Our Iceberg Is Melting: Changing and Succeeding Under Any Conditions

“Where they lived, a waste of energy kills. Everyone in the colony knew they needed to huddle together to survive. So they had learned to depend on each other. They often behaved like a big family (which, of course, can be both good and bad).”

Penguins must work together to stay alive. This encourages them to be organized as a group. Groups, however, have advantages and drawbacks, and sometimes a group can hinder its own well-being, as the author foreshadows here.

“An iceberg that suddenly collapsed into many pieces would be a disaster for the penguins, especially if it occurred during the winter in a storm. Many of the older and younger birds would surely die. Who could say what all the consequences would be? Like all unthinkable events, there was no plan for how to deal with such a catastrophe.”

Crises are rare, and groups often don’t prepare for them; also, disasters are painful to think about. Long-term stability, meanwhile, makes members believe their group is immortal. If one or a few people call that comforting belief into question, they will slam into a wall of objections and find themselves isolated and ignored.

“Icebergs are not like ice cubes. The bergs can have cracks inside called canals. The canals can lead to large air bubbles called caves. If the ice melts sufficiently, cracks can be exposed to water, which would then pour into the canals and caves. During a cold winter, the narrow canals filled with water can freeze quickly, trapping water inside the caves. But as the temperature goes lower and lower, the water in the caves will also freeze. Because a freezing liquid dramatically expands in volume, an iceberg could be broken into pieces.”

The iceberg’s structural troubles symbolize problems that might crop up with any organization. Cracks can form in a group’s beliefs, operating standards, or flagship product. Stresses can form from outside pressures such as increased competition, tough new regulations, or changing needs and customs in a society. The icy water that seeps into the iceberg’s fissures thus stand in for problems we all face from time to time. The means by which the penguins solve their iceberg problem will also work on tough situations humans face every day.