"Who Moved My Cheese?" Book Review

This week was the first week of my last semester of college.

I cannot even believe that sentence is true, but I'm suddenly preparing for the real world and trying not to think too far ahead and freak myself out. With that in mind, I found it appropriate that my Strategic Marketing teacher assigned the book "Who Moved My Cheese" by Dr. Spencer Johnson for our first class reading. She picked this book because our "cheese" is moving and it can be a lot to cope with if you don't recognize the change.

Now that I've read it and my class only briefly discussed the overall message, I feel that I can express my opinions on the book and what I gleaned. First, I must say that both my parents have read this book and I've become accustomed to their reading what I used to call "business books" since I would never have considered reading a book like this years ago. Now that I've grown up some, I find that I sought out a couple books that my Advertising teacher recommended and will hopefully write about those soon too!

For a quick summary, "Who Moved My Cheese" is a short story about 2 mice, Sniff and Scurry, and 2 little people, Hem and Haw, who live in a maze and search for their cheese every day. The mice and little people find their cheese (aka what they value in life, be it money, success, love, etc) and are content until it suddenly disappears. The mice quickly move on to find other cheese out in the maze because they had been keeping track of their cheese and noticed it was slowly decreasing. The little people had not been keeping track and were extremely upset when their cheese disappeared. They were unprepared and therefore flopped between disbelief that their cheese was gone, panic, and fear of what was next. Haw eventually realized that the cheese would not come back and that facing his fears in the maze was the only way to find more cheese and maybe something even better! Hem remained behind and would not change his ways for anything. In the end, Sniff, Scurry, and Haw each found their cheese again and kept a watch on the amount, but Hem was left behind the change.

Even though I had heard good things and read about how many lives it improved, I was a bit skeptical. I was also aware that my skepticism could impact the book's effect on my takeaway, so I tried to push it down and read with an open mind. Once I got to the actual parable in the middle of the book, I was doing pretty well. Unfortunately, the parable quickly became a somewhat "cheesy", repetitive read. Some of the morals were good points, but they were also fairly obvious, or so I would think. Those morals also seemed to blur together the more Haw spoke about them.

I understand that many people in the business world may find change hard to adapt to and that simple morals brought to light will help them realize the answer, but for me it was a bit cliche. I think I had heard so much about it, that I expected some huge revelation that never came. And I'm not saying that I'm more aware than others or that I know everything about change, because I don't. I'm terrified of change and especially the unknown, but I've always just toughed it out because most people don't really get a choice. I do think that this story could remind me to analyze my reaction the next time a large change occurs in my life and prepare accordingly, just in case I've gotten too complacent.

All in all, I found the story a bit tedious, but I can see that some would find value in it. I also feel that because I've read it and focused on writing this piece, that I may be more inclined to consider my actions in the future in reference to the mice and little people.

photo source: http://www.redtreeleadership.com/images/PageImages/WMMC-Book.jpg