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DESTRUCTIVE GOAL PURSUIT This Page Intentionally Left Blank Destructive Goal Pursuit DESTRUCTIVE GOAL PURSUIT This page intentionally left blank Destructive goal pursuit The Mount Everest Disaster D. Christopher Kayes, PhD © D. Christopher Kayes 2006 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2006 978-0-230-00332-3 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4LP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2006 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin’s Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan­ is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-28101-5 ISBN 978-0-230-50347-2 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/9780230503472 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made form fully managed and sustained forest sources. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Kayes, D. Christopher. Destructive goal pursuit : the Mt. Everest disaster / by D. Christopher Kayes. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. Contents: Learning from the Everest disaster“Destructive goal pursuit“ From destructive to productive pursuit“Rethinking leadership in organizations. ISBN 978-1-349-28101-5 1. Goal setting in personnel management. 2. Leadership. 3. Teams in the workplace. 4. Mountaineering accidents“Everest, Mount (China and Nepal) I. Title. HF5549.5.G6K39 2006 658.4092“dc22 2006045367 10987654321 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 Dedication To Anna, Braden, and Ben, may you have the passion to seek great heights and the wisdom to turn around, and to Rob Hall and Scott Fischer, whose experience taught me more about leadership than textbooks. This page intentionally left blank Contents Foreword xiii Preface xvii Acknowledgements xxiii Introduction 1 Trouble on the South African team 1 Search for answers 3 Organization of the book 7 Part I: Learning from the Everest Disaster 1 The 1996 Mount Everest Climbing Disaster: Recounting the Tragic Events 11 History of climbing Everest 13 The guides 16 The climbers 17 Push for the summit 18 Traffic jam at the summit 20 The descent 20 The huddle 21 Rescue attempts 22 Learning points 24 Learning questions 25 2 “Why Haven’t They Turned Around?”: The Search for Answers 27 Potential explanation 1: Ambition and style 28 Potential explanation 2: Dysfunctional psychological process 31 Potential explanation 3: Past experience 32 Need for a more complete answer 33 Goal striving in the 1963 American Expedition 34 Learning points 36 Learning questions 37 vii viii CONTENTS Part II: Destructive Goal Pursuit 3 The Problem of Goalodicy: The Unintended Consequences of Goal Pursuit 41 Perspectives from mythology 42 The problem of goalodicy 43 Consequences of goalodicy on Everest 44 The limits of goals 45 Goals are difficult to abandon 45 Goals limit learning 47 Goals increase risk taking 48 Pursuit of goals may lead to unethical behavior 48 Learning points 49 Learning questions 50 4 The Problem with Leadership: How Leadership Contributed to the Tragedy 51 Dysfunctional dependence 54 Group dependence: A Brief history 55 Dependency in teams 56 Helplessness 57 Pairing 58 Fight–flight responses 59 Loss of team identity 59 The complexity of leadership 61 Competing goals 62 Competing commitments on “K2” 63 Dual demands of leadership: Task and interpersonal 64 Learning points 66 Learning questions 67 5 Warning Signs: Indicators of Goalodicy 69 Narrowly defined goal 69 Public expectation 71 Face-saving behavior 74 Idealized future 74 Goal-driven justification 75 Achieving destiny 76 Learning points 76 Learning questions 77 CONTENTS ix 6 The Recipe for Disaster: Seven Steps Leading to Goalodicy 79 The problem of identity 80 Collapse of identity in the Mann Gulch disaster 81 Identity maintenance as goalodicy on Everest 82 Writer’s block at Mann Gulch VS. “reverse writer’s block” on Everest 82 The breakdown of learning in teams 83 Breakdown on Everest 84 Recipe for a breakdown 86 Step 1: Motivation to achieve goals 87 Step 2: Narrowly defined goal 87 Step 3: Team membership as a means to accomplish the goal 87 Step 4: Dependence on the team and especially the team leader 87 Step 5: Decrease in the exercise of autonomy 88 Step 6: Increase in complexity 88 Step 7: A breakdown of learning 88 Learning points 89 Learning questions 89 Part III: From Destructive to Productive Pursuit 7 Teamwork: Building the Foundation for Effective Goal Pursuit 93 Everest expeditions as teamwork 95 Expeditions as groups 95 Expeditions as teams 96 Teams in action 97 Task forces 99 Conversation in teams 99 Coordinating 100 Debriefing 100 Storytelling 101 Team shared beliefs 103 Interpersonal beliefs: Interpersonal understanding and interpersonal trust 104 Task beliefs: Goal sharing and team efficacy 106 Higher team functioning 108 Learning points 109 Learning questions 110 x CONTENTS 8 Team Learning: Responding to Organizational and Environmental Complexity 111 Taking advantage of opportunities for learning 112 Team learning 113 Learning vs. performance 114 The process of learning 115 Proximal team learning: The TArT approach 116 Team learning behaviors 120 Tacit coordination 120 Adaptation 121 Collective problem solving 122 Team learning and goals 122 The goal development process 123 Phase 1: Individual purpose 124 Phase 2: Sustained purpose 124 Phase 3: Individual purpose to serve the team 124 Phase 4: Team-driven purpose 124 Phase 5: Multiple-goal team 125 Goal-setting on Everest 125 Learning points 127 Learning questions 127 9 Beyond Goals: Overcoming Destructive Goal Pursuit Through Learning 129 Recognizing ill-structured problems 130 The goal is unclear 131 The means to achieve the goal are unclear 132 Experts disagree 132 Learning from experience 133 Engaging in recovery 134 On human error 135 Learning from errors: Factors related to individuals 136 Learning from errors: Factors related to the task 138 Example of recovery: Rescue at 20,000 feet 139 Fostering trust 140 Fostering inclusiveness 141 Minimizing power differences 141 Communicating humility 141 Developing tacit coordination 142 Cross-team coordination 143 Uncoordinated action 144 CONTENTS xi Minding the gap 145 Cultivating multiple goals 146 Learning points 147 Learning questions 147 Part IV: Rethinking Leadership in Organizations 10 Rethinking Leadership in Organizations 151 Leadership and goals: Conventional wisdom 152 Leadership and goalodicy 153 Beyond conventional leadership: Reciprocal leadership 154 Reciprocal leadership in the Blackfoot Indians 155 Reciprocal leadership in the rescue on Everest 156 Reciprocal leadership and teamwork in high-reliability organizations 158 Developing coordination in leaders 159 Learning in high-reliability organizations 161 Learning defined by what leaders ignore 162 The wisdom of “not knowing” 164 Learning points 165 Learning questions 165 11 Conclusion: Putting Leadership into Action 167 Everest and the contemporary organization 169 Note on Method 171 References 173 About the Author 179 Index 181 This page intentionally left blank Foreword By identifying the negative and potentially disastrous consequences of the non reflective pursuit of ambitious goals, this book offers a sage warning to those of us who live in a culture where high goals are a praiseworthy status symbol and relentless pursuit of them a sign of moral superiority. Leaders who set high goals and pursue them regardless of the consequences are seen as principled, while the leader who learns from experience and modifies goals accordingly runs the risk of being seen as “wishy-washy.” Children are encouraged from an early age to “dream the impossible dream” and to strive toward the highest goals. Writing this foreword from our winter home in laid-back Molokai, Hawaii, we are reminded of a popular saying here—“Goals are deceptive: The un-aimed arrow never misses.” Nearly 10 years prior to the publication of this book, Professor Kayes, then a doctoral student, presented a paper as part of his coursework. The paper described how a group of mountain climbers lost their way and how their failure to learn in the face of change lead to their eventual death. Over the course of the next few years, Professor Kayes refined his thinking, reviewed what seemed to be hundreds of research documents, and then vigorously wrote and rewrote drafts of the original paper. All of this is to say that the book you are about to read represents the culmination of a lot of work and thoughtfully directed attention. This book is, itself, a positive example of its main message: illustrating a process of goal achievement motivated by an intrinsic desire to learn. We have not spent much time climbing mountains so making the leap from mountain climbing to management was not easy for us. Yet, something in the story resonated with our experience. It was not until years later that we began to understand the implications of the mountain climbing accident for our own experience. Like most of us that live in the contemporary world, we have experienced both the benefits and the downsides of ambitious pursuit of goals. The mountain climbing accident recounted in this book provides a vivid example of what can happen when people focus on accomplishing narrow goals at the expense of learning.
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