|
|
Who Moved My Cheese? An
Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and in Your Life
by Spencer Johnson, Kenneth H. Blanchard (Foreword)
|
|
 |
- Hardcover: 96 pages ; Dimensions
(in inches): 0.57 x 8.66 x 5.56
- Publisher: Putnam Pub Group
(Paper); (September 1998)
- ISBN: 0399144463
|
|
 |
From the Author
My five year old son told me
a cheese joke: "What do you call cheese that's not yours?" When I
gave up, he laughed and said, "Nacho Cheese!" It made me smile and
reminded me to keep having fun with Cheese. I've just seen a new
software product that also made me smile. It's called the "Who Moved
My Cheese?"
Change Survival Kit. It has an electronic game with animated prompts
and reminders showing the characters running around inside a maze,
reminding us to laugh at ourselves and discover how to do well in
changing times.
Many years ago, when I was struggling with a difficult change in my
life, I created the story of Who Moved My Cheese? to help me take my
changing situation seriously, but not take myself so seriously. When
my friends noticed how much better life had become for me and asked
why, I told them about the "Cheese" story.
Several friends said, sometimes years later, how hearing the story
helped them to keep their sense of humor, change, and gain something
better themselves. Two decades after the story was created, it was
published as a book, and to my amazement and almost everyone else's,
within two years of publication, more than three million people had
read it. Many have reported that what they discovered in the story
has saved their careers, businesses, health and marriages. It has
spread around the world in many foreign languages. It's appeal seems
universal.
Critics on the other hand think the story is too cheesy and do not
understand how so many people could find it so valuable. They say it
is so simple a child could understand it and it insults their
intelligence, as it is just obvious common sense. They get nothing
out of the story. Some even fear it suggests all change is good and
that people should mindlessly conform to unnecessary changes imposed
by others, although that is not in the story.
It seems to me that both fans and critics are "right" in their own
way. It is not what is in the story of "Who Moved My Cheese?" but
how you interpret it and apply it to your own situation that gives
it value. The challenge however is to remember to use what you
discover in the story.
So I thought it was great when I learned that the new entertaining
piece of software has animated characters from the book prompting
and reminding us to use what we find most valuable in the story to
change and win and enjoy it. Some people who have seen the "Change
Survival Kit" say that it is "better than cheddar!" Let's hope the
way you interpret the story of "Who Moves My Cheese?" and act on it,
will help you find and enjoy the "New Cheese" you deserve.
--This text refers to the CD-ROM edition.
Amazon.com
Change can be a blessing or a
curse, depending on your perspective. The message of Who Moved My
Cheese? is that all can come to see it as a blessing, if they
understand the nature of cheese and the role it plays in their
lives.
Who Moved My Cheese? is a parable that takes place in a maze.
Four beings live in that maze: Sniff and Scurry are mice--nonanalytical
and nonjudgmental, they just want cheese and are willing to do
whatever it takes to get it. Hem and Haw are "littlepeople,"
mouse-size humans who have an entirely different relationship with
cheese. It's not just sustenance to them; it's their self-image.
Their lives and belief systems are built around the cheese they've
found. Most of us reading the story will see the cheese as something
related to our livelihoods--our jobs, our career paths, the
industries we work in--although it can stand for anything, from
health to relationships. The point of the story is that we have to
be alert to changes in the cheese, and be prepared to go running off
in search of new sources of cheese when the cheese we have runs out.
Dr. Johnson, coauthor of
The One Minute Manager
and many other books, presents this parable to business, church
groups, schools, military organizations--anyplace where you find
people who may fear or resist change. And although more analytical
and skeptical readers may find the tale a little too simplistic, its
beauty is that it sums up all natural history in just 94 pages:
Things change. They always have changed and always will change. And
while there's no single way to deal with change, the consequence of
pretending change won't happen is always the same: The cheese runs
out. --Lou Schuler
|
|
