business – Migo Aguado

Growing up, I was exposed to Wyeth’s successful marketing campaign for their formula milk, Promil. The Promil kids seemed to have become a benchmark of an entire generation in having a head start and are expected to be successful in their respective fields. Some kids, now all grown-up, have chosen a path different from how they were depicted in the television commercials, albeit still thriving in their own right. While I don’t know what transpired during their teenage years, the Promil kids might have the chance to do other endeavors, termed the “sampling period” by American Journalist David Epstein in his book Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World (2019).

E-books have been my preferred book format since I got my first Kindle a few years ago. However, I still have many unread paperbacks at home, and I randomly choose a title to read inside a sauna. One title intrigued me not because of its title but because of its material–it’s glossy and could be water-resistant, perfect for probable wet conditions inside a humid place. Little did I know that I already encountered the author in one of my courses back in graduate school: John Kotter. Our Iceberg Is Melting: Changing and Succeeding Under Any Conditions (2006) is a book by management gurus Holger Rathgeber and John Kotter that transforms Kotter’s Eight Step Process of Successful Change into a visual, compelling, and engaging fable. According to the authors, fables can be powerful because they can take intimidating subjects to more discussable and memorable formats. True enough, the book did not contain any frameworks you can find in business school case rooms. Instead, you can find highly visual and entertaining illustrations of the characters in the fable: penguins.

Tag: business

Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World

Our Iceberg Is Melting