Our Iceberg Is Melting: Changing and Succeeding Under Any Conditions by John Kotter, Holger Rathgeber Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Our Iceberg Is Melting: Changing and Succeeding Under Any Conditions
Book Review: No issues
Summary: 5 Stars
I had no problems with getting the book on time. It was in great condition just as they said.Book Review: Great theoretical content in a book even a child can read
Summary: 4 Stars
Kotter uses a simple, yet powerful story to illustrate the Leading Change model from his earlier books. This makes the concepts memorable and presents them naturally- the storyline is fun and engaging. It's a very quick read and yet shares the "meat" of his research. It would be a great book to read as a team- and my 9 year old is even interested in it! Good stuff.Book Review: Worked to bring 40 people together
Summary: 4 Stars
We read this book at a management off-site meeting and it worked very well as a way of getting people on the same page about change. It is a simple and quick read so that meant everyone had finished the book before we got together. It also has a fable like story that everyone could grasp whatever their background or education. The eight points at the back of the book all make sense and as someone who works with people dealing with change either at work or in their career, they were spot on the money. We are planning to have our whole department read it as a common language for change.Book Review: Shame to Harvard Business School
Summary: 1 Stars
What a shame to put Harvard Business School name on the cover of this book. What money can do!Book Review: problem-solving - the penguin style: a fable
Summary: 5 Stars
This book is unique writing - I like it! It tells a fable involving a colony of 268 penguins, seemingly living in relative comfort on an iceberg in Antarctic. A seemingly great life because one penguin, Fred, is observing a life-altering event occurring all around the colony - "the iceberg is melting and might break apart soon." The observation raises a series of questions among them the following three: (a) How does one demonstrate that there is a problem and it is serious one? (b) How does one convince the residents of the colony to change successfully? (c) What do they change to?
Fred, though observant, is a natural leader. First he approaches Harold who is popular, but Harold laughs him off. Unwilling to quit Fred finally finds an ally in Alice. He takes Alice around the iceberg and convinces her of the unavoidable collapse of the iceberg. With Alice's help, or because of her help, Fred secures a meeting with the leadership of the colony, especially Head Leader Louis. Despite tremendous resistance, and sometimes even ridicule, Fred, Alice, Louis, and a few others help the colony avoid danger.
How the colony avoids danger is the moral of the fable, and is nicely summarized on pp. 130-131 of the book: "Set the stage. Decide what to do. Make it happen. Make it stick." Doing so requires "reducing complacency and increasing urgency" (p. 43), "pulling together a team to guide the needed change" (p. 55), "creating a vision" (p.69), "communicating the new vision" (p. 81), "empowering everyone" (p. 97), "not letting up" (p. 117), "ensuring that the changes would not be overcome by stubborn, hard-to-die traditions" (p. 123), and, I must add, rewarding the effort. Following these simple steps the colony changed successfully to a new life style and it thrived thereafter.
Leadership principles in an easy-to-understand fable. An excellent piece of work!
Amavilah, Author
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