Our Iceberg is Melting: Changing and Succeeding Under Any Conditions

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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.

I'm not sure what to say about this book. We were given copies of this book by our management team at work in connection with a pending divisional restructure. I think the book was intended to help us adapt to change but I don't really see a parallel between the fabricated and factually flawed fable of penguins on a melting iceberg and what we are facing at work. Ich fand den Schreibstil unheimlich toll und auch, wie der Autor dieses doch komplexe Thema auf diese wundervolle Art an den Leser bringt. Man lernt unheimlich viel davon, ohne es vielleicht im ersten Moment zu begreifen. Articulate the connections between the new behaviors and organizational success, making sure they continue until they become strong enough to replace old habits. Pull together the guiding team. Make sure there is a powerful group guiding the change - one with leadership skills, credibility, communications ability, authority, analytical skills, and a sense of urgency.I knew it was time to leave the corporate world when our vice-president, a friend who had been a truly smart woman when we first started to work together, bought 300 copies of this trendy 2006 business fable* (involving penguins and melting icebergs) for the entire division.

A good book about change management narrated in a very simplistic language and in the method of storytelling. The book helps businesses and communities move from old to new territories to cope with their own environment. The main theme of the book is how change can be very difficult and it should be worked out with good planning and team effort. The 8 phases of change management according to Kottler are: If you are fond of penguins (I am) and are interested in the difficulties of change management and how it can be successfully managed, this short audiobook containing an amusing fable has a lot to offer. To be sure, fables are generally contrived and this book certainly is contrived in a way that reality is more complex, but all the same this is an enjoyable fable in large part because even though the agenda of the authors is obvious it is not unappealing. There is a certain degree of tolerance that people often have in thinking about chance as it applies to animals (like mice wondering about who moved their cheese) that they do not have when it comes to thinking about change that others want to push on them. To be sure, successfully handling change, including the fable's desire to push for a massive change in cultural lifestyle for the penguins, is not an easy task, but in the case of the fable, there is a genuine threat, while in the case of a lot of change there is a lot less of a case to be made and a great deal less finesse in how the change is managed. In the end, I don't think this story is an accurate reflection of what we are facing at work and I would have appreciated more serious and more scholarly books on the subject. The best thing about Kotter's book was that it was short and easy to read but that was also its downfall. This is the kind of book that you might give to people who are uneducated, ignorant, and not very literate.Now cross your arms the other way, so that whatever arm you normally cross on top is now under your other arm. How do you feel? Awkward? Most people only ever cross their arms one way - in fact, according to "The Definitive Book of Body Language", 90% cross the left arm over the right. 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.”