Case Challenge

As a leader on a team climbing Mt Everest, Owen West must talk to a member of the group who is not helping alongside the others with daily activities.

Summary

As a leader on a team climbing Mt Everest, Owen West must talk to a member of the group who is not doing his part at camp, making him feel like a burden to the team of hikers. However, when the team faces a dire survival situation, he realizes  this “maverick” hiker is especially helpful because of his unique skill sets.

Context

Owen West is a United States Marine veteran, banker, and author who served as Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict from 2017 to 2019.  West was a collegiate rower and avid endurance athlete, podiuming in a range of international and national competitions. In this case, West is part of a team attempting to summit Mount Everest via the challenging North Face. During the climb, West works to build team cohesion and manages one team member, Marco Siffredi, who is the “maverick” in the group. Siffredi is a 19 year old French climber, attempting to be the first man to snowboard down the north face of Everest.  While summiting, West is forced to turn around above 28,000 feet, because of his wife's case of extreme altitude sickness. Siffredi continues on and becomes the first person to summit Norton Couloir of Mount Everest that year. At the summit, Siffredi then also becomes the first person to ever descend Mount Everest on a snowboard. Unfortunately,  the following year, Siffredi made an attempt to be the first man to snowboard down the Hornbein Couloir of Mount Everest, but disappeared and his body has never been found.

Case Design

These leadership cases are designed to be discussed in a group so that divergent viewpoints can be debated. This enables participants to broaden their perspectives and gain insights into the values and instincts that drive decision- making. Each video pauses to allow for discussion at key points in the leader’s presentation. 

Keep in Mind

The cases do not always provide the correct or ideal solution. Rather, they present one person’s experiences and judgment based on the circumstances faced at the time. Some critical facts may also have been unintentionally omitted. 

Facilitation Tips 

To help create a trusting, open atmosphere:

• Establish ground rules for the discussion, such as setting up a safe space.
• Feedback should not be personal but directed at behavior.
• Encourage participants to state and defend his or her opinion.
• Refocus participants by raising broad questions and themes.
• Reassure your group that leadership is an art that can be learned through practice, feedback, and experience.
• In closing, provide a theoretical context for the discussion and takeaway lessons.

Teaching Insight - Balancing Collectivism and Individualism

Owen is part of a team of hikers with two goals: summiting Mount Everest and safety. The two goals of summiting and safety require two different forms of leadership and team dynamics to be successful. 

Summiting is a “conjunctive” task with success determined by its weakest link, requiring cooperation amongst all team members. The group must work together to advance and jointly decide whether to proceed to the peak. 

Safety  is a “disjunctive” task, with success determined by the party’s most expert member who is responsible for the team’s success. When survival is at stake, choosing the best route and knowing when to turn back requires deference to an experienced leader, not negotiation among group members.

Research explains when and how group unity either enhances or impairs performance. In cases where a group must tackle conjunctive tasks, a collective mentality is useful, as it reduces the diversity that members perceive in their group and, that way, increases cohesion. 

When a group faces a disjunctive task (such as a life-threatening situation of dehydration in the case), a collective mentality can harm performance, since there are members with expert skills which can be leveraged. In these cases, differences should be highlighted, not erased and actions by experts should be leveraged.  In such cases, emphasis on cooperation and group decision-making can actually undermine the fact that one opinion deserves to be elevated above others.

This video case is about a leader, Owen West, who manages the balance of collectivism and individualism by discussing his relationship with a fellow team member and climber, Marco Siffredi. Marco is seen as a “maverick” with high levels of expertise yet does not contribute in the same way as other members on the team. Early in the climb when safety is not in jeopardy and the team shares a collective goal to summit, West is tasked with trying to ensure everybody does their part to collectively summit the mountain. However, when safety is at stake, the challenge of the climb shifts from a collective task to a disjunctive task. At this point, the diversity of the team becomes important. By taking a collectivist approach, the team may ignore information differences that matter more for the disjunctive task of addressing medical challenges. 

West acknowledges the importance of appreciating differences exhibited by “Mavericks” in disjunctive tasks even though these differences are problematic in collective tasks.

Video Segment 1: Challenge Discussion

Background and Initial Challenge: As a leader on a team climbing Mt Everest, Owen West must talk to a 19-year old member of the group, Marco Siffredi, who has his own personal goals beyond the group and is not helping alongside the others with daily chores.

Initial Challenge Discussion Questions:

Ask these questions to the class at large or to particular students.  Encourage everybody to participate by seeking a variety of different opinions.

1. Why is the behavior of the young Marco Siffredi problematic for the team?
2. When working towards a collective goal, what is important for success? (Note: every member should be contributing  in ways to ensure the team is collectively successful)
3. How would you handle the conversation West must have with Siffredi, who is not doing his part on daily chores? Consider if you see another way to have the conversation than what West suggested. (i.e., Tell him others are upset and therefore need to wake up earlier - using personal influence to compel him; or take a less direct approach and ask him if he thinks it is acceptable to wake up late.)

Video Segment 2: Decision

Decision: After recommending to Marco that he is annoying others in the group and should help out with daily chores, West is surprised to realize that Marco really is helping, but in a different way than he and others in the group realize. 

Discussion Questions:

Ask these questions to the class at large or to particular students.  Encourage everybody to participate by seeking a variety of different opinions.

1. Do you agree with West’s actions and perspective regarding Marco? Explain.
2. Do you agree that Marco is really “keeping the team together”? Discuss.
3. Even though Marco is seen as the “spirit of the team”, how does his behavior impact group morale? How does Marco impact the morale of the sherpas and their relationship with the group?
4. As a leader, how do you balance a member who is extremely talented but not willing to do what everyone is asked to do on the team?  

Video Segment 3: Results and Lessons Learned 

Results: As the climb progresses, Marco proves to be helpful to the team in ways nobody had expected as his expertise and performance are superior to the team. Marco climbs separately from the group and is the first person to summit that year and the first person to ever descend Mount Everest on a snowboard.

Results Discussion Questions:

Ask these questions to the class at large or to individual students.  Encourage everybody to participate by seeking a variety of different opinions.

1. Discuss how Marco’s contributions help with the collective goal (everyone summiting) compared to the disjunctive goal (everyone being safe and surviving)?  (Note: Marco does not contribute as much to the collective goal - he helps when/how he wants and climbs alongside the group rather than with them; Marco contributes to the disjunctive goal as he builds the relationships with the sherpas and is able to share water when his wife sufferers from altitude sickness and everyone else is struggling in extremis)
2. How can somebody’s expertise on a team be both helpful and destructive to a team with a common goal?
3. In extreme situations, how important is team culture and what are ways to leverage the talent and diversity in a group for collective success?

Lessons Learned:

• Although Mavericks are talented and bring expertise, they are difficult to manage because they are “counter cultural” and may undercut team morale and deteriorate team cohesion.
• A leader must manage the rate at which Mavericks push the organization to change.
• It is okay for a leader to allow some affordances to a maverick who is capable of bringing unique skills, spirit, and “the essence of culture” to a team.
• Although Mavericks risk disrupting teams because they lack awareness of  group norms and institutional climates, they are worth tolerating because sometimes they have ideas that are so good and their performance is so elite that they elevate the team overall.
• If properly managed, Mavericks and diverse personalities can help improve team culture and should be embraced by teams since they bring spirit and positive energy that most people don't provide day to day.

Lessons Learned Discussion Questions:

1. Do you agree with the lessons learned here? (Note: An instructor will need to mention the above lessons learned.)
2. Compare and contrast situations when it WOULD or WOULD NOT be helpful to have mavericks on your team
3. How do you balance mavericks in collective efforts compared to individual efforts?
4. When a leader makes concessions for “mavericks, what does this signal for the team?
5. Share strategies and lessons you have learned in your own experience managing and working with “mavericks.”

Considerations

The lessons shared by this leader are based on his own experiences. These lessons are not necessarily substantiated by academic research but are shared to spark consideration and insight.

Alignment with Research

While legitimating non-normative behavior may enhance the performance of the individual (Marco got to the summit before the rest), it might undermine the collective performance of the group. When the goal is simply to summit a mountain, researchers found, a collectivistic focus within the group is essential, making maverick behavior counterproductive to success. However, in West’s situation, when the team encountered dire circumstances and the goal shifted from summiting to survival. In this safety situation, Marco and his unique skills became important and valuable.

Research Reference

Chatman, Jennifer A., et al. “Blurred Lines: How the Collectivism Norm Operates Through Perceived Group Diversity to Boost or Harm Group Performance in Himalayan Mountain Climbing”. Organizational Science. Vol. 30, No. 2, March–April 2019, pp. 235–259. https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2018.1268 

(Reference: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GPTrO8h16j5M_8lvm8qdF4qouflr0gPY/view)