Private Equity/Entrepreneurship

Following has been previously posted. As it has great, important content about leadership we re-post it here:

"Lessons from Everest: The Interaction of Cognitive Bias, Psychological Safety, and System Complexity", Michael A. Roberto, HBS, 2002: "On May 10, 1996, five mountaineers from two teams perished while climbing Mount Everest. Their two highly experienced team leaders died with them. This tragedy has been examined from multiple angles and conflicting views abound of what went wrong that horrible day. Is there anything business leaders can learn from the event? HBS professor Michael A. Roberto used management tools to find out..."

Implications for leaders:

"This multi-lens analysis of the Everest case provides a framework for understanding, diagnosing, and preventing serious failures in many types of organizations. However, it also has important implications for how leaders can shape and direct the processes through which their organizations make and implement high-stakes decisions. The Everest analysis suggests that leaders must pay close attention to how they balance competing pressures in their organizations, and how their words and actions shape the perceptions and beliefs of organization members. In addition, the case provides insight regarding how firms approach learning from past failures."

Source: Extract from paper linked to above

Shaping perceptions and beliefs:

"Leaders can shape the perceptions and beliefs of others in many ways. In some cases, the leaders' words or actions send a clear signal as to how they expect people to behave. For instance, Hall made it very clear that he did not wish to hear dissenting views while the expedition made the final push to the summit. Most leaders understand the power of these very direct commands or directives. However, this case also demonstrates that leaders shape the perceptions and beliefs of others through subtle signals, actions, and symbols. For example, the compensation differential among the guides shaped people's beliefs about their relative status in the expedition. It is hard to believe that the expedition leaders recognized that their compensation decisions would impact perceptions of status, and ultimately, the likelihood of constructive dissent within the expedition teams. Nevertheless, this relatively minor decision did send a strong signal to others in the organization. The lesson for managers is that they must recognize the symbolic power of their actions and the strength of the signals they send when they make decisions about the formation and structure of work teams in their organizations..."

Source: Extract from paper linked to above

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