Thursday, September 17, 2015

The New Everest Movie

On Friday, September 18th, the new movie - Everest - premieres at theaters across the United States.  The film chronicles the tragic events that took place on the world's highest mountain in May 1996.   Rob Hall and Scott Fisher, two experienced expedition leaders, died on the mountain along with several others.  Jon Krakauer wrote a best-selling book about those events (Into Thin Air).  I'm curious to see the movie, as I wonder how accurately it will depict the decisions and events of May 1996.   I'm looking forward to the film, as I have spent more than a decade studying this particular tragedy as well as expedition teams in general.   I've spent consider amounts of time interviewing climbers, including several people who were on the mountain when this tragedy occurred.  My work has focused on how expedition teams make decisions, and how leaders behave in these circumstances.  

My work on Everest expedition teams has included the following:

- Harvard Business School case study (and teaching note)
- Everest: Leadership and Team Simulation (a simulation for teaching about team decision making)
- California Management Review article about the 1996 Everest tragedy
- Great Courses lecture series - The Art of Critical Decision Making (Lecture 2)
- ILJE article titled  Teaching Business Leadership Using Non-Business Case Studies: The Mount Everest Example


I've also written about Everest climbing teams in my book, Why Great Leaders Don't Take Yes for an Answer.   Below you will find two videos about my work.  One focuses on the simulation, while the other discusses the leadership lessons from the catastrophe.  




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