Book SummaryOur Iceberg Is Melting, by John P. Kotter and Holger Rathgeber

1-Page Summary1-Page Book Summary of Our Iceberg Is Melting

Our Iceberg Is Melting is a fable about a colony of penguins who realize that their home might be destroyed soon, and that they need to move the entire colony to a new iceberg. However, despite the looming threat, making such a big change isn’t easy.

This book by Dr. John Kotter and Holger Rathgeber will teach you, through the penguin fable, the necessary steps in making major changes to your company or your personal life.

In this guide, we’ll explore some of the topics in greater detail and present alternative theories or points of view; we’ll provide the kind of in-depth study that a short story like Our Iceberg Is Melting has to forego in favor of simplicity and clarity in its lessons.

Step 1: Replace Complacency With Urgency

The first problem the characters needed to overcome was their colony’s false sense of security. They did this by convincing the others that there was an immediate, dire threat, and that they had to do something about it. In short, they created a sense of urgency to motivate the colony.

Sound the Alarm

The penguins had lived on the same Antarctic iceberg as far back as any of them could remember, and they saw no reason why that should ever change.

Some argue that people are hard-wired to resist change; that millions of years of evolution have ingrained the instinct to accept “good enough” (which is to say, survival), rather than risk that stability to pursue something better. Furthermore, change is risky—the outcome is uncertain, and people don’t like uncertainty.

To sum it up using a common idiom: People prefer the devil they know (the current situation) to the devil they don’t (change).

However, a penguin named Fred made an alarming discovery: The iceberg was riddled with deep cracks due to Earth’s warming climate, and those cracks were filled with water. When winter came, that water would freeze and expand, which could shatter the whole iceberg.

Fred took his findings to Alice, one of the leaders of the penguin colony. Alice took Fred seriously, and arranged for him to present what he’d learned to the Leadership Council—including the Council head, a penguin named Louis.

It took some convincing, but eventually most of the Council members agreed that there was a dire threat to the colony, and that something had to be done. They began spreading the word to the other penguins.

What Fred and the Council accomplished here was replacing complacency with urgency. In other words, they convinced the colony that things were not normal, that they were in serious danger, and that they needed to take action to protect themselves from it.

In order to make it clear why the penguins need to take action, the authors created a situation that was both extremely dangerous and easy to see: Namely, that the place the penguins lived was falling apart beneath their feet.

Unfortunately, problems in real life aren’t always so visible or so immediate—you might have trouble convincing others that there even is a problem. Creativity, Inc. offers some suggestions on how to make your coworkers see the need for change, including:

• Discuss why you need to change (this is what Fred did in the penguin fable).

• Examine your current processes honestly, and look for problems.

• Accept—even embrace—the fact that the change may not go smoothly at first. Promise yourself and your coworkers that nobody will be punished for mistakes.

Step 2: Make a Team

The next hurdle the penguins needed to face was figuring out who would actually solve the problem of the melting iceberg. Louis—the head of the Leadership Council—knew that protecting the colony was his responsibility, but he couldn’t possibly save the penguins on his own. Therefore, he assembled a skilled and qualified team to help him make the necessary changes.

(Shortform note: When you need to solve major problems, working with others is crucial. So why do so many people try to go it alone? It may be due to a lack of trust: One study suggests that only 32% of leaders worldwide believe their teams have the ability to meet their goals. We’ll discuss how to develop trusting teams below.)

Find the Right People

Besides himself, he chose four other penguins for the team, each with a unique personality and skill set. The final team was:

1. Louis: An older penguin with the experience to make wise decisions. His position in the Leadership Council means that almost every penguin in the colony respects him (except for NoNo and some of the teenagers).
2. Alice: Smart, practical, and driven. She’s an excellent project manager, treats everyone with respect (as shown by the fact that she listened to Fred), and isn’t intimidated by anyone.
3. Fred: Younger than the others, but intelligent and curious. He was the first to notice the problem and bring it to the Council’s attention.
4. Jordan, aka The Professor: Probably the smartest and most learned bird on the iceberg, though lacking in social skills.
5. Buddy: Not exceptionally smart, nor a natural leader, but he’s a people-penguin who’s great at talking to people. Essentially the polar opposite of The Professor.

It would take all of them working together to make the kinds of changes that could save the colony.

How to Choose the Right Team Members

Louis assembled a skilled and qualified team, but qualifications weren’t the only factors he took into account. While skills and qualifications matter, team members’ personalities, values, and diverse experiences contribute to team success as well, and these can be hard to evaluate.

One CEO...

Our Iceberg Is Melting Summary Shortform Introduction

Our Iceberg Is Melting is a fable about a colony of penguins who realize that their home might be destroyed soon, and that they need to move the entire colony to a new iceberg. However, despite the looming threat, making such a big change isn’t easy.

This book by Dr. John Kotter and Holger Rathgeber will teach you, through the penguin fable, the necessary steps in making major changes to your company or your personal life.

In this guide, we’ll explore some of the topics in greater detail and present alternative theories or points of view; we’ll provide the kind of in-depth study that a short story like Our Iceberg Is Melting has to forego in favor of simplicity and clarity in its lessons.

About the Authors

Dr. John Kotter is a professor emeritus at the Harvard Business School and the founder of the management consulting firm Kotter International. He’s widely regarded as one of the world’s top authorities on effective leadership and driving change.

Holger Rathgeber is an affiliate of Kotter International. He’s spent over 15 years working as a facilitator, helping companies to develop and implement effective business strategies. Rathgeber has an economics degree...

Our Iceberg Is Melting Summary Step 1: Replace Complacency With Urgency

Our Iceberg is Melting is a fable that teaches us how to make major, frightening—but necessary—changes within an organization, and how to get others to go along with those changes.

Dr. John Kotter and Holger Rathgeber wrote Our Iceberg Is Melting to teach people how to adapt their organizations to a rapidly changing world. Though the authors’ backgrounds are in business, the lessons from Iceberg are applicable in practically any setting.

There are a few reasons why people handle change poorly:

• They don’t see any need to change; in other words, they’re complacent
• Even after deciding to make changes, they don’t have a clear vision for the future
• They don’t have a good plan to implement the changes
• They don’t take steps to make the changes permanent

Some argue that people are hard-wired to resist change; that millions of years of evolution have ingrained the instinct to accept “good enough” (which is to say, survival), rather than risk that stability to pursue something better. Furthermore, [change is...

Our Iceberg Is Melting Summary Step 2: Make a Team

Next, the Leadership Council forms a team because nobody can solve this problem on their own.

(Shortform note: When you need to solve major problems, working with others is crucial. So why do so many people try to go it alone? It may be due to a lack of trust: One study suggests that only 32% of leaders worldwide believe their teams have the ability to meet their goals. We’ll discuss how to develop trusting teams below.)

The Group

Once the Council had convinced most of the other penguins that something was wrong, Louis—as head of the Council—assembled a skilled and qualified team. Although every team member has weaknesses (such as a lack of knowledge or social skills), they all bring specific strengths to the team: One penguin has experience, one’s a good project manager, one’s particularly curious, one’s highly knowledgeable, and one has exceptional people skills. It would take all of them working together to find the answer to the colony’s problem.

How to Choose the Right Team Members

Louis assembled a skilled and qualified team, but qualifications weren’t the only...

Shortform Exercise: Identify Your Personality

Think about the five penguins on Louis’s team. Each of them has a different personality and skill set, and therefore a different role to play in tackling the problem.

Which of the penguins do you most identify with and why? You don’t have to identify completely with any one of them—for example, you could say that you’re 60% Buddy and 40% Fred.

Our Iceberg Is Melting Summary Step 3: Develop a Vision

Now that Louis has assembled the right penguins and turned them into a real team, they need to figure out what to do about the danger that the melting iceberg poses. In this part we’ll see how the team brainstorms solutions, and then comes up with short- and long-term plans.

(Shortform note: The Leadership Challenge combines this step and the next (Spread the Word) into a single principle: Be Inspirational. In other words, both your vision and the way you communicate it are part of inspiring your colleagues to make the change that your organization needs.)

The Visitor

The team of penguins started thinking about possible solutions to the expanding water inside the iceberg and also asked other penguins in the colony for suggestions. However, none of the ideas they came up with were practical.

Eventually, a passing seagull landed on the iceberg, and Buddy and the Professor went to speak to it. They learned that the gull was...

Our Iceberg Is Melting Summary Step 4: Spread the Word

Now that the team has an idea for how to save the colony, they need to get the other penguins onboard. In this chapter, we’ll see how Fred, Louis, and the others spread the word to the rest of the colony and build support for their vision.

Analysis: How to Get Your Team Onboard

The book The Leadership Challenge gives a seven-step process for getting others onboard with an idea. Let’s look at how these principles apply to the steps the colony leadership team takes to win the support of the other penguins:

Our Iceberg Is Melting Summary Step 5: Make People Feel Important

In this part of Our Iceberg Is Melting, we’ll see how the team deals with unexpected problems cropping up: everything from penguins losing their enthusiasm for a new lifestyle, to children having nightmares about moving.

They deal with these problems by making sure that everyone feels useful and important.

How to Show Employees You Value Them

If your employees feel like you value and respect them, they’ll be more likely to continue working for you and giving their best. They may even go out of their way to help solve problems within the organization, as the penguins do for their colony.

Four ways you can show your employees that you truly value them are:

• Personalize your conversations

  • Rather than just giving dry instructions and assessments in your day-to-day talks with your employees, let each one know why you value his or her work in your company. For example, if you have someone who’s exceptionally good at handling difficult clients, make sure to let her know that you’ve noticed that skill and that you appreciate it.

• **Demonstrate that other people...

Our Iceberg Is Melting Summary Step 6: Don’t Get Complacent

In the last two chapters of the fable, we’ll see both the short-term and long-term outcomes of the penguin colony’s vision. In the short term, the colony successfully moves to a new iceberg and settles on it, which could have been the end of the story.

However, we’ll also see that the colony doesn’t settle back into its old way of life. Scouts keep exploring, looking for new icebergs, and the penguins make sure they’re always ready to move again. In other words, the colony doesn’t slip back into dangerous complacency.

Looking to the future and identifying potential threats is part of the commonly used SWOT analysis: Before making any major change at your company, evaluate its Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats.

Blockbuster Video is a prime example of the dangers of complacency and underestimating potential threats. In 2000, the video rental giant had a chance to buy Netflix for only $50 million. However, Blockbuster’s CEO was complacent—he thought that Netflix was a harmless novelty,...

Shortform Exercise: Apply the Lessons

Our Iceberg is Melting is a fable—a story designed to teach the reader how to implement change. Now that you’ve finished reading it, consider how you can apply the lessons from this fable to your own life.

Can you identify a looming threat in your personal or professional life? In other words, what’s one “melting iceberg” that you’re currently facing?