gungian's Full Review: Spencer Johnson - Who Moved My Cheese
My youngest brother is a very successful manager with a Fortune 100 company whose name is familiar to most of us. This Christmas he sent me a copy of the book that the firm’s senior management was touting to their workforce. The book jacket declares that Who Moved My Cheese? presents an amazing way to deal with change. After reading this 94-page tome [pun intended], I can only surmise that the author had Swiss cheese in mind. I loved my brother’s thoughtfulness but I’m glad I wasn’t too hungry. There may be bits of cheese -- but they are surrounding myriad holes.
CHEESE
Dr. Spencer Johnson does serve up some cheese. The central parable relates how 2 mice and 2 littlepeople each react differently to change in their maze of life. The resounding message is that change happens – and it happens to each of us. We can ignore change, deal with change when it comes, anticipate change and move with it, or encourage and lead toward change. The fable’s four characters span that continuum from absolute denial to headlong action. [Hint: The author would have us believe that the mice chose the better courses through the maze.]
In describing how the characters traverse this maze, Dr. Johnson erected encouraging road signs. These were intended to provide helpful insight for thriving in a changing environment.
Dubbed “The Handwriting on the Wall”, the large font fills page 74 and it is also printed on an enclosed bookmark-sized card. That is the cheese.
HOLES
This book is like a U.S. road map that only shows the interstate highway system. For a motorist touring this country, a few north-south routes and a similar number of east-west roads can be strikingly misleading. True, such a large-scale rendering may show us how to get from Chicago to Seattle. But how do we get to Chicago from Gurnee, Illinois and how do we find Silverdale, Washington once we’ve arrived in Seattle?
Who Moved My Cheese? purports to help us discover for ourselves how to deal with change, enjoy a less stressful life, and garner more success. But it does not.
It merely presents a cute story with some platitudes and clichés that might help us recognize the reality that change is constant. It may even convince some of us to stop avoiding change. But it surely does not tell us how to do that.
Who Moved My Cheese? just has too many holes.
CHEESIER CHEESE
For the dedicated management theorist, there are a number of very good texts on dealing with change in the workplace. For the more casual reader, I offer two other sources of information on dealing with change in our lives. While neither is presented as simply as Who Moved My Cheese?, they are both informative and easily readable.
(1) Joan Lunden was the co-host of Good Morning America for two decades. Her 1998 book, Joan Lunden’s A Bend in the Road is Not the End of the Road, is somewhat cliché ridden. She relies on an easy narration style to present what she terms 10 principles for dealing with change. While Joan’s examples are those of a high-profile celebrity, they can be tailored to help us find our way through our own maze.
[Available for $25.95 (print) $18.00 (audio) from Amazon.com and $4.99 {not a misprint} from BarnesandNoble.com.]
(2) Bob Deits is a counselor and lecturer. He views many of life’s change situations as “Losses”. His 1999 book, Life After Loss: A Personal Guide Dealing With Death, Divorce, Job Change and Relocation, takes a much different slant. Bob’s views are very influenced by his graduate degree in pastoral psychology. He presents some alternative approaches to dealing with these losses so that we can get on with traversing our own maze.
[Available for $10.36 (paperback) from Amazon.com and $11.65 (paperback) from BarnesandNoble.com.]
THE BEST CHEESE
ALL OF THE ABOVE -- AND MORE -- ARE PROBABLY AVAILABLE FREE AT YOUR PUBLIC LIBRARY!
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