What Was He Thinking?

HOT READS FOR THE PRACTIONER

Title: Our Iceberg is Melting

Competency: change management

Who benefits: hard to say

Consultant Usage: none

What’s it about?  Have you ever noticed how book reviewers typically have three responses to a book?  They praise it highly.  Or they describe the book neutrally.  Or they damn it with faint praise.  At least that is the way I operate.  Up until now. 

I don’t remember when I have read a book review that described a book as awful.  Here goes: Our Iceberg is Melting by John Kotter is awful.

Why even bother with a review?  Well, first of all, the book is awful.  So if you haven’t picked it up yet, don’t waste your time.  Notice that today I am not even providing a link.  But more importantly I am writing this review because it represents the total descent of one of my all time heroes. 

I like throwing myself little challenges.  One that I have done before is to ask myself  “Self – that’s the name I call me – who are your three favorite all time professional authors.”  After much though and over time my top three are (were) Peter Drucker, Rosabeth Moss Kanter, and John Kotter.  Kanter’s recent books haven’t been of the same highest quality as her earlier work, but she still is eminently readable and debatable.  But Kotter made a complete descent overnight.

Kotter’s work on leadership and change has been outstanding – until now.  Leading Change and What Leaders Really Do were books that I devoured for myself and gave copies to coworkers, friends and clients.  So what processed him to jump into the Fable business is beyond me.  A caption for a drawing in his book reads: “This is Fred.  He is watching the sea.”  And that, unfortunately, is a good as it gets.

I am not against Fables.  Gosh I thoroughly enjoyed and recommended Who Moved My Cheese a few years ago.  I even enjoy an occasional fable about penguins – B. J. Gallagher Hateley’s thinly veiled stab at the Los Angeles Times in A Peacock in the Land of Penguins, comes to mind…and it has sold over 300,000 copies.

So is Kotter so tired or out of ideas that he can’t even come up with an original fable?  Okay, I am angry because I feel let down.  Heroes can do that to you.  He has a new book out now on Urgency.  Maybe he has redeemed himself.  But, you know what, I don’t even have the energy (or urgency) to find out.  That’s what happens when you lose your reputation. 

And in truth, there is a larger story here.  It is about great researchers and/or great writers who eventually burn out but keep writing anyway.  Some slowly fade away…or should I pun and say write into the sunset.

Others drop off fast and start writing fables about penguins and whales and such.  (PS: Another clue of the fast fade – great author adds a “co-author”.  See it all the time in fiction…but it happens to the professionals too.  Hint: Iceberg has three authors and an illustrator!) 

Well, I have other things to do.  Hope you do too.  Catch you later.

 

[tags]book reviews, change management, leadership, john kotter, bill bradley, william bradley, bradley[/tags]

Bill Bradley

Bill Bradley (mostly) retired after 35 years in organizational consulting, training and management development. During those years he worked internally with seven organizations and trained and consulted externally with more than 90 large and small businesses, government agencies, hospitals and schools.