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    Unavailable
    Our Iceberg Is Melting: Changing and Succeeding Under Any Conditions
    Unavailable
    Our Iceberg Is Melting: Changing and Succeeding Under Any Conditions
    Unavailable
    Our Iceberg Is Melting: Changing and Succeeding Under Any Conditions
    Audiobook2 hours

    Our Iceberg Is Melting: Changing and Succeeding Under Any Conditions

    Written by John Kotter and Holger Rathgeber

    Narrated by Oliver Wyman

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    The revised and updated tenth anniversary edition of the classic, beloved business fable that has changed millions of lives in organizations around the world.

    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.

    On an iceberg near the coast of Antarctica, 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 almost no one listens to him.

    The characters in the story--Fred, Alice, Louis, Buddy, the Professor, and NoNo--are like people you probably recognize in your own organization, including yourself. Their tale is one of resistance to change and heroic action, seemingly intractable obstacles and clever tactics for dealing with those obstacles. The penguins offer an inspiring model as we all struggle to adapt to new circumstances.

    Our Iceberg Is Melting is based on John Kotter's pioneer­ing research into the eight steps that can produce needed change in any sort of group. After finishing the story, you'll have a powerful framework for influencing your own team, no matter how big or small.

    This tenth anniversary edition preserves the text of the timeless story, together with new illustrations, a revised afterword, and a Q&A with the authors about the responses they've gotten over the past decade. Prepare to be both enlightened and delighted, whether you're already a fan of this classic fable or are discovering it for the first time. 

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateJan 19, 2016
    ISBN9780735286320
    Unavailable
    Our Iceberg Is Melting: Changing and Succeeding Under Any Conditions
    Author

    John Kotter

    John Kotter is the leadership and change guru at Harvard Business School. He is the author of eleven books that have been honoured or have become business bestsellers. Professor Kotter gives speeches and seminars at Harvard and around the world. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with his wife Nancy Dearman, daughter Caroline and son Jonathan.

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    Reviews for Our Iceberg Is Melting

    3.5/5

    204 ratings21 reviews

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      Another good book by John Kotter. A very quick read, but his points are will illustrated.
    • 1/5
      Wow, what an inane book. If I could give it zero stars on purpose I would. This is a fable-based retelling of some business guy's eight simple steps to change management. If you know anything about change management already, you can skip this one. If you don't know anything about change management... search it and read what you find. It'll probably be as sufficient a primer. While I appreciate the value of using stories to capture people's attention and make an impression when you're trying to convey a message, this story is so poorly written that I can't get over it. Listing the misogynistic tropes it uses would be tedious so I'll just say it's definitely not passing the Bechdel Test. Lesson learned: if you're going to write a piece of fiction with a moral, the fiction part has to actually work and be entertaining or nobody will care about your moral.I was assigned this reading for a work activity so I got it for free and even then I want the 30 mins of my life I spent reading this book back.
    • 2/5
      Our Iceberg is Melting by John Kotter follows the fable based business and self help genre books like those by Spencer Johnson. This one I did not find as entertaining. The theme itself is about change and the fable involves a community of Emporer penguins and how they need to implement and embrace change to move off their iceberg. It's a very short book but really it can be all summed up in the last 3 pages on the 8 step process to implement successful change. If you like these type of simple fable based books then you may want to give it a read.
    • 3/5
      Simplistic book on change management/realization. Good for someone being introduced to change management and organizational development for the first time.
    • 2/5
      a rewriting of Who moved my cheese only on an iceberg
    • 4/5
      Yet another work read and this one sticks in my mind. Probably as much for the entertainment value as the educational one. How to identify and work with those resistant to change (for whatever reason) without letting them, yourself, or your work get sidetracked.
    • 3/5
      That was a quick read... Kotter's theory of change management put into fable format. It was a fairly effective way to show the 8 steps of change. Of course, if you already know and understand the 8 steps, it's pretty predictable. LOL.
    • 4/5
      Fred is a curious emperor penguin in a penguin colony in Antarctica. One day, he discovers that their iceberg is showing signs of deterioration, and that it is in danger of melting or breaking into pieces. Fred manages to convince the Leadership Council of the problem, but how are they going to convince all of the other penguins?Well, they use John Kotter's Eight Steps to Change (of course, without realizing it) to show the other penguins the necessity for change. A cute, fun story with a moral.
    • 2/5
      I know that I should like this book and give it a good review but I didn't and I can't.I think I would have preferred Kotter's original book about change management without all the animal nonsense that is in this.This is the kind of book a manager goes out and buys for all their staff and says "Read this! It won't take you long. You'll have it finished by this afternoon/tonight!" And they'd be correct. It doesn't take long to read at all. So for goodness sake read it and have a discussion with me if you will.I just object to the use of "dumbing-down" or sugar-coating management speak. The analogy for me is lame (OMG I'm using teenager type words - it must have really touched a sensitive nerve in me!) What we're talking about here is change-management. In this "picture book for grown ups" we're presented with a fable about a group of penguins who are sitting on a melting iceberg. Where can they go? Will they listen to the wise lone penguin voice in the wilderness who says they have to go, when it would be so much more comfortable to stay (and all drown and witness their kids dying?????) Let's forget about the fact that penguins can swim. Let's forget about the fact that penguins can't talk. Just humour me for a second. If you are willing to suspend disbelief and go along with penguins being as silly as humans, then you would understand why I have a fundamental problem with this tale. It just doesn't ring true. Maybe I am too cynical. Maybe I am reading this too literally. I don't think so. I don't think I am like the very subtly (deep cynicism here folks) named "NoNo" character in the book. I just hate being spoken to as if I am a 3rd-grader. In this book we are to believe that all the penguins, if they cooperate and pull-together will re-locate to a better iceberg - every five years. Oh puhleeeeeezzzzz. Anyone who has been through change knows that not all the penguins get to go......and it's never another better iceberg. Animal Farm would be a better read at this point I think....a better iceberg for some.I'm not saying I object to change. I just wish someone would call it like it is for once. Be honest. Tell it like it is. Acknowledge that there will be collateral damage for the sake of the survival of the fittest and all that.What do you think? Am I a "NoNo". Should I read Kotter's other book?
    • 4/5
      Assigned reading for work!
    • 3/5
      Quick read. Read it in Dutch. This book tells a story about how a colony of penguins have to change drasticly and how they succeeed to do it. Some crucial roles are stereotyped and represented as individual penguins. The story is based on the principles of change management, described in another book by the same author 'Leading Change'.
    • 3/5
      A colleague lent me this and I put it in my travel bags - it makes for light airport reading when you're on a 20-hour trip from San Jose, Costa Rica to Newcastle after a week of meetings. It's a good summary of Kotter's theory on change leadership for the travelling braindead, and an easy way to get into Kotter if that's what you want.Bechdel: pass, in a token sort of way.
    • 2/5
      Use of a parable to demonstrate a point. A little cheesy - wish I hadn't bought it but not an absolute waste of time.
    • 5/5
      What a wonderful illustration of the power of story-telling. The authors use a parable about a colony of penguins who discover that their home is melting to illustrate how to lead and manage change within an organization. Easy to read, and written in a way that the messages are bound to stay with you. As a bonus, it is beautifully illustrated.
    • 4/5
      Along the lines of Who Moved My Cheese, a fast read using allegory of penguins whose iceberg is melting to set up the 8 step process of successful change in an organization.1. Create a sense of urgency2. Pull together the guiding team3. Develop the change vision and strategy4. Communicate for understanding5. Empower others to act6. Produce short-term wins7. Don't let up8. Create a new culture
    • 5/5
      I enjoy how they show how to understand and help others go about change!
    • 3/5
      A few valuable points and takeaways, but would have preferred a more straight forward guide without the fable.
    • 1/5
      The audio skips— did this happen to anyone else??
    • 3/5
      Full of platitudes, no new insights. Looks like they've read 10 management books about change, and then decided to put these in a short, fancy book. Can't understand why this is such a success book.
    • 2/5
      If Kotter thought that he could do Johnson (of Who Moved My Cheese), well, he failed. In efforts to make ideas into a fable, he ended up creating a hardly interesting numbingly childish story. That aside, information given about change management is fine. But then, I am hardly good receipient of management gyaan where obvious wisdom is passed on as ultimate truth. Steps of chage management? Create urgency, form team, create vision, communicate vision, empower people, get short-term win, don't give up, create new culture. There.
    • 5/5
      This is an important book, delivered through a short entertaining fable. Jack Welch said about organizations, “If the rate of change on the outside exceeds the rate of change on the inside, the end is near.” The rate of technological change today is staggering. Technology is enabling rapid changes in the way clients and customers consume and engage with information, media and content - along with the tools they use. This is impacting industries one by one (e.g. news industry vs user generated content, music/movie industry vs peer-to-peer download sites, traditional gaming industry vs social gaming applications...)Leading the same rate of change within organisations, to keep pace with the external environment, is an enormous challenge. We can learn a lot from the penguins in this story (who demonstrate Kotter's 8 steps to change management simply, clearly and with a staggering level of intelligence)!