This book, is a less than an hour quick read that can effortlessly pass for a kid’s bedtime story, but don’t be fooled, its weight in gold lies in the invaluable message about change that it passes on, lessons that could stay with you for a lifetime and help you navigate through your career and life in general. Change is part and parcel of life which means we are constantly required to shed our skins in order to keep up with our ever evolving circumstances.
Written by American physician and author Dr. Spencer Johnson, ‘Who Moved My Cheese,’ tells the story of four characters that each represent a part of us and how we cope with change. The two mice; Sniff who just like his name sniffs out change early on, and Scurry who scurries into action as soon as he detects change. The two little people, Hem who denies and resists change as he fears it will only lead to something worse and Haw who gradually adapts in time when he sees change can lead to something better.
Hem, Haw, Scurry and Sniff are faced with a common goal of finding their maze (which can represent a job, material things, health, relationships, among others) that can lead to their happiness. The book details their struggle with change when they discover their cheese had been moved but eventually, Hem successfully deals with it and writes down the invaluable lessons he learned from the experience on the wall.
These are some of the lessons the book leaves you with
- Change happens; it’s natural and part of life but it can either work for or against us depending on how we adapt to it. Hem, Haw, Scurry and Sniff had no control over the loss of their old cheese but had to find solutions on how to deal with their new situation.
- Monitor change; Unlike Hem and Haw who grew comfortable, entitled and developed the arrogance of success over their old cheese, Sniff and Scurry inspected the cheese station daily to see if any changes had occurred and unsurprisingly they were easily able to notice when the cheese started to gradually reduce and were ready to adapt to the loss.
- Adapt to change quickly; When Sniff and Scurry woke up one morning and found no cheese, they used their simple minds to get going in search for new cheese. This was in contrast with Hem and Haw who sat down, over analyzed the situation looking for who was the cause of their misery, threw themselves a pity party, ranting and yelling how unfair this was and kept around waiting for their cheese to be brought back.
- Learn from your past mistakes: The mice Sniff and Scurry used the simple trial and error method of finding cheese. They ran down one corridor and if it proved empty, they turned and ran down another. They remembered the corridors that had no cheese and quickly went into new areas.
- Just change; When their situation refused to change, Hem realized that they couldn’t keep doing the same things over and over and expect better results. He decided to embark on a search for new cheese and along the way left messages for Hem to learn from, writing, “if you don’t change, you can become extinct” and “movement in a new direction helps you find new cheese”.
- Fear of the unknown is an enemy to change; Haw is bombarded by a lot of fears and frightening thoughts along the way, imagining all sorts of ugly things that could happen to him but he decides to do what he would have done if he wasn’t afraid, only to realize later that letting go and trusting what lay ahead for him actually nourished his soul and made him happy.
- Visualize change; Haw used the power of visualization to find new cheese by painting pictures in his mind, seeing himself in realistic detail sitting in a pile of all his favorite cheeses and eating them and the more clearly he saw the image, the more he sensed he was going to find it and he did.
- Enjoy change; Towards the end of the story, Haw admits he didn’t like the change at the time but he realized later on that it turned out to be a blessing in disguise as it led him to better cheese and growth.
- Be ready to change quickly and enjoy it again and again. When Haw finally discovers the new cheese, he does not get comfortable, he pulls off his shoes, ties the laces together and hung them around his neck in case he needs them again.
