Our Iceberg Is Melting : Changing And Succeeding Under Any Conditions

Foreword by Spenser Johnson: One the surface, the story of this book appears to be a fable that is relatively easy to grasp, but it does subtly impart an invaluable lesson on change. The book covers John Kotter’s Eight Steps to bring about successful organizational change and can be equally useful for a high-school student as it is for a CEO of a multi-national organization.

Step 2 is forming a powerful guiding coalition. Leadership will have to be on board and on the same page in regards to the change. Kotter and Cohen reveal the core problems people face when leading change. Their main findings are that the central issue concerns not structure or systems but behavior and how to alter it (Farris, 2008). The success of the changes will depend on the ability of the managers to show their commitment to change and motivate the employees to do the same. Without any process to track the implementation, the change can also fail.

This course has taught me a lot in terms of initiating and managing change, and Kotter’s eight-stage process is a very useful approach when it comes to making changes within an organization. This course has helped me strengthen my skills in overcoming barriers that tend to get and make it difficult to

Organizations must respond to their internal and external environment. Therefore, organizational success heavily relies on leaderships ability to manage change. Unfortunately, many leaders struggle to effectively lead change initiatives. In fact, Ashkenas (2013, para. 1) reported 60 – 70% of organizational change initiatives fail to meet their objectives.

Leadership is critical when executing a strategic change initiative. By differentiating leadership and management, leadership styles and the key factors of change we can better understand what should be done to successfully lead change. Success is not obtained through leadership alone but by developing a group of individuals from all levels of the organization who work together as a team. . (Leban and Stone, 2007)

The book The Heart of Change shows the practical side of the theories that are taught in the course textbook. It presents stories of successes and failures based in the application of concepts discussed in Organizational Behavior and Management and in class. Although we talked about several different concepts the ones that are evident in the examples in The Heart Of Change are the more progressive and individual centered approaches. The leadership characteristics that are important to successful change in an organization are those that are espoused in the transformational theory of management. It makes sense that ideals in line with the transformational management theory

Change is a double-edged sword (Fullan, 2001). Change is a word that might inspire or put fear into people. Leadership is challenging when it comes to dealing with change and how individuals react within the organization to the change. Marzano, McNulty, and Waters (2005) discuss two orders of change in their book School Leadership that Works; first and second. Fullan (2001) also adds to the discussion in his book Leading in a Culture of Change, with regard to understanding change. In Change Leadership, Keagan and Wagner (2006) discuss many factors of change and the systematic approach to change. Change affects people in different ways. Leaders need to be able to respond to the individuals throughout the change process.

In order to examine this issue further, this research will look at a number of different sources. Contemporary managerial sources are explored in order to understand how other voices in the field are describing similar methods for change. First, popular structures for change management are examined, especially within their correlation to Palmer & Dunford (2009). This is followed with an extensive

Climate Change is the tip of the iceberg, and the effects stand to be catastrophic to all reliant on the earth’s atmosphere. Climate change, considered by sceptics to be nothing more than a series of natural phenomenon, refers to long-term alterations in the earth’s climate; warming average atmospheric temperatures through greenhouse gas emission. Climate change affects terrestrial and aquatic species through altered life cycle patterns, diminishing resources, crop damage through an increase in pests, and noxious plant varieties, and habitat degradation. Melting polar glaciers have caused significant temperature change affecting sea levels, damaging essential marine systems and weather conditions. However, adopting sustainable business practices and eco-friendly products can lessen the damage and offer solutions to past deficiencies in business practices and products producing high emissions contributing to the 'greenhouse effect '.

One strength good leaders bring is to switch their leadership styles depending on the situation (Darling & Heller, 2012). This is like situational leadership and it is important in organizational change as well. Situational Leadership is a model designed by Dr. Paul Hershey in the 1960s which focuses on how managers can develop competencies to diagnose, adapt, communicate, and advance the situation they are in (The Center for Leadership Studies, n.d.). Hershey stresses the importance of relationship of the approach of the leader and the readiness of the followers for a specific task (The Center for Leadership Studies, n.d.). This is the same as a change manager. Although dominant forces are often the initial go-to for change managers, good change managers must assess the situation and apply the needed ideal change manager to the situation. Because of this, regardless of the dominant change manager, it behooves an effective organizational leader to understand the different images of change and how they can influence a change’s successful

John Kotter, the author of the well known book “Our Iceberg is Melting: Changing and Succeeding under Any Conditions “, taught for more than thirty years at Harvard Business School. Kotter could be considered an expert in the field of business with his many years of experience. After retiring from teaching, he then founded Kotter International and has spent his time assisting others in the area of implementing changes. He, like many others before him, observed the challenges that many businesses, organizations, and other institutions faced when trying to make changes. Over the years he observed that changes are not easily implemented or accepted because people in

In the review of the book, “Making Change Work: Practical Tools for Overcoming Human Resistance to Change,” I decided to summarize the major steps the book establishes. It discusses how to begin the change process by understanding your need for change, to the final step of the change process where an organization needs to implement changes. After summarizing the steps, I am going to show how the book relates to the textbook, Organizational Change: An Action-Oriented Toolkit, as well as giving a managerial implication.

As defined by Katzenbach (1995), change leadership is “the process whereby individuals who lead initiatives that influence dozens to hundreds of others to perform differently—and better—by applying multiple leadership and change approaches.” Leadership alone is defined as setting a direction and developing the strategies necessary to move in that direction – that is, creating and achieving a vision – leadership is thus a process to do with change (Kotter 1999). Change leadership is critically important to the continuing success of organizations everywhere. Tennant Company understands and invests in change leadership by employing a Sr. Organization Development Manager named Annelise Larson, M.B.A. whose efforts includes setting direction, developing strategies, and leading initiatives through organizational change efforts. An interview was conducted with Annelise Larson to discuss and learn about her change leadership abilities. For the purposes of this paper, the interview questions will be shared, a summary will be provided, and five recommendations are made for Annelise Larson as a change leader.

In order to move forward and keep ahead, I believe an organization need change leaders who have capabilities to have their workforce go from change avoidance to change acceptance. “One of the most significant strengths of an effective leader is the ability to create a positive work climate where people are energized to do their best work, free of unnecessary distractions” (Cronkite, n.d.). During this part of the change process I feel the change leader would have better success if he would be tactful and harness the skills of others by working in a collaborative rather than hierarchical way. Leadership in an organization involves instilling motivation and enthusiasm in the employees. An effective leader knows how to manage and tackle difficult situations and people. Many reasons can cause a force of change in organizations but I feel it’s up to change leaders to manage these planned and unexpected changes. (Word count: 548)

However, people will not get out of their “comfort zone” without being motivated. This leads to the second error by leaders, which is not creating a powerful enough guiding coalition. Regardless of the size of the organization, the change effort should continually grow to include more and more people who believe that the changes are necessary (Kotter).