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

Spencer Johnson (Author), Kenneth Blanchard (Foreword)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

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

From Library Journal

This is a brief tale of two mice and two humans who live in a maze and one day are faced with change: someone moves their cheese. Reactions vary from quick adjustment to waiting for the situation to change by itself to suit their needs. This story is about adjusting attitudes toward change in life, especially at work. Change occurs whether a person is ready or not, but the author affirms that it can be positive. His principles are to anticipate change, let go of the old, and do what you would do if you were not afraid. Listeners are still left with questions about making his or her own specific personal changes. Capably narrated by Tony Roberts, this audiotape is recommended for larger public library collections.AMark Guyer, Stark Cty. Dist. Lib., Canton, OH
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Audio Cassette edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 96 pages
• Publisher: G. P. Putnam's Sons (September 8, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0399144463
• ISBN-13: 978-0399144462
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1,616 customer reviews)
• Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #245 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

  #1 in	Books > Business & Investing > Organizational Behavior > Workplace
  #1 in	Books > Health, Mind & Body > Personal Health > Stress
  #1 in	Books > Business & Investing > Industries & Professions > Human Resources & Personnel Management

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

48 of 53 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Of Mice and Men, June 1, 2005

By	Matthew Clower (Gilroy, Ca) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Who Moved My Cheese?: An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and in Your Life (Paperback)

This book is an analogy of mice vs. men (simple and complicated) in a maze, about how many things such as over-analyzing, stubbornness, and fear can over-complicate simple things, making anything, even life, unnecessarily unbearable.

It is intended to help readers get the most out of anything situation, stay content, and increase their confidence levels. Contrary to the title, the book is neither cliché nor "cheesy." Few if any things stay the same forever, and the book emphasizes the importance of accepting change, and even capitalizing on it. In context, it includes many inspirational quotes such as, "What would I do, if I wasn't afraid?"

`The Story' itself is very short and to the point, and includes a section where the storyteller and his classmates reflect on how `The Story' can be applied to their lives. This provides many examples on how the overall wisdom can easily be applied to many situations in everyday life, from personal relationships, to running businesses. Read this story with an open mind and it just may improve the quality of your daily life, whatever it entails.

1,088 of 1,353 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Worthless, June 29, 2004

By	Alberto Dominguez - See all my reviews (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Who Moved My Cheese?: An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and in Your Life (Hardcover)

The unbelievably large number of people who think this is a good book is very scary. I hope these people are not important decision makers. Everything bad that can be said about this book has been said before, so I'll just compile a "Best of" list for you. (By the way, in case you're wondering, "Dr." Johnson's degree is in education.)

Regarding management and corporate American in general
* This book is the cop-out for managers who believe in change for change's sake.
* It's corporate brainwashing of the kind that science fiction writers have been warning us about for decades.
* Never have I come closer to the mind crushing monotony and impersonality of corporate America than when I read this book.
* No, change is not a good thing when it happens on a regular basis. That means upper management can't make up their minds.
* If you are thinking about buying this book, I assume you are a manager of some type

Regarding the intellectual level of the book:
* I have never felt my intelligence more insulted than when reading this.
* It's patronizing, shallow, insipid, and still manages to be patently insulting to those employees who might actually be capable of analytical thought. That's quite a feat.
* Should appeal to intellectually challenged only.
* It is a sad comment on our culture, society, and educational system that so many people have found this inane drivel to be "life-changing".
* (...)BR>* (...).
* Distilling these important matters into the inane parable of mice in a maze is a literary device meant for grade school students.
* The book presents an excellent reading for absolute imbeciles or people high on drugs.

Regarding the message of the book:
* It teaches that you must not struggle, succumb to the will of the greater power of management, and accept change without regard to whether it is appropriate or not.
* Don't think, just go with the changes as we prescribe them. If you don't, you're inflexible or afraid of change.
* The ideas in this book could have been expressed in a paragraph and even then they would not have been worth the time to read them

The people who more productively decided to just make jokes about the stupidity that is this book said:
* As I was already familiar with the concept of reality and how to deal with it, the book was not particularly helpful.
* Your time would be better spent just taking a nap.
* Buy real cheese. Don't buy this sorry excuse for a book.
* I think people like it cause it can be read and finished while sitting on the toilet.
* Resistance is futile!
* Any manager who would try to force these ideas on their employees would be better off just spiking the coffee with anti-depressants.
* The South Park gang would find it too puerile.

If you were even mildly amused by anything in this review, then you are already infinitely better off than if you read the book. Now please vote "Yes" on my review (after all, I just saved you $14+). Thanks!

409 of 510 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Show me the cheese., December 23, 1999

By	Bruce Silverman - See all my reviews

This review is from: Who Moved My Cheese?: An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and in Your Life (Hardcover)

First of all, let me suggest that I read this book more than 20 years ago when it was called "Jonathan Livingston Seagull," by Richard Bach. Then I read it again five years later when it was called "Illusions," also by Richard Bach. The central theme here, as well as in Mr. Bach's books, is learning to let go of your fears and anxieties so you can do and accomplish the things in life that will truly make you happy. This is not a novel notion. Nor is the concept of change as an intimidating proposition, as anyone who has moved as a child or even entered a new school can attest to from an early age. To be fair, while "Who Moved My Cheese" is overly simplistic, it does impart a modicum of encouragement and inspiration. However, I believe the message has been expressed through far more interesting story lines, such as in Mr. Bach's parable-like novellas, which by the way, I recommend to anyone who found Mr. Johnson's effort compelling and rewarding. On a substantive level, I feel Mr. Johnson could have taken the story development quite a ways further and to a deeper, more intricate level, particularly for someone who fancies himself an authority in the field of professional development. Some might argue that its appeal is in its simplicity. That's fine if you take it at bare-bones face value. Others might contest that sugar-coated, child-like allegories are great material for second-grade book reports, but when senior-management types start passing such efforts off as holy gospel, I become circumspect. Furthermore, I fear countless workplaces overflowing with trite "cheeseisms." In fact, I'm sure it's just a matter of time before conventional-wisdom-spouting clones from all walks of business start retorting to reasonable issues raised at business meetings with the glib reply "move with the cheese," at which point these people should be gently slapped back to reality. I personally would have liked to have seen more obstacles and characters introduced to the story. Even Alice had more interesting encounters in Wonderland, and she negotiated all of them with poise and dignity in her effort to reach her goal. Perhaps instead of worrying about the business associate he left behind, our protagonist could have met new business associates in the maze, with the common cause of finding the new cheese. Better yet, maybe the littleperson who was in charge of Cheese Station C should have been axed for mismanagement. And then the new littleperson in charge could have assembled a task force to go out and hunt for new cheese. We littlepeople don't always have to go it alone. Obviously, I am complicating the story line. But I think a fable that resembles a business farce or a comedy of errors with a positive ending would be far more engaging. Just saying "change happens, be proactive rather than reactive" is old news. The least Johnson could have done was come up with more interesting "writings on the wall," most of which were insipid at best. Then you could walk away with actual tools in the form of little adages you can repeat to yourself when the need arises. However, there was one writing on the wall that I thought had an elegant poignancy about it which I believe was the most useful tidbit to be gleaned from the entire book. And that is "What would you do if you weren't afraid?" This is a thought one does not normally think to put to oneself in just that manner, unlike the vast majority of platitudes which infest this marginal read.