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An amazing way to deal with change
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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 simple parable (寓言) that reveals profound truths about change. It is an amusing and enlightening story of four characters who live in a "maze" (迷宫) and look for "cheese" to nourish them and make them happy.
Two are mice named Sniff and Scurry. And two are "little people" -- beings at the size of mice who look and act like people. Their names are Hem and Haw.
"Cheese" is a metaphor (隐喻，象征) for what you want to have in life -- whether it is a good job, a loving relationship, money, a possession, health or spiritual peace of mind.
And the "maze" is where you look for what you want -- the organization you work in, or the family or community you live in.
In the story, the characters are faced with unexpected change. Eventually, one of them deals with it successfully and writes what he has learned from his experience on the maze walls.
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.
From one of the world's most recognized experts on management comes a charming parable filled with insights designed to help readers manage change quickly and prevail in changing times.
From the author
I've seen a software product called "Who Moved My Cheese?" Change Survival Kit. It has an electronic game with animated prompts (提示) showing the characters running around inside a maze, reminding us to laugh at ourselves and discover how to do well in changing times.
Many years ago, when I was struggling with a difficult change in my life, I created the story of Who Moved My Cheese?. When my friends noticed how much better life had become for me and asked why, I told them about the "cheese" story.
Two decades after the story was created, it was published as a book, and to my amazement and almost everyone else's, within two years of publication, more than three million people had read it. Many have reported that what they discovered in the story has saved their careers, businesses, health and marriages. It has spread around the world in many foreign languages. Its appeal seems universal.
Critics on the other hand think the story is too cheesy (粗劣的) and do not understand how so many people could find it so valuable. They say it is so simple that a child could understand it and it insults their intelligence.
Some even fear it suggests all change is good and that people should mindlessly conform to unnecessary changes imposed by others, although that is not in the story.
It seems to me that both fans and critics are "right" in their own way. It is not what is in the story of "Who Moved My Cheese?" but how you interpret it and apply it to your own situation that gives it value.
About the author
Bestselling books by Spencer Johnson include the The One Minute Manager, written with Kenneth Blanchard.
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