Iceberg is melting

Author: John Kotter (USA), Holger / Country: Mainland China
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-08-01
Features: Problem? What's the problem? Over the next few days, Alice contacted all members of the leadership team, including Penguin King Louis. She hoped they could take the same route as she and Fred had taken. Most members of the leadership team listened carefully to her story but remained skeptical. Was Alice facing some personal issue, perhaps a crisis in her marriage? No one showed any interest in the suggestion of swimming to the giant black hole. A few members of the leadership team didn’t even have time to meet Alice. They said they had more important things to do. They were dealing with a complaint from a somewhat noisy penguin who claimed another penguin was making faces behind him (this was a bit suspicious, as penguins don’t make faces). They were also debating whether the weekly meeting should last two hours or two and a half hours. Some people spoke in a rambling manner, while others were decisive and efficient, making this a point worth arguing about. Alice suggested that Penguin King Louis invite Fred to attend the next leadership meeting so he could have a chance to express his views. "After you’ve told me everything about Fred, of course, I’d be very happy to hear his perspective," the penguin king said tactfully. However, Louis didn’t set aside time for Fred to make a statement. Fred wasn’t very well-known among the penguins and had never spoken in front of the leaders before. But Alice was very persistent, reminding her leaders that sometimes they had to take risks. "You’ve always been so full of adventure." This statement was more or less true, and the penguin king was quite pleased to hear such flattery from Alice (though her motives were obvious). The penguin king agreed to let Fred attend the meeting. So Alice invited Fred. To prepare for the meeting with the leaders, Fred wanted to write a speech. He planned to use numbers to make his point, listing how much their home had shrunk, how many waterways and narrow holes had been filled with water, how many cracks were directly caused by melting icebergs, and so on. But when he asked older penguins in the kingdom about the "Group of Ten," he learned: