With the dramatic setting of a Mount Everest summit expedition, this award-winning team-based simulation from Harvard Business Publishing teaches group dynamics and leadership. Students play one of 5 roles on a team of climbers, sharing information to maximize group achievement and avoid the perils that threaten the group’s ability to reach the summit and meet its goals.
THE EVEREST TEAM: Students begin the journey by logging in as the Leader, Physician, Environmentalist, Marathoner, or Photographer (or as the optional sixth role, Team Observer). The goals associated with these roles can often be in conflict with one another and require compromise for the team to succeed.
MAKING THE ASCENT: Students have 6 days to travel through 5 camps on their way to the top of Everest. There is only one day of slack built into the schedule and the team must use it judiciously. At each camp, students have an opportunity to analyze current conditions and share their conclusions with the team. Conditions such as weather, physical health, supply inventory, and average hiking speed factor heavily into the students’ climbing decisions. The dashboard view provides up-to-date information on the conditions as well as the status of the climb.
MAKING A DECISION: After team discussion, students must input their climbing and other decisions separately in order to advance to the next day. The ability to effectively evaluate and exchange information will determine the team’s success on the climb. During the ascent, students can talk with each other via the chat tool in addition to communicating face-to-face. This simulates the communication conditions that real-world climbers have with walkie-talkies.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
- How to build, participate in, and lead effective teams.
- How leaders shape team decision-making and performance in competitive and time-sensitive situations.
- 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.
Administrators have a variety of features and tools at their disposal. These include new customization options, improved team and role assignment procedures, real-time monitoring of student activity, 8 detailed reporting screens, dynamic debrief PowerPoint slides. HBP also offers a free trial of the entire simulation.