast and as a result we lost. My second role was an observer and at that point it was better, but not as we would like.

Issues during Everest

During the simulations we met different problems. First time we had four issues such as:

1. Lack of leadership;
2. Unfamiliar with the Everest Simulation;
3. Not prepared with knowledge of the simulation;
4. Carelessness during the simulation.

Lack of leadership – Leader of my team didn’t even participate and all decisions were made by the rest of the team members. We didn’t hear each other, didn’t have the strategy and plan of taken steps. Each team member had own view how to hit the right path. So, indifference of the leader brings mess to the team. We understood how important role of the leader in the group.

Unfamiliar with the Everest Simulation – Nobody of the team didn’t do something similar. Additionally, we thought that time is important here, but it wasn’t. To my mind we made all decisions very quickly and it leads to bad results.

Not prepared with knowledge of the simulation – We had to wait when some guys watch the video which everybody had to watch it in advance. During the activity it was revealed that there are guys who didn’t understand their role and goals. It was really disappointed, because we couldn’t turn back and look the description of their roles. They framed the team because successful of the team is composed of everybody’s achievement.

Carelessness during the simulation – With every step in simulation we received information which was useful and we had to make decisions based on it. Some team members didn’t read articles which were very useful for successful completion of the task and just skipped it. Also, nobody of the team paid attention that there were only 6 days to rich the summit, while it was the most important condition of this simulation. As a result our team didn’t complete the simulation, because we didn’t watch days.

        In the second attempt our team had fewer problems:

1. Carelessness during the simulation;
2. Desire to rich the summit.

Carelessness during the simulation consisted in inadvertence of our physician. When team went to the next camp, he forgot to do it, because of that we couldn’t use some medicine. Next time he didn’t give inhalator to marathoner when our team was right up there. As a result marathoner didn’t reach the summit and was rescued. All these lead to poor results of team success.

The second issue “desire to reach the summit” consisted in incomprehension of team members their goals. Some of roles didn’t have such goal, but in our team all guys considered it necessary. Consequently, Leader, Photographer and Physician reached the summit, but Marathoner didn’t.