Below is Don Kardux's newest book report. I always look forward to seeing what Don brings us to think about each month and July's offering, Our Iceberg is Melting, by John Kotter, continues to serve in that way!
Don begins, "See, this book is a fable. It’s not real. It’s about penguins not people.
Well, this
story is about penguins who kinda act like people.
That’s
beside the point.
Nope, that’s
not right, it is the point.
Fred was a
penguin who was bit of an odd bird. While diving, under their colony’s iceberg
he made the discovery of a cave that shouldn’t have been there. This cave was
caused by iceberg erosion which would undermine the integrity of everything,
break the iceberg apart killing a lot of penguins and nobody but Fred knew it
existed.
How will
Fred get other penguins to believe him and feel a ‘sense of urgency’?
What can
they do to fight those who don’t want to change?
Is there a
strategy that will allow the colony to not only survive but, flourish?
Well, this
is a fable so, of course, many good things occur, they live happily ever after
and as everyone knows that isn’t the way it is in ‘real life’. It’s just a good
story to tell.
John Kotter,
the author and storyteller, writes on page 126:
“The End
(of the story, but not the book)”
In the
following 21 pages, Kotter, shows us that there are connections between
Penguins and People.
He believes
we can apply ‘lessons learned’ on the ‘berg’ to the ‘business of life’
Beginning on
page 130 we see ‘The Eight Step Process of Successful Change’ and two pages
later we can explore the roles of ‘Thinking and Feeling’.
This
relatively short book reflects accurately my experience of being a ‘Change
Agent’ for the past thirty years.
It’s
deceitful simplicity masks and then reveals the complexity of change and is
best visited several times."
