The reflection of my experiences of The Everest group simulation

z3238040 Seung Kon Back ● The Executive Summary The team 1 was organised to perform two Everest simulations and its members were Seungkon, Florence, Yajia, Michael, Manas and Rebecca. This report is a record of experiences during the simulations and also aims to describe the team’s experiences and critically analyse the results and communication structures. It was found that the main factor of the team’s failure is attributable to poor performance of a physician and there were some communicative conflicts. A disappointing performance is linked with the concepts of cognitive dissonance, task cohesiveness and social loafing. It also was confirmed that the problem of communication is associated with several factors such as the linguistic barrier, stereotyping, different decision-making styles, the internet-network communication and different cultures.

Table of Contents ● The executive summary p2 ● Introduction p4 ● Everest team experience p4-6 ● Analysis of team’s result p7-9 ● Analysis of team’s communication structures and experiencep9-11 ● Conclusion p12 ● Bibliographyp13-14 ● Appendicesp15-19

● Introduction The members of team 1 (Seungkon, Florence, Yajia, Michael, Manas and Rebecca) were supposed to do Everest simulation at week 5 and 8. Before the first simulation, as I had not had any experiences with other members and also I had no experiences regarding Everest simulation, there was a lack of knowledge about the members’ personal characteristics and the task itself. However, regardless of the knowledge, it was the most difficult task in all the assignments. This is because I am terribly reluctant to have interpersonal interactions in

Australia due to the linguistic barrier and a negative stereotype about Australians. In addition, although my unique characteristics (described by “active”, “charismatic” on tasks) were acceptable in almost any case in South Korea, they caused the internal and external conflicts during the simulation. With these several internal factors and other theoretical factors, this report explores the reasons of some problems identified during the simulation. This report will present our team’s experiences, the analysis of the team’s result and communication structures in sequence.

● Everest team experience

The most noticeable thing in Everest team experience is that although it is generally agreed that the second trial brings better outcomes than the first trial, our team had the reverse experience during the simulations. The poor performance of a physician lies at the heart of the experience. During the first simulation, I (a physician, Seungkon) played a crucial role in receiving high marks for each member by providing medicines in proper time because this helped avoidance of being rescued and the risk of frostbite during the climbing. For instance, although Manas had an asthma attack at day 3, he was provided with the inhaler so that he could keep climbing, and this resulted in a bonus point for everyone. Also, Rebecca (a leader) could reach the summit after she took an aspirin at camp 4 when she suffered from the critical health status due to poor weather conditions. In contrast to ‘good’ performance in the first simulation, the physician was airlifted to the base camp during climbing

from camp 3 to 4 at day 4 and as a result, Michael and Manas were rescued due to the critical attitude sickness at the camp 5 in the second simulation (that was due ostensibly to a lack of oxygen, but actually the two members already suffered from the critical health status and very high risk of frostbite for a long time). The fundamental reason for my poor behaviour in the second simulation in contrast to the first one is attributable to my personal characteristics. For instance, from the beginning, the role of a physician did not fit in my personality that places much value upon leading the team on the front than supporting at the back side. My personal antipathy toward the role forced me to behaviour very passively and carefully in each step and support the “safety first” policy in my mind during the first simulation because although there was no motivation on the role, there was a determination not to negatively affect other members due to an impulsive judgement and behaviour. However, the two main factors motivated me to behave self-righteously in the latter half of the second simulation. Firstly, a feeling of frustration and anger that started since the first simulation came to the climax at the second simulation. Secondly, I strongly believed that fast decision-making style based on an intuition and an experience is more economic way of finishing the simulation because the first simulation was merely lengthy with not very high result.

Another noticeable thing is an increase of conflict mainly between Michael and me. For instance, in the second simulation, I had a conflict with Michael when he disagreed with my suggestion about climbing to camp 4 because he was much worried about being rescued due to weak health condition and high risk of frostbite. It seems that the conflict was led by different personal value system and decision making-

styles. For example, I was quite sure that bad weather conditions such as low temperature and strong wind would be gradually disappeared in my intuitions and in experiential perspective. For instance, even though Manas and Rebecca suffered from bad health conditions in bad weather conditions, they actually reached the camp 5 and the summit respectively with the proper prescription of medicines at the first simulation. However, what Michael argued was that the synthesis of scientific information on the cause of frostbite and the current weather information prevent him from keeping climbing and also there is very uncertain level of information on the change of weather conditions.

Another conflict occurred between individual goals and team’s result. For instance, I asked Michael and Florence to climb to camp 3 to stay together with other members because the mark allocated in my personal goal was 7, which is the highest mark of all members’ ones, and because the marks allocated for Michael and Florence at camp 2 were only 1 or 2. This meant for me that if they discarded the insignificant marks, the team could obtain better result. This suggestion was not accepted because I had an insufficient English ability to persuade them and my intention was not transferred and articulated efficiently to them, which resultingly led to the increasing degree of frustration.

● Analysis of team’s result

One of possible explanations regarding a disappointing performance of the physician is attributable to the theory of cognitive dissonance. According to Koh and Boo (2004, p679), it refers to that individuals who have uncomfortable feelings on inconsistency between values, attitudes, ideas, and beliefs strive to minimise it by changing attitudes or behaviours. This is connected with the first simulation in which I played a physician role due merely to the participation marks even if the attitude to the role-playing was very negative. However, what should be noticed regarding the relationship between the theory and the experience is that there were still conflicts between the internal value system and behaviour during the role-playing, and they resulted in the minimal level of attention upon the role’s duty and the neglect of peer’s opinions. The situation was worsened at the second simulation because the feelings of anger and frustration increased due to the pressure of the same role-playing. This is linked to findings of Viswesvaran, Deshpande and Joseph (1998) in which employees that were consistently exposed to the conditions in which dissonant ideas or behaviour is required struggled to deal with the inner conflicts, which resultingly led to dissatisfaction. Also, Edwards et al (2008, p458) conclude that if individuals do not satisfy with the jobs’ characteristics that are prescribed in an organisation, their task performance tends to be poor as they strive to balance between what they obtain and provide

based on the concept of social exchange. Therefore, in my view it is important to reduce the degree of cognitive dissonance in order to enhance the individuals’ satisfaction in group work, and one possible way to achieve would be providing “the flexibility” of choosing the role that is suitable for their value system.

Another possible explanation is related to the relationship between group cohesiveness and performance. Festinger (1950, p274) explains that the group cohesiveness is ‘the resultant forces which are acting on the members to stay in a group’. Zaccaro (1991, p396)’s findings conclude that there was a very strong association between task cohesiveness and individual and group performance, while interpersonal cohesion had very limited or no association. Regarding the reason, Zaccaro (1991, p389) explains that the task cohesiveness directly encourages task-related interactions between members such as planning, coordination and the exchange of information. This is consistent with our group that did not set a clear goal and discuss about specific strategies, but had moderate level of interpersonal “intimacy”. However, more important fact is that my personal task-cohesiveness was the lowest due to a feeling of frustration and a perception of the role-playing as things “very unimportant” (as this was a task of general education course). This partially implicates that the degree of work’s importance for an individual is proportional to the degree of task cohesiveness.

The last possible factor affecting the poor results is related to the theory of social loafing. This refers to the phenomenon that individuals tend to make less effort in group works than they work alone (Liden

et al 2004, p286). It is important to note that compared with the first simulation, the degree of an indifferent attitude on the problem-solving was intensified at the second simulation. This was attributable to a feeling of frustration, which was caused by Yajia (an observer) in both simulations who rarely participated in discussions. This is connected with ‘sucker effect’ (Liden et al, 2004, p291). As described in Liden et al (2004, p291), Schnake (1991) explains that individuals who recognise others’ less effort are likely to have a social loafing and they tend to make lesser effort in order to avoid ‘being taken for a sucker’. On the other hand, Yajia’s social loafing seems related with the concept of free riding, which means that team members’ personal efforts are reduced when they think that these are not necessary condition for achieving the team’s objectives due to other members’ work (van Dick, Tissington & Hertel 2009, p234). This is because her effort to the simulations did not apparently or directly affect to team’s result as she was an observer. This implicates the need for internal system in the group on measuring or assessing individuals’ contribution in order to encourage their task performance and teamwork.

● Analysis of team’s communication structures and experience

The most appropriate the communication theory with regard to the failure of communication during the simulations is transactional communication model. According to Janusik (2007, p140), the messages between a sender and a receiver are proceeded at the same time in the model, therefore interpersonal communication has no clear

boundary of role of a sender or receiver and this consistently requires a receiver to respond to the information from a sender. Regarding this, as my first language is Korean and the second language is English, it was difficult for me to understand and comprehend the conversations between the team members and between me and the rest of members. This uncomfortable situation led to a feeing of frustration and very late or no response to opinions made by the members, which resultingly played a role of disconnecting me and the rest of members.

Another factor that made the communication difficult is associated with stereotyping that is psychological barrier in the transactional communication model. This refers to ‘beliefs about the characteristics, attributes, and behaviours of members of certain groups’ (Hilton and von Hippel, 1996, p241). What should be noticed is that my stereotype about Michael was “a coward”, “a precision” and “a faultfinder”, and this resulted in the ignorance of Michael’s original message at the second simulation. For instance, although Michael seriously warned a high risk of frostbite with the information about a relation between the occurrence of frostbite and the weather conditions, as I perceived his warning as “bad intention to hinder my willingness to climb to the summit”, there was a conflict in communication between me and Michael. It is useful to examine the origin of my stereotype about Michael in different decisionmaking styles because it significantly affected the formation of the stereotype since the first simulation. As described in Henderson and Nutt (1980, p373), Mason and Mitroff (1973) explain that one of two major decision making styles is an intuitive type in which an individual significantly takes into account his feelings or emotions and sometimes his own experiences, and another style is analytical type in which

an individual relies on the empirical research and focuses on logical analysis with the impersonal evaluation. The former corresponds to me and the latter matches with Michael. Therefore, his messages very often interrupted the proceedings, and as a result, the pace of work was very slowed in my view, and this made a frustration for me and very negative stereotype about Michael. This illustrates that different styles of working can cause stereotypes based on emotional feelings and this in turn can lead to distortion of the nature of discourse in interpersonal communication.

In addition, the negative impact of employing the internet network on our team’s communication should be considered. A research illustrates that synchronous computer-mediated communication method is less effective than face-to-face method due to lower degree of ‘openness/ trust’ and this ineffectiveness becomes severe when there is a lack of prior experience between team members (Alge, Wiethoff & Klein, 1987, p33-34). Also it indicates that the higher the level of task interdependence, the more essential is the “openness/trust” (Alge, Wiethoff & Klein, 1987, p34). This suggests for our group that there should have been a sufficient time for knowing each member’s personal characteristics and behaviours before utilising MSN. In particular for example, it would have increased the degree of support for Michael’s opinions and this in turn could have prevented me from having a conflict with Michael.

Lastly, one of reasons that I usually kept silent during the simulations is partially related with the way of respect for the senior members (Rebecca and Manas)’ opinions based on many experiences. In other

words, this ‘implicit agreement’ aimed for not claiming the validity of their opinions. Regarding this, as my cultural background is Korea that has been influenced by Chinese cultural norms due to geopolitical factors, the Chinese Confucianism seems very useful to explain my behaviour. According to O’Keefe and O’Keefe (1997, p191), it emphasizes the harmony in building interpersonal relationships and the way of achieving is to show the respect for social hierarchy and age. O’Keefe and O’Keefe (1997, p192) explain that the respect is related to keeping silence on things that might make others disconcerted and avoiding raising issues about their’ suggestions or instructions. A noticeable thing is that the communication based on Western culture emphases thoughts and responses from independent individuals and consistent claiming of the validity of others’ arguments or opinions until the issue is correctly articulated (O’Keefe & O’Keefe 1997, p192). This matches with the situation in which I felt frustration with Michael who mostly focused on the legitimate reasons for team’s decisions rather than following Manas and Rebecca’s suggestions.

● Conclusion

The Everest simulation reminded me about the importance of finding

a job or a position in an organisation that is suitable for my personal characteristics. This is because the most difficult part during the simulations was that I had to play a physician role regardless of my personal characteristics and this was terribly stressful. Another thing I learned from the simulation is that I need to listen to others’ thoughts and opinions without the emotional ‘channel’. This is because even if there is still no doubt about the value of my personal intuitions and feelings in decision-making process, the ‘channel’ played a crucial role in ignoring the empirical evidence on the risk and this led to ‘dogmatic’ leadership-style’s role-playing. Lastly the simulation has awakened me to the importance of high English ability, the high level of spoken English ability in particular.

● Bibliography

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