“Ready, Fire, Aim”

It’s the reverse of a cliché.

And like most cliche’s there’s some truth to it.

There’s a tendency in business and in life not to plan, but to take whatever moves and shoot at it without even understanding what it is.

And it’s not necessary because the truth in life and in business is that we schedule things. We schedule installation times; we schedule service events months ahead of time. We schedule our doctor and dentist appointments.

Businesses that take the time to schedule, to figure out what they want to do, are more successful than other businesses I’ve seen.

So, Plan to plan!

 Some with interesting methods for improvement in business or self.

When I find a book that you should read, I’ll share.

Here is one.

Our Iceberg Is Melting

Changing and Succeeding Under any Conditions

By John Kotter

Nope, neither Climate Change Alarmists nor Climate Change Deniers are the focus of this book.

See, this book is a fable. It’s not real. It’s about penguins not people.

Well, this story is about penguins who kinda act like people.

That’s beside the point. 

Nope, that’s not right, it is the point.

Fred was a penguin who was bit of an odd bird. While diving, under their colony’s iceberg he made the discovery of a cave that shouldn’t have been there. This cave was caused by iceberg erosion which would undermine the integrity of everything, break the iceberg apart killing a lot of penguins and nobody but Fred knew it existed.

How will Fred get other penguins to believe him and feel a ‘sense of urgency’?

What can they do to fight those who don’t want to change?

Is there a strategy that will allow the colony to not only survive but, flourish?

Well, this is a fable so, of course, many good things occur, they live happily ever after and as everyone knows that isn’t the way it is in ‘real life’. It’s just a good story to tell.

John Kotter, the author, and storyteller, writes on page 126:

“The End

(of the story, but not the book)”

In the following 21 pages, Kotter, shows us that there are connections between Penguins and People.

He believes we can apply ‘lessons learned’ on the ‘berg’ to the ‘business of life’.

Beginning on page 130 we see ‘The Eight Step Process of Successful Change’ and two pages later we can explore the roles of ‘Thinking and Feeling’.

This relatively short book reflects accurately my experience of being a ‘Change Agent’ for the past thirty years.

It’s deceitful simplicity masks and then reveals the complexity of change and is best visited several times.