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Our Iceberg Is Melting: Changing and Succeeding Under Any Conditions

Our Iceberg Is Melting: Changing and Succeeding Under Any Conditions
By John Kotter, Holger Rathgeber

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Product Description

Most of the denizens of the Antarctic penguin colony sneer at Fred, the quiet but observant scout who detects worrying signs that their home, an iceberg, is melting.  Fred must cleverly convince and enlist key players, such as Louis, the head penguin; Alice, the number two bird; the intractable NoNo the weather expert; and a passle of school-age penguins if he is to save the colony.
Their delightfully told journey illuminates in an unforgettable way how to manage the necessary change that surrounds us all. Simple explanatory material following the fable enhances the lasting value of these lessons.
Our Iceberg Is Melting is at once charming, accessible and profound; a treat for virtually any reader.     
 

Product Details

  • Amazon Sales Rank: #802 in Books
  • Published on: 2006-09-05
  • Released on: 2006-09-05
  • Original language: English
  • Number of items: 1
  • Binding: Hardcover
  • 160 pages

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
About the Author
John Kotter has been on the faculty at Harvard Business School since 1972. He is the author of eleven award-winning titles and frequently gives speeches and seminars at Harvard and around the world. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Holger Rathgeber spent his early professional career in Asia. He has worked in industry since the early 1990's and is now with one of the leading medical technology companies, Bectom Dickinson. Raised in Frankfurt, Germany, Rathgeber currently resides in White Plains, New York.

'Our Iceberg Is Melting' video Clip
Watch a video clip featuring author John Kotter


From Publishers Weekly
Harvard Business School professor Kotter, author of the bestselling Leading Change (1996), teams up with executive Rathgeber to offer his contribution to the "business fable" genre. Kotter presents his framework for an effective corporate change initiative through the tale of a colony of Antarctic penguins facing danger-inspired, perhaps, by today's real-life global warming crisis (or, perhaps, by March of the Penguins' box office). Under the leadership of one particularly astute bird, a small team of penguins with varied personalities and leadership skills implement a thoughtful plan for coaxing the other birds in their colony through a time of necessary but wrenching change. The logic of Kotter's fictional framework is wobbly at times-his characters live and act very much like real penguins except that one carries a briefcase and another ("the Professor") cites articles from scholarly journals-and the whimsical tone will not be to everyone's taste. However, this light, quick read should fulfill its intended purpose: to serve as a springboard for group discussions about corporate culture, group dynamics and the challenges of change.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

Penguins illustrate how to conquer change
By Michelle Archer, for USA TODAY
 
At first glance, Our Iceberg Is Melting seems easy to dismiss as an attempt to fuse a few hot topics — global warming, marching penguins — into a Who Moved My Cheese? fable-as-business-lesson best seller.

But this penguin parable has a pedigree in the form of Harvard Business School's John Kotter, author of Leading Change, the 1996 business guide that also sported our flat-footed, feathered friends on the cover. The Heart of Change was his 2002 follow-up.
 
This time out, Kotter moves the penguins inside, using how a colony of them copes with a potential catastrophe — yes, their iceberg is melting — to illustrate his eight-step process of successful change.
 
Their story is short and peppered with the personalities organizations inevitably include: the naysayers and nitpickers, the innovators and agitators, the leaders and followers. The idea is that everyone in a group must play a role in navigating change.
 
In that vein, Kotter and co-author Holger Rathgeber write that their goal is to use a good story with visual stimuli (full-color, cartoon-like illustrations) to influence a broad range of people to better handle change and produce results. In other words, companies should buy a copy for everyone from the CEO to the stock clerk.
 
This approach paid off for Spencer Johnson of Who Moved My Cheese?, who writes the foreword.
 
Kotter's process advocates quick action to confront issues, group thinking and the buy-in of the whole organization. The goal: replace old habits with new behaviors and make them stick.
 
Whether you're a fan of lowest-common-denominator reading or not, there's no denying the logic behind Kotter's steps and the at-times clever way they are woven into the penguins' journey.

Customer Reviews

A Problem Solving Fable4
Fables have been used to illustrate problem solving, among many other things, for hundreds of years. Remember Aesop's fables? Several years ago, Kenneth Blanchard successfully re-introduced using fables to teach problem solving techniques with his book, Who Moved My Cheese. John Kotter replicated that method of instruction with this fun little book, OUR ICEBERG IS MELTING. As with the aforementioned work, I believe this one will garner similar acclaim.

Kotter's engaging story introduces the 8 principles of problem solving. This can be used in a variety of venues from business, church, child raising, sports, etc. Kotter illustrates how the penguins, faced with a tumultuous dilemma, identified the problem, created urgency, developed a team-building structure, and stepped outside the box. Along the way, the story is entertaining and includes a diverse array of skepticism, cynicism and other challenges that we all face.

The book is also very well illustrated and can easily be read in a couple of hours. It is also readable for almost any age level and would probably make a good reading lesson for children as well. They will certainly be entertained, if not captivated by the illustrations and side notes. Well done.

This book is a gem!5
This is a wonderful gem of a little book. It uses a parable about a colony of easy-to-relate-to penguins to teach us how to understand and manage successful change. It marks a departure from the data-based research John Kotter is so respected for, and takes us into the realm of everyday life. Everyone, no matter who we are or what we do in life, should read, enjoy and learn from this gem!

Got 45 Minutes? Read This Book5
Our Iceberg Is Melting takes a complex, institutional subject -- how organizations change -- and puts it into a simple and accessible form - in this case, a fable. How accessible? It's a 45-minute read, with humor and delightful illustrations. My teenagers picked it up voluntarily, liked the characters, and got the message - that changing how a group does things requires a process, or otherwise the obstacles win. Kotter and his co-author have put Kotter's 8-step change model into reach of any and all. I'm going to leave my copy on my desk at work. It's the perfect business book for those who never thought they'd read a business book.