Response - Our Iceberg is Melting
John Kotter's change management fable Our Iceberg is Melting is a fascinating read, not just because of its interesting surface story (that of penguins attempting to alert other penguins of the fate that might befall their iceberg), but of the allegory for dealing with change that the book provides. The premise of the book is simple enough, as Kotter himself introduces the book like a fairy tale: "Once upon a time a colony of penguins was living in the frozen Antarctic on an iceberg near what we call today Cape Washington" (Kotter). As one penguin, Fred, starts to notice that their iceberg is melting, he takes some very necessary steps to convince the others and make the changes that need to be made. It is a tale that is perfectly suited to help both people and businesses alike achieve their goals.
The tale of the penguins is told in very loose allegory; it is easy to see exactly which personality types each penguin is supposed to stand in for. Louis, the head of the Leadership Council, is very authoritative yet cautious. Buddy is the young upstart who might not know as much as his fellow penguins, but has enthusiasm and a unifying trust to bring to the table. Jordan is called the "Professor" of the Leadership Council, and possesses the most intelligence. Fred's curiosity and Alice's aggressiveness and assertiveness round out the package. As they all deal with the crisis of the iceberg melting in their different ways, the book starts to show you how to deal with those who are resisting change and harming the community as a whole.
The central conflict of the book is Fred's discovery, early on, of the potential for their iceberg to crack, leaving them without a home. Fred's attempts to convince the others on the Leadership Council of this pressing problem, despite him not being in a leadership position, fuels the majority of the book, and provides most of the business advice given to the reader. With the help of Alice, the go-getter penguin, Fred starts to investigate the iceberg problem and creates a presentation that is meant to convince everyone that there is a problem, as well as a way to solve it. When this is met with resistance by older members of the Council who do not believe him, Fred embarks on a much more dramatic plan to convince them of the problem.
These chapters are when the book truly shines, as Fred uses many different and effective strategies to do this convincing, all of which the reader can take and apply to their own lives or organizations. First, he made the issue more urgent by showing how ice can crack and destroy a bottle, and giving examples of the iceberg actually cracking, getting the other penguins curious. After that, they were able to establish a vision together, with the rest of the council, come up with a strategy, communicate it with everyone else, get people to participate, and more. In these segments, Fred and the penguins' work to scout for a new iceberg showed a great deal of teamwork and cooperation, which was refreshing to read; it is nice to see when groups can work together to accomplish a goal. Kotter shows us, step by step, how those goals can be achieved in a group through these strategies, allowing the reader to apply them to their own lives.
Once the plan is begun, the penguins start making short-term wins to keep morale up; they know that if you have long-term goals, you need to segment them into shorter goals that make everyone feel like they are making progress, and keep everyone working on the big plan. By changing the existing culture of complacency within the penguin community, they made a new culture that was willing to change and move to a different iceberg. What's more, that iceberg was only found after Fred took the initiative to communicate this urgent issue to everyone else. With the help of all this work, the penguin community is able to adapt quickly to this new iceberg, and will be able to make new changes more easily in the future.
I found this book profoundly uplifting; we all have an "iceberg" of sorts at times in our lives, and we have to learn to deal with them as they come. Whether it is by yourself or at your job with a company, you have to work on a plan and a vision to change your circumstances for the better. Solving problems is incredibly easy with the strategies shown by Kotter to us in the book through the allegory of the penguins. With the help of this book, we all can change our culture and dedicate ourselves to new visions of change that we can manage through short term wins and small victories that lead up to big successes.
