I recently read a book by John Kotter on the subject ‘managing successful change’ called Our Iceberg Is Melting. Kotter is a Professor at Harvard Business School, and has been writing on the topics of ‘successful change’ and leadership for several decades. Written in 2005, the book approaches what could very easily be a dry, academic subject, through the story-telling medium of the ‘fable’.
Given our increasingly fast-paced and rapidly changing modern lives, it occurred to me that there may be lessons we can take away from the penguin story. So, what follows is a brief summary of the key learnings from the story, and how we might apply some much-needed ‘penguin-logic’ to our daily lives as humans.
Our Iceberg Is Melting tells the tale of a colony of Emperor Penguins in Antarctica. The colony has inhabited the same iceberg for generations, and they have naturally come to think of it at their permanent home. Then, one day, a curious-minded penguin called Fred makes the unwelcome discovery that their iceberg is melting, endangering the lives of the entire colony.
What follows is the tale of how the penguins cope with this impending crisis, and the inevitable change that has been foisted upon them. It is a story of denial, fear, resistance to change, penguin politics, overcoming obstacles, heroism, and ultimate success. Read the rest of this entry »
