Our Iceberg is Melting: Changing and Succeeding Under Any Conditions

Product Information

Our Iceberg Is Melting is a simple story about doing well under the stress and uncertainty of rapid change. Based on the award-winning work of Harvard Business School's John Kotter, it can help you and your colleagues thrive during tough times. By publishing your document, the content will be optimally indexed by Google via AI and sorted into the right category for over 500 million ePaper readers on YUMPU.

icma.org Lessons on Change from a Penguin Colony | icma.org

In icebergs moving in oceans, the melting on the base can be up to 30 percent faster than in old models." Fred was determined to prove his case. The colony was governed by a Leadership Council (sound familiar?). Fred elected to convince Alice, one of the Council members, by taking her to the melting point. After proving his point to Alice, he was invited to present at a Leadership Council meeting. Fred was met with continued skepticism but did his homework and knew the best delivery method for obtaining buy in from the colony leadership. Through an iceberg model and a glass bottle, Fred was successful in convincing the Council of the urgency of the situation.I have followed Kotter’s work for years, respect it greatly, use it with my clients, and know its unique power to help people and organizations perform better. This latest effort—this little penguin tale—is, in my opinion, the best and most useful book he has ever written.” Whether you work in a business or the business of life, everyone from CEOs to high school students can gain from what they take from this story.” Our Iceberg Is Melting is superb. It embodies powerful messages that can help a broad audience. It covers all the steps to success in a changing world, from finding the substantial issues, aligning with a potent champion, charting the course, getting buy-in, dealing with those who want no change, and so on.”

Our Iceberg Is Melting Quotes by John P. Kotter - Goodreads Our Iceberg Is Melting Quotes by John P. Kotter - Goodreads

Step Three – Develop the Change Vision and Strategy. After searching for ideas and answers, the penguins decided to try something new, “walk around and keep your eyes and minds open.” Along came a seagull that challenged their thinking and intrigued them with his nomadic lifestyle. The team clarified the future vision and established a strategy to make it reality; they too would become a nomadic colony. Communicate for understanding and buy-In: Though the team had now found a potential solution they needed to get the buy-in of the penguins. There were penguins who were very skeptical and thought either the whole thing about the melting iceberg was nonsense or it was too dangerous for the penguins to move. The team found interesting ways to communicate the vision to arouse the interest of the penguins and off course there were different reactions to the communication. But the team relented, they made posters and put them all around to communicate the vision and emphasize the advantages of a new way of life.If you've read books like One Minute Manager by Ken Blanchard and Who Moved My Cheese by Spencer Johnson, then you will be familiar with the way this book is written. A story telling style is used to illustrate John Kotter's eight principles of change outlined in another book, Leading Change by the same author. The characters in this book are, surprisingly penguins and the premise is a threat to the lifestyle of the penguins because their current habitat, the iceberg where they live is melting. The book goes through how the penguins discovered the problem which highlights a need for change and how they then go through the change process using Kotter's eight principles for change. On an iceberg near the coast of Antarctica, group of beautiful emperor pen­guins live as they have for many years. Then one curious bird discovers a potentially devastating problem threatening their home—and almost no one listens to him. The old models assumed that stationary icebergs didn't melt at all, whereas our experiments show melting of about a millimetre every minute," Mr Hester said.

Harvard Business Review The Penguin Lesson - Harvard Business Review

reducing complacency and increasing urgency they had taken exactly the right first step in potentially saving the colony.” The revised and updated tenth anniversary edition of the classic, beloved business fable that has changed millions of lives in organizations around the world. All of us encounter the basic issues in this story. Did I mention that it was about penguins and has gorgeous photos! Few of us know effective ways to deal with these issues. As a manager, it is so important to know how to drive change and how to manage during a time of change. How do you manage when your future is so uncertain? Everyone is looking to you to guide them and tell them how to proceed into the future. And what those who work for you that are so opposed to change. They ask you, “Why do we have to change to a new computer system and learn to do our jobs in a different way when I have everything down the way it is now? And will these new systems make do my job for me so there isn’t even a need to keep me at this company anymore?” Or maybe you are trying to convince your management that by changing a few things, the company could save so much money and time but they refuse to listen to you.

Step Seven – Don’t Let Up. After the first success the penguins pressed on by sending a second wave of scouts to explore promising possibilities discovered by the first scouts. They were relentless, initiating change until they found a suitable iceberg that fit their nomadic vision. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher. Communicate for Understanding and Buy-In. Make sure as many others as possible understand and accept the vision and the strategy. Go beyond “stopping resistance” to creating more and more people who want to help you.”