Without additional context, the slide read something like this:

If we can get all our penguins, birds and chicks in alignment, we’ll be able to move forward smoothly.

It was a classic WTF moment; confused glances were exchanged around the room.

Welcome Back, Kotter

Turns out the senior leaders had recently held an offsite where they became acquainted with the work of John Kotter, including the book Our Iceberg Is Melting.  Kotter is regarded as an authority on leadership and change.

I no longer recall what exactly they were hoping to change, but do recall being intrigued – what about this book was (apparently) so inspiring?

I vowed to give it a thorough read, and did.  I also took time to acquire and read the (somewhat related) book Who Moved My Cheese?

Neither impressed me very much.

Capsule Summaries

In the bird book, an observant and forward-thinking penguin concludes that his community’s home iceberg is melting.  Initially ridiculed, avian opinion eventually sways in favor of relocating the colony, as the penguin overcomes skeptics and enlists the support of key allies.

The rodent book deals with residents living in a maze, reliant on a steady supply of cheese.  One day the cheese disappears, and they deal with the consequences, with varying degrees of denial and proactive behavior.

While the penguin book does offer a few strategies for leverage (recruit respected experts, build support from key leaders), I didn’t find either book particularly compelling. 

Nonetheless Inspiring

I shouldn’t downplay the overall usefulness of the literature, however. 

These books were uplifting in an indirect way, as they provided nearly endless material for satirical Photoshop modifications and whiteboard drawings (see book cover above right, and the picture to the right). 

So it would be a lie to imply that I did not find these books inspiring, though not for the reasons intended.

What’s the bottom line?  I found these books unhelpful or objectionable primarily for these reasons

• The fable format is patronizing
• A predetermined outcome is featured
• The struggle for change is not nuanced; it is for life or death

Patronizing

Both books employ a fable format, which I found patronizing.  You are not a human being pondering reasonable real life trade-offs; instead you are a bird or (worse) a rodent.

At least one review on Amazon compares the penguin book favorably to Animal Farm, which to me is puzzling.  In Animal Farm the animals are delightfully symbolic and ironic.  I’m unaware of penguin characteristics that lend themselves well to climate analysis or adaptability (excepting swimming and extreme tolerance to cold).  I will grant that rodents are symbolically opportunistic, though not in a particularly positive way.

In the end, I don’t feel the fable format lends value.  Rather the animals provide an unnecessary layer of abstraction from what might otherwise be a compellingly pragmatic story.

Predetermined Outcome

To complete the fable, the stories need a moral lesson.

As such, the outcomes are predetermined: the animals successfully adapt to change.  There is no room for ambiguity; to succeed, you must change.  Those who change, win.

What if instead one of the rodents ran ragged through the maze, failing to find cheese, eventually collapsing in despair and starvation in a dark, forgotten corner?  What if the cheese supply returned in its original location, better than ever before (the supplier had been on a brief trip to Europe, collecting artisanal cheeses)?

Perhaps the penguins’ dilemma is rooted more deeply than a single iceberg.  Global warming may doom their new home to the same fate, slightly delayed.  Just maybe, their selected strategy was misguided and even worse than staying put.

These possibilities are not part of the story.  In these books, change must happen, somehow.

In reality, it’s the nuanced consequences, and their associated risk, which makes implementing change challenging. 

For example, employees who gave up on Apple in 2004 to join the promising start-up that went belly up may well have believed at the time they were successfully implementing change management in their financial opportunities.

Life or Death

The message of these books is clear: you must change, or you will die.

Not only are the outcomes in these stories predetermined, but the consequences are as large as they can get – life or death.  Move or freeze.  Search or starve.

This of course is a ploy to raise the stakes to the greatest possible levels, inhibiting the possibility for contrary considerations. 

You’d have to be crazy to avoid changing, if you risk death as a result.  Everyone should get on board with that, right?

In reality, the change you’re likely looking to implement involves something less exciting like convincing a team to convert from C++ to Java.  Or you’re trying figure out whether to join the hot startup or let your remaining 25% of stock continue to vest.  No easy life-or-death scenarios here.

One can even imagine the manager thinking …

“I want my team to change, but they’re pushing back.  I’ll have them read this book, then they’ll realize they must change.  Or else they’ll die.  Maybe I’ll even kill them myself … “

Go Change It!

If you need to effect change, don’t hand out books – go make it happen! 

Impress on your colleagues that change is needed, and why.  Propose an improvement and explain why it’s better.  Get folks to agree to it, and follow up to make sure it happens.

If you’re looking to change the semantics of an optional field in JIRA, then an 8-step change process is almost certainly overkill.  But those guidelines are fairly sound and intuitive overall.

But you don’t need to read a silly animal book to understand them.

Once in a while, I read a book with unexpected overlap with my professional experience (which, of course, is part of the point). 

I’d like to share one I read recently. 

Path Between The Seas

The Path Between The Seas by David McCullough describes a good portion of the history of the construction of the Panama Canal.

It covers the early motivation to build the canal, efforts to build consensus, and stories of success and failure. 

There are additional fascinating details related to political, social and medical issues surrounding the endeavor.

When it comes to large engineering projects, there are few that top the Panama Canal.  But I’d like to distill a few details which seem to recur in projects regardless of scale.

Evangelizing

Ferdinand de Lesseps, having developed the Suez Canal, was instrumental in evangelizing support for the Panama Canal.

However, there’s some evidence that Lesseps’ evangelism was less affected by actual project status than it could have been.

There are some stories of him reporting progress substantially more favorably than he had observed firsthand, and also collecting estimates from expert subordinates and “adjusting” the estimates downward.

Hmm.

Lesson: charisma is an amplifier; projects need evangelists, but to be effective they need to be pointed in the right direction

Getting It Going

John Stevens was an early chief engineer during the second major phase of canal construction.  He was very hands-on and beloved by his workers for that among other reasons. 

Stevens really seemed to Get The Thing Going, and had the foresight to improve the industrial and medical infrastructure to the point that canal construction was actually feasible.  He pragmatically stated

… the problem is one of magnitude and not miracles.

Lesson: every project needs someone to turn the dream into reality

Building It

George Goethals followed John Stevens on the project.  He was not particularly well liked at first, but ultimately earned deep respect from his workers. 

Joseph Bishop, a New York reporter, recalled of Goethal’s relations with workers that

They were treated like human beings, not brutes, and they responded by giving the best service within their power

He brought organization, efficiency, and discipline to the project, and ultimately was the one who Built The Damn Thing.

Lesson: every project needs someone who can Build The Damn Thing

Simplicity

The construction of the Panama Canal featured advancements in engineering and medical science.  It was an early example of electrical control systems (and a major project for General Electric).

I’d like to highlight one feature that caught my attention from a work flow perspective.  It involves the central control panel for the canal.

From the book, pp 602-603

The genius of the system, however, was in the elaborate racks of interlocking bars concealed from view beneath the board.  For not only was the operator able to see the entire lockage process in miniature and in operation before him, but the switches were interlocking-mechanically.  Each had to be turned in proper sequence, otherwise it would not turn.

In brief, the control board implemented a mechanical state machine which rendered operator errors impossible. 

That is, designed to be inherently simple, bug-free and foolproof – I like it.

Lesson: it takes hard work to make things simple, yet is often worth the effort

This blog post is a reprise of an article originally written in September 2009.