As I have had a little bit of downtime in my first couple weeks here at Pearson I have used my time to abide by Pearson’s motto, always learning, and I have successfully completed my first book. The book I choose to read was a short fable called “Our Iceberg is Melting, changing and succeeding under any conditions” by John Kotter. The book told the story of a penguin named Fred who noticed that the iceberg his penguin colony was living on had some serious melting problems. Fred was not part of the highest penguin counsel and by some, was not taken seriously in his finding.

The book goes on about the leadership and change strategies that were used by Fred, Alice, and Louis to successfully change the traditions of the colony and move everyone to safety.
The steps were based off of the 8 steps that are laid out in Kotter’s more famous book, “Leading Change”. The Head Penguin of the colony Louis executed this 8 step plan by listening to Fred’s findings then creating a sense of urgency in the colony to deal with the problem at hand. He then worked to form a carefully selected group in charge of working through the change, even if that meant not including long standing members of the penguin counsel and including members who were less well known but had complimentary skill sets. Louis then sat down with his committee to create a vision of what was to be done, and clearly communicated that vision to the entire colony, in ways that even the dumbest penguin would understand and accept. The committee then sat down to work, the goal was to remove any complexities in the plan so that it was practical. When the original buzz started to wear off and some penguins were not excited about the vision anymore they created an event to show that the plan would have a quick success and never let up once the buzz was back. Finally, they ensured that the changes would not be overcome by stubborn, long standing traditions, held within the colony.

This process worked with the penguins and fortunately translates across species. Human behavior was exemplified by the situations in the book and the process proved to work against most, if not all, adversity that the counsel faced. It is always good to keep in mind as well that every member of a team has their own strengths; it’s like the quote, “Everyone’s a genius, but if you judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree it will live its whole life thinking that it’s stupid.” –Albert Einstein. Identifying, but more importantly utilizing everyone’s strengths can lead to great things.

As far as a recommendation for the book I would say it is a MUST READ. The lesson is easy to understand, but powerful in nature. It is a quick read it took less than two hours to get through 132 pages. But most importantly it will bring you to evaluate your position and ask yourself the right questions, such as “If my iceberg melting?”
-Matt Anderson