Book Review: Who Moved MY Cheese?

This is the second of 3 book reviews that I am currently planning on doing, this book ‘Who Moved My Cheese?: An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and in Your Life?’ was written by Dr Spencer Johnson.

I picked up on this book through another blog I was reading but I can’t remember for the life of me whose blog it was and I haven’t been able to locate the post to give them credit, so if that’s you I am sorry, let me know and I will put a link back to your blog here. I was so struck by the concept of the book that I decide I must get hold of a copy and read it myself.

The book is essentially a parable, one that Dr Johnson came up with in his own head to help him deal with change in his own life and was passed on by word of mouth to several of his close, and extended circles of friends.

The book is billed as ‘One of the most successful business books ever’

The book itself is a rather strange one to be considered a business book, as it is essentially a make believe story, but it really can change how you think and indeed has been used with whole companies to change the atmosphere and culture of a whole workplace.

This book won’t take much of your time, it’s very thin, only 95 pages, and has got large print and lots of spaces, I am a slow reader yet managed to read this book in about an hour and a half, so I guess that it would be possible to read it in an hour if you tried hard enough.

The story centres around 2 mice, called Sniff & Scurry & 2 mice sized humans called Hem & Haw, who live in one of those labyrinth type mice cages, essentially it is the story of how they found contentment and security in a whole pile of cheese in a feeding station then the cheese ran out. The story then unfolds around the way they dealt with this change, with the mice immediately being prepared to run off in search of new cheese and the humans throwing a bit of a pity party and not wanting to go off looking for cheese. Expecting that the cheese will come back again, the parallel to today’s business world is pretty powerful.

The story goes on further as Haw eventually decides that he ought to go looking for new cheese and along the way learns a lot about himself, but he does eventually find the new cheese, the story ends rather curiously on a bit of a cliff hanger, as Haw & the Mice are enjoying the new cheese and then there are footsteps that could be Hem finding his way there as well but we don’t actually get to find out whether or not it was him! Leaves big question, did Hem leave the place of the old cheese, did he manage to find his way to the new cheese? Had he learnt anything along the way?

This story is a great read and has some real deep truths and hidden nuggets if you are prepared to read it with an open mind, at its base level it’s an amusing story that you could even read to young children and they would appreciate it, but it is also a very sophisticated and in-depth discussion on the need to foster a culture of embracing change and turning change to your advantage.

There is so much I could say but if I did it would spoil the book for you.

I would encourage anyone to read this whether you are a business person, sales rep, housewife, or whatever role you play in life, this will help you to think about how you relate to a changing world around you, whether that be change in your work environment, changes to your company’s product range, changing demands on you at home, or wherever the change occurs.

In today’s world we are seeing changes going on all around us at an incredible rate, especially with the continual development of emerging technologies, how we react to this change is key to whether we succeed in life or merely survive, or even worse, admit defeat.

The changing technology has had a dramatic impact on so much of our lives like, how we buy our products, how we pick up our news, how we relate to people, how we keep in touch and form our opinions, those who are ready for change will be able to take advantage of this by using new techniques to market themselves, re-invent their product range to encompass new technologies, take advantage of the phenomena of social networks, engage with customers, new and old. And that’s only talking about changes that have already taken place in the past few years.

Who knows whether there is another new BIG shift on its way, are we, are you prepared to keep an eye on future developments and take advantage of these changes to build your business? If not your likely to find yourself struggling and this book is a must read for you.

I don’t find change as difficult as many people, I am pretty ready to accept change but I still got a lot out of reading this book and want/need to go back and read it again at some stage.

So whether you find change easy or difficult this is a good read, even if you get nothing much out of it its certainly an amusing story that you could read to your children or grand children but I hope that it will be more than that and becomes something that you can use to leverage your own skills in adapting to change and an ever moving world.

This is the second of 3 book reviews that I am currently planning on doing, this book ‘Who Moved My Cheese?’ was written by Dr Spencer Johnson.

I picked up on this book through another blog I was reading but I can’t remember for the life of me whose blog it was and I haven’t been able to locate the post to give them credit, so if that’s you I am sorry, let me know and I will put a link back to your blog here.

The book is essentially a parable, one that Dr Johnson came up with in his own head to help him deal with change in his own life and was passed on by word of mouth to several of his close, and extended circles of friends.

The book is billed as ‘One of the most successful business books ever’

And is subtitled ‘An amazing way to deal with change in your work and in your life’

The book itself is a rather strange one to be considered a business book, as it is essentially a make believe story, but it really can change how you think and indeed has been used with whole companies to change the atmosphere and culture of a whole workplace.

This book won’t take much of your time, it’s very thin, only 95 pages, and has got large print and lots of spaces, I am a slow reader yet managed to read this book in about an hour and a half, so I guess that it would be possible to read it in an hour if you tried hard enough.

The story centres around 2 mice, called Sniff & Scurry & 2 mice sized humans called Hem & Haw, who live in one of those labyrinth type mice cages, essentially it is the story of how they found contentment and security in a whole pile of cheese in a feeding station then the cheese ran out. The story then unfolds around the way they dealt with this change, with the mice immediately being prepared to run off in search of new cheese and the humans throwing a bit of a pity party and not wanting to go off looking for cheese. Expecting that the cheese will come back again, the parallel to today’s business world is pretty powerful.

The story goes on further as Haw eventually decides that he ought to go looking for new cheese and along the way learns a lot about himself, but he does eventually find the new cheese, the story ends rather curiously on a bit of a cliff hanger, as Haw & the Mice are enjoying the new cheese and then there are footsteps that could be Hem finding his way there as well but we don’t actually get to find out whether or not it was him! Leaves big question, did Hem leave the place of the old cheese, did he manage to find his way to the new cheese? Had he learnt anything along the way?

This story is a great read and has some real deep truths and hidden nuggets if you are prepared to read it with an open mind, at its base level it’s an amusing story that you could even read to young children and they would appreciate it, but it is also a very sophisticated and in-depth discussion on the need to foster a culture of embracing change and turning change to your advantage.

There is so much I could say but if I did it would spoil the book for you.

I would encourage anyone to read this whether you are a business person, sales rep, housewife, or whatever role you play in life, this will help you to think about how you relate to a changing world around you, whether that be change in your work environment, changes to your company’s product range, changing demands on you at home, or wherever the change occurs.

In today’s world we are seeing changes going on all around us at an incredible rate, especially with the continual development of emerging technologies, how we react to this change is key to whether we succeed in life or merely survive, or even worse, admit defeat.

The changing technology has had a dramatic impact on so much of our lives like, how we buy our products, how we pick up our news, how we relate to people, how we keep in touch and form our opinions, those who are ready for change will be able to take advantage of this by using new techniques to market themselves, re-invent their product range to encompass new technologies, take advantage of the phenomena of social networks, engage with customers, new and old. And that’s only talking about changes that have already taken place in the past few years.

Who knows whether there is another new BIG shift on its way, are we, are you prepared to keep an eye on future developments and take advantage of these changes to build your business? If not your likely to find yourself struggling and this book is a must read for you.

I don’t find change as difficult as many people, I am pretty ready to accept change but I still got a lot out of reading this book and want/need to go back and read it again at some stage.

So whether you find change easy or difficult this is a good read, even if you get nothing much out of it its certainly an amusing story that you could read to your children or grand children but I hope that it will be more than that and becomes something that you can use to leverage your own skills in adapting to change and an ever moving world.

[houdini]