Who Moved My Cheese?~Spencer Johnson
By*Steven Unwin "Steve Unwin" (Preston, UK)
This review is from: Who Moved My Cheese?: An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and in Your Life (Hardcover)
The subtitle `An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and In Your Life' is a little spurious.
This is a simple book that will take less than one hour to read from cover to cover. On the basis of a
word count, or if you're looking for a management book with answers, this will score very poorly.
However that's not what the book sets out to do.
It presents a rather whimsical story of life for two mice and two small people in a maze. The maze
represents the environment for change with unknown futures and the accompanying fears. The four
characters are used to represent different attitudes to change. The mice Sniff and Scurry represent
the fairly straight forward reactive approach to change. As mice they're not credited with great
intelligence but when their source of cheese is moved, react by setting off to find new cheese supplie.
The little people, Hem and Haw, are credited with the intelligence of men which in many ways providesa hindrance to their ability to change. When their cheese is moved their `intelligent' response leads
to a wide range of reactions including denial, recrimination and resentment which disables their ability
to set off to seek new cheese. Gradually Haw comes to terms with the need for change and the
contrast with Hem is used to illustrate how fear of change can be disabling and how this fear might be
overcome.
This simple story illuminates a range of responses to change and provides four different characters to
illustrate these response types. These types are inevitably presented in simple forms and can't deal
with the complexity of real change. That isn't the purpose of the book and is indeed its strength. The fourcharacters provide a vocabulary that many will find useful in describing their, and their colleagues,
reaction to change. The approach taken to make that vocabulary accessible is to make the story simple so that the book can be quickly read and passed on to spread the word.
The book is so easy to read that I can imagine it being passed on to a colleague to be read in the
next hour and moving through a team in a day, rather than languishing in an in-tray for three monthsawaiting spare time that will never arrive.
If you approach this as another pebble to be tossed into the pool of your ideas. It's a small pebble butfor many a very useful one. It is very accessible and might provide new thoughts, images and
vocabulary with which to describe and most importantly share ideas on change. It doesn't have the
answers but no book ever can. People have the answers and the aim of this book is to encourage them to set off to look for their answers, their new cheese.
By*Steven Unwin "Steve Unwin" (Preston, UK)
This review is from: Who Moved My Cheese?: An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and in Your Life (Hardcover)
The subtitle `An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and In Your Life' is a little spurious.
This is a simple book that will take less than one hour to read from cover to cover. On the basis of a
word count, or if you're looking for a management book with answers, this will score very poorly.
However that's not what the book sets out to do.
It presents a rather whimsical story of life for two mice and two small people in a maze. The maze
represents the environment for change with unknown futures and the accompanying fears. The four
characters are used to represent different attitudes to change. The mice Sniff and Scurry represent
the fairly straight forward reactive approach to change. As mice they're not credited with great
intelligence but when their source of cheese is moved, react by setting off to find new cheese supplie.
The little people, Hem and Haw, are credited with the intelligence of men which in many ways providesa hindrance to their ability to change. When their cheese is moved their `intelligent' response leads
to a wide range of reactions including denial, recrimination and resentment which disables their ability
to set off to seek new cheese. Gradually Haw comes to terms with the need for change and the
contrast with Hem is used to illustrate how fear of change can be disabling and how this fear might be
overcome.
This simple story illuminates a range of responses to change and provides four different characters to
illustrate these response types. These types are inevitably presented in simple forms and can't deal
with the complexity of real change. That isn't the purpose of the book and is indeed its strength. The fourcharacters provide a vocabulary that many will find useful in describing their, and their colleagues,
reaction to change. The approach taken to make that vocabulary accessible is to make the story simple so that the book can be quickly read and passed on to spread the word.
The book is so easy to read that I can imagine it being passed on to a colleague to be read in the
next hour and moving through a team in a day, rather than languishing in an in-tray for three monthsawaiting spare time that will never arrive.
If you approach this as another pebble to be tossed into the pool of your ideas. It's a small pebble butfor many a very useful one. It is very accessible and might provide new thoughts, images and
vocabulary with which to describe and most importantly share ideas on change. It doesn't have the
answers but no book ever can. People have the answers and the aim of this book is to encourage them to set off to look for their answers, their new cheese.
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