Our Iceberg Is Melting: Changing and Succeeding Under Any Conditions

When a crisis strikes, groups that stubbornly hold on to outmoded approaches risk losing everything. Such resistance to change can stymie efforts to solve a crisis. Innovators must find ways to calm fears and inspire members to embrace needed change.

Groups form habits and traditions because they protect and nurture successes. Like the penguins in the story, successful groups can become complacent and expect past wins always to be repeated in the future: “Tradition dies a hard death. Culture changes with as much difficulty in penguin colonies as in human colonies” (116). The chief cause of resistance to change is that most group members get used to the way things are and don’t want to go to the trouble of changing those ways.

They have a point: Change can be costly in time, effort, resources, and risk. Costs of a migration, for example, can be especially high: For the penguin colony, the proposed move to a new iceberg involves the dangers of a major sea crossing, with the risk of death ever-present. Beyond a certain point, though, avoiding direct action to resolve a crisis can be more deadly than taking the risks of change.