Review: Our Iceberg is Melting

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Our Iceberg Is Melting is a simple fable about doing well in an ever-changing world. Based on the award-winning work of Harvard’s John Kotter, it is a story that has been used to help thousands of people and organizations.
The fable is about a penguin colony in Antarctica. A 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 pretty much no one listens to him.
The characters in the story, Fred, Alice, Louis, Buddy, the Professor, and NoNo, are like people we recognize—even ourselves. Their tale is one of resistance to change and heroic action, seemingly intractable obstacles and the most clever tactics for dealing with those obstacles. It’s a story that is occurring in different forms all around us today—but the penguins handle the very real challenges a great deal better than most of us.

Genre: non-fiction

Publication date: January 2016

Mature content: no

Review: This is a simple and fun book that gives you important insights into change management both in organizations and in every-day life. A colony of penguins faces the reality that the iceberg where they live is doomed and they have to manage all the change process in their lives, from the first steps in convincing everyone that change is really coming to deciding what to do next.

Coming from an academic background in management and finance, I found the tale a bit simplistic. It's written more as story for children than a serious academic book. But then, academics is one thing and the real world is another and I believe this book is especially good for people with no academic background in management and for those who have the background but no time to read more complex books. The theory is all there, it's just told in a different format. It takes a while to get used to, but then, that's change management it itself, right?

Recommended.

Happy Readings,