Who Moved My Cheese?: An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and in Your Life

My husband just received this book as a birthday gift and as I was cleaning up from the party the title caught my attention. I picked it up and 45 minutes later I am finding myself writing my first online review of a book. It gives such a positive outlook on the always inevitable change that everyone is bound to encounter. The lessons are ones which we all know in our hearts but so many people are not willing to implement them. I would love to recommend this book to everyone that I know but my fear is that those who could use it's wisdom the most will still keep their eyes shut to their own "special" situations. Or they will discount it as worthless advice. I think that the people who stand to gain the most from this enlightening story are those who are already open to change and have already recognized the need to venture out into the maze. This could just be the push that they need. The book helps you to let go and conquer your fear of a situation. We each have our own story and a detailed book cannot possibly give any more instructions for our own lives than this simple one does.

Who Moved My Cheese? By Spencer Johnson, M.D, G.P. Putnam,94pp,

By Walter Maurer e-Solutions Architect

Spencer Johnsonhas been a prolific author of "One Minute" type books. He's the author, after all, of six " One Minute" books; most take complex subjects and present simple solutions one can implement. Books such as One Minute Manager (with Kenneth Blanchard) and One Minute $ales Manager (with Larry Wilson) are well known to the international business community while others The One Minute Father and the 13 books in The ValueTales Series For Children are known to the family community. In his latest best seller, Who Moved My Cheese? he has taken the complex task of explaining change and change management to his audience, the business community. The book begins with a preface by Kenneth Blanchard telling the reader what this book with the unusual title is all about. This chapter can be called " tell them what you are going to tell them". In addition, Blanchard does an infomercial on the Ken Blanchard Companies and their commitment to change in corporate America.

Johnson's story takes on a parable like approach with four main characters and their ability to deal with change. Sniff and Scurry are two mice with a simple approach to life; Hem and Haw are two little people who use complex reasoning and analysis to make life-influencing decisions. The mice rule their lives by trial and error; the little people rule by thought, analysis and procrastination.

The four characters find themselves in a maze with an abundance of life sustaining cheese. The mice recognize early on that the cheese will run out and plan a " search and find" mission well before the little people discover that someone has "moved" their cheese. Sniff saw change coming early and took action with little prodding; Scurry took action before any of the four. Hem resisted changing to find new cheese and Haw learned to adapt once he realized that new cheese had to be found to survive.

The author relates this to change in the corporate world by using parables. "If You Do Not Change, You Can Become Extinct" and "Noticing Small Changes Early Helps You Adapt To The Bigger Changes That Are To Come" are two of the 15 parables each wrapped in a piece of cheese.

The key parable " The Handwriting on the Wall" becomes the discussion point that employers dealing with change management can use to drive home the importance of recognizing when your cheese has been moved. Johnson has made this a short, easy to understand, easy to use primer for change management. ...

Before reading Who Moved My Cheese I felt like a mouse in a maze trying to find my cheese, but everybody kept moving it on me. Dealing with that was hard and difficult.

When I first heard about this book, I was put off. Sounded lik a stupid title...until I looked at who wrote the book and read the foreward by Kenneth Blanchard. I had read many of Kenneth Blanchards books and felt that if he put his seal on it and was impressed enough to write the foreward, it must be great.

I was even more impressed when I heard that Exxon, General Motors, Goodyear, Kodak, Marriott, Whirlpool, Zerox and many other major companies had people recommending Who Moved My Cheese.

Today it is not enough to be good, you have to become great. You cannot used what worked yesterday. We are in a constant state of change. When I realized that by reading this book, my whole personal and professional life changed--I made a 180-degree turnaround.

I am now recommending Who Moved My Cheese to everyone in my organization. Outstanding book. A must read.

The impressive thing about this book is that within a few pages (that take only an hour of reading) makes you think again and again about your life. It leads you to think about the chances that you are missing by hanging out with old missed chances. It forces you to move on. It shows you some of the wrong directions in your life, business, family etc. This book is a must have, and a great gift for friends

I have read this book and being someone who was comfortable at a position for 22 years and then had the cheese moved from under my feet without a warning, I can understand this concept better than others. This book teaches you to always be ready for the worst so that if and when it does come your are not totally destroyed by it's effects. This book is more a reminder that we can be replaced on whim and should not sit there and ponder why, just go out and continue. Remeber as a child when we fell and got up to walk again, this shouldn't changed now either. Get up and go! A must read for the unwary.

Remeber you only live once and this book tells you to go on living.