Preview

Book Review: Our Iceberg Is Melting

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1015 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Book Review: Our Iceberg Is Melting
Our Iceberg is Melting: Changing and Succeeding Under Any Conditions

John Kotter and has produced a great book that contains a wealth of wisdom and insight. While it looks and reads like a simple book, it is anything but simple. The message which Kotter is able to make clear goes much deeper than the surface story of a colony of penguins in search of answers pertaining to their survival on an iceberg. He easily describes a scenario through a penguin colony that any person can relate to and think about in a more in-depth manner.
The fable is entertaining and interesting and deals with how a penguin colony deals with change that has become inevitable if they are to survive. The story revolves around a penguin colony in Antarctica living on an iceberg. The iceberg has developed cracks through which sea water has seeped in and collected inside cavities deep within the iceberg. This obviously is threatening to the penguin's colony and current living situation. The problem with the iceberg is found by a penguin named Fred who conveys the information to his boss, Alice. Alice informs her superior Louis who calls a meeting of the other Leadership Council heads. How the colony of penguins headed by Louis manages to save themselves from a possible collapse of the iceberg is by using the eight steps of change presented by the author. The main idea of the fable is in observing the different types of penguins, how they respond to the crisis and the various dynamics among them. The storyline is so simple, yet so deep, that it will capture your interest and keep it. The book takes the penguin characters and gives them the personalities that you would expect to come across in the business world everyday. Kotter did not leave many personalities out; I could imagine actual people I know in some of the roles of each penguin. There is one that does not listen very well – This could unfortunately be any co-worker or even your boss. There is one older penguin who is

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Stories of survival at sea have captured people’s curiosity and imagination throughout history. The struggles that some seafarers have faced while drifting on the open sea are remarkable. “The Open Boat” by Stephen Crane is the story of four crew members trying to survive on the open sea while in a dinghy after their ship sank. Throughout the story, Crane describes how man and nature react with one another. By his description of their reactions, Crane makes it clear that nature does not care about man’s well being.…

    • 753 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the movie Happy Feet, while Mumble and the Amigo’s skulk the icy ground, long and extreme long shots are used to show the deserted penguins making their way to their destination. The immense seriousness of this journey doesn’t stop them from continuing to have fun, making jokes and playing with one another. The extreme long shot shows the significance of the Antarctic region, in comparison to…

    • 638 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Navigating Early

    • 1990 Words
    • 8 Pages

    * After his mother’s death the young Jack Baker is uprooted from his home in Kansas and is placed in a boarding school in Maine. At the boarding school he feels lost and out of place. While trying to impress the boys and find a place in his school, he can’t help but be drawn to one of the misfits, Early Auden. Early is one of the strangest of boys, who reads the number pi as a story and collects clippings about the sightings of a great black bear in the nearby mountains. When Early decides to set out to find Pi and the black bear in his brother’s boat, the legendary “Fish”, Jack decides to join him. Through the course of their journey the boys begin to realize that Early’s story for Pi is starting to become reality as they come in contact with characters like pirates searching for treasure, a Norwegian still pining for his first love, and a 100 year old women still waiting for her son to come home. The irony of the story is that all 3 boys, Jack, Early and Pi, lost their direction in life and through their journeys they find a way to navigate their way back.…

    • 1990 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    • The boys on the island progress from well-behaved, orderly children longing for rescue to cruel, bloodthirsty hunters who have no desire to return to civilization, they lose the innocence that they had at the beginning of the novel. Ralph is the ‘voice of reason’, he is the character in the novel that brings safety and comfort to the littluns, and he is the only one whom keeps order and justice between the boys.…

    • 484 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Popsicle Cycle Analysis

    • 739 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Some of their other pieces, including Tip of the Iceberg and Against the Tide are more directly related to the environment in terms of their subject matter. Tip of the Iceberg features 6 pink ceramic penguins standing packed on a white MDF iceberg, and Against the Tide portrays a ceramic polar bear with black feet standing on shipping pallets. These are blatant references to the environment and the consequences of humankind’s involvement. This is especially true of Against the Tide — the shipping pallets and the black stains on the bear’s feet relate to the BP oil spill, and event that negatively affected the environment, and was the fault of human beings. The artists also said themselves in an interview that, “The pieces Enjoy it…While it Lasts, Get ‘em ‘fore They’re Gone and Eat Your Heart Out are all meant to be considered within a broader context that demonstrates the important interconnectedness between human appetites and the implications that these appetites have on our environment” (Interview with Artists Timothy John Berg and Rebekah Myers). The artists’ intended for this piece to be about the consequences of humans acting upon the…

    • 739 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Cited: White, E.B. “Once More to the Lake”. The Seagull Reader: Essays. Ed. Joseph Kelly. 2nd ed.…

    • 1080 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Best Essays

    Canadas Emerging Identity

    • 1623 Words
    • 7 Pages

    [5] Robert Bothwell, The Penguin History of Canada (Toronto, ON: Penguin Group (Canada), 2006) 268.…

    • 1623 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Best Essays
  • Good Essays

    Kelly, Joseph. The Seagull Reader - Stories. 2nd ed. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2008. 215-21. Print.…

    • 855 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Open Boat: a Response

    • 755 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The story is drawn out to be an adventure between what starts off as a group of four men tackling the five oceans, and what later becomes a battle for survival as these men become true comrades. These men must not only work together to arrive at their final destination, but to legitimately stay alive. “It was more than a mere recognition of what was best for the common safety. There was surely it in a quality that was personal and heartfelt.” (Crane, pg. 1004)It didn’t have to be said aloud. It was a mutual feeling that every individual aboard the small raft felt, but instead preferred to keep it to themselves in order to not bring any disturbance to the concentration that they were putting into this voyage. The captain was treated with the utmost respect due to his position, but he never made it a fact to display his superiority above his companions.…

    • 755 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    A pack of boys crash-land on a desolate island and are left to survive on their own without the influence of society. After the boys struggle with their animal nature the protagonist, Ralph, gazes at the ocean and contemplates their deteriorating civilization. Golding expresses the idea that the boys will not be rescued from the island because of their savage nature through the use of personification, syntax, and juxtaposition.…

    • 756 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “When we were able to swim to shore I, as well as many others, didn’t quite grasp the severity of our situation,” says Ralph, one of the older boys that was first to be rescued, “Well how could we at such a young age. Even after several months of being on the island, many of the boys still didn’t grasp that it wasn’t just another adventure”.…

    • 849 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Ralph is the elected leader of the group and as their leader his first role was to learn the islands geographical landmarks. “Ralph’s left the perspectives of palm and beach and water drew to a point at infinity; and always, almost visible, was the heat” (10). Ralph clearly sees the importance of the role given to him and decides to map out the island as a starting point as the group’s survival leader. During this voyage, Ralph leads a small set of boys up to the mountain of the island to grasp a better perspective of the island. Ralph tackles his geographical obstacles with his wit and his will to ensure the survival of the…

    • 925 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Book Review

    • 418 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The book is associated with the other five Wolves of the Beyond books Lone Wolf, Shadow Wolf, Watch Wolf, Spirit Wolf, and Star Wolf.…

    • 418 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Feeling destitute and alone, stranded on an island, a group of boys are shown fighting internal battles in whether to help one another, or fend for themselves. Each boy is described as determined to do what they feel is right to survive. In implementing a number of survival strategies, the boys persevere through disagreement and lack of trust in one another to pursue what they see as the right thing to do. William Golding perfectly illustrates the good and evil in these humanly traits, among many others.…

    • 339 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Symbolism In The Open Boat

    • 1190 Words
    • 5 Pages

    In grouping the men together in the lifeboat and creating a society on the micro level, Crane establishes one of man’s greatest inventions, society in itself, pitting it against a harsh, merciless nature. When faced with the rough, murky sea. This allows the men in the lifeboat to start grouping together because they begin to understand that society is the greatest resistance against the indifference of nature.…

    • 1190 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays