Years ago when I was a student hit by the initial waves of change happening in urban India, I was given a book by one of my all time gurus..a book that tells the story of a seagull that wanted to fly – Jonathan Livingstone Seagull by Richard Batch. I am not sure if it is a coincidence or my guru realized that we are going into an increasingly changing world and to face it we need to be armed with lessons to be different and face all kinds of difficulties to achieve what we want. It has changed the way I thought and reacted.
When we reached the thick of change being a part of the evolving software industry in India I faced the situation of inability to understand the change that may come and react to the same. I found Spenser Johnson’s Who Moved My Cheese?.
While going through the blues of middle management and not finding which way will bring deliverance I found an all time classic Sidhdharth by Herman Hesse.
Now when I am moving into my first level leadership role and learning the lessons of working on strategies and handling large groups of people to achieve business success I was hit by the challenge of changing people to orient them towards the expected performances – in a nutshell demanding excellence from the team. This needs change of mindset which can be achieved only with a strong action plan..I started reading Leading Change and started looking at the eight step process to achieve the same. That is the time I found this new book ‘Our Iceberg Is Melting’. This book reflected the eight step process in a subtle way to impact each reader even without knowing the eight step process. In addition, it has provided lessons of different behaviour patterns of leadership and each one leading to different success. Each character Louis, Alice, Buddy, Fred and the Professor represent five different characteristics required to make a complete personality. Each one of us need to be level headed and show ability to take responsibility like Louis at the same time we also need to be go getters like Alice. The humility of Buddy, Inquisitiveness of Fred and the Intellect of the Professor will make each one of us a complete personality.
It is a book that offers both direct and subtle messages. Using the eight principles discussed we can achieve the required impact and change from our teams. In addition we will learn excellent leadership lessons to handle crisis and creating crisis situation – sense of urgency to attack critical problems normally we keep ignoring for ever.