Keywords
Citation
(2001), "Who Moved My Cheese? An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and Your Life", Work Study, Vol. 50 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/ws.2001.07950cae.004
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2001, MCB UP Limited
Who Moved My Cheese? An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and Your Life
Who Moved My Cheese? An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and Your Life
Spencer Johnson, M.D.G.P. Putnam's Sons$19.99ISBN: 0-399-144446-3Keywords: Work study, Organizational change
This is not a new book (it's been out for a couple of years) but I hadn't seen it before and it certainly hasn't been covered in Work Study before. Spencer Johnson, author of The One Minute Manager, has become famous for making complex ideas easily understandable. In Who Moved My Cheese? he uses the power of metaphor and story to tackle the ubiquitous but fearsome topic of "change".
The little parable he uses is about two mice, Sniff and Scurry, and two little people, Hem and Haw, who scamper frantically through a maze in search of "The Cheese". Once they have found it and count on its always being there, they discover one day that it has disappeared. What now? What now, indeed, for all of us who rely on the status quo? In the story (as in real life?) everyone in the maze reacts to the Cheese change in a different way. There are those who adapt quickly to the change, and those who only hurt themselves by living in denial and refusing to change.
I'll leave you to find out the ending – and to decide for yourself if this is a major management work or just a cheesy story. I just couldn't resist the title!