lap0530's Full Review: Spencer Johnson - Who Moved My Cheese
Who Moved My Cheese?
Spencer Johnson, M.D., co-author with Kenneth Blanchard of "The One Minute Manager," has written a deceptively simple parable of personal and organizational change. While the small book takes only an hour or so to read, the lessons are profound.
As society is faced with increasing rates of change and more unexpected changes, the lessons of "Who Moved My Cheese?" are like handwriting on the wall. Perhaps readers will be annoyed or disappointed that the lessons are so simple and obvious. The annoyance and disappointment, however, may really arise from the fact that people have failed to learn and practice the lessons of change.
Life is a Maze
The book introduces four primary characters, two mice (Sniff and Scurry) and two "little people," Hem and Haw, who live in a Maze. The mice operate on the basis of instinct. But the little people are much like big people, and use their complex human brains to formulate hypotheses, make assumptions, and solve problems.
The story is introduced in the context of a lunch gathering of former high school classmates on the day after their reunion. As the friends compare notes, they realize that they've all faced changes. One of them tells a "funny little story" that changed the way he looked at change.
The Story
Sniff, Scurry, Hem, and Haw look for Cheese in the Maze to sustain them and make them happy. Cheese is of course a metaphor for what people (and mice) seek in life, and the Maze represents the organizations, communities, and families in which people seek fulfillment.
The mice used their simple rodent brains to sniff out and locate cheese. The little people used their complex brains with beliefs, assumptions, and human emotions to search for Cheese with a capital C--that which would make them feel happy and successful.
All four characters eventually located the Cheese they were seeking in Cheese Station C. From that point forward, they put their running shoes on each morning and headed for the Cheese Station.
But one day, there was no Cheese in the Cheese Station. The mice immediately set off in search of more cheese. To them the situation and the solution were both simple. Someone had moved the cheese, so they had to change locations.
The little people, however, reacted very differently. They had taken for granted that Cheese would always be there, and were unprepared for its absence. They objected to the unfairness of it all. They wanted to know who had moved the Cheese, and they kept looking around the cheeseless Cheese Station to see if the Cheese really was gone. Hem and Haw continued to, well, hem and haw.
The next day, the little people returned, still somehow expecting to find their Cheese. Thinking that someone was playing a trick on them, they knocked a hole in the wall to see if the Cheese was hidden. Finally, Haw began to laugh at himself. He realized that although he'd have to look for new Cheese someplace else in the Maze, he certainly wasn't going to find it in the same old place as before.
So Haw put on his running gear and eventually found the new (and even better) Cheese in Cheese Station N. There he was reunited with the mice, whose instincts had led them there much sooner. Haw came to realize that change happens, whether one is prepared for it or not, and that one must be ready to move when the Cheese is moved.
The story ends with a summary of the lessons Haw learned, and the hope that Hem would eventually wake up and move with the Cheese, too.
Summarizing The Lessons of Change
Johnson uses the device of "handwriting on the wall," to present the lessons of change. As Haw gathers insights, he stops and jots them down on the walls of the maze for others to see. The major points summarized at the end of the book are:
• Change Happens--They Keep Moving the Cheese
• Anticipate Change--Get Ready for the Cheese to Move
• Monitor Change--Smell the Cheese Often So You Know When it is Getting Old
• Adapt to Change Quickly
• Change--Move with the Cheese
• Enjoy Change
• Be Ready to Change Again
Evaluation
The CEO of my company gave each associate a copy of this book in recognition of the 25th anniversary of the company. I immediately sat down and read the book from cover to cover. It was fascinating and engaging like other management parables such as Byham & Cox's "Zapp--The Lightning of Empowerment." Less than an hour later, I was finished with the small volume, but I expect to re-read it many times, as well as to share the lessons with my clients and coworkers.
The four characters represent parts of each of us as we face unexpected change. Our instinctive natures tell us when conditions change and urge us to make adjustments. But our more human nature wants to know not only WHO moved the Cheese, but WHY. Humans are often caught in denial and resistance that make adapting to change difficult.
This book is simple without being simplistic and both timely and timeless. One major problem with all such management nostrums is that they are long on the why and short on the how. "Who Moved My Cheese?" convinces the reader to embrace change (or at least to accept it), but gives no real method for doing so.
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