PDF Summary:Who Moved My Cheese?, by Spencer Johnson

We all experience change in our lives. It can be distressing or rewarding, depending on our approach. Who Moved My Cheese? by Spencer Johnson is a parable that demonstrates in practical terms how to handle change better and avoid pitfalls, by practicing a few key principles: Anticipate and prepare for change, overcome fears, envision success, and enjoy change. By depicting simple, memorable characters and scenarios, the parable about mice navigating a maze gives you a memorable framework for responding to change successfully.

Published in 1998, Cheese sold nearly 30 million copies worldwide, becoming a motivational classic—and recommended reading for leaders and employees of major corporations into the early 2000s.

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As old friends at a reunion compare their lives and confess to being unsettled by change, one classmate relates the cheese story. The friends talk about which characters they resembled when experiencing change. Some lessons or conclusions they share from their lives are:

• If you stubbornly resist change at work, you could end up being fired or let go. The same can happen if you fail to notice change because your mindset is anchored in the past.
• A family retail business that doesn’t change its ways (or change fast enough) to compete with mega-stores could find itself out of business. In a case like this, it might have been better to initiate change than to react to it later.
• A business that’s been successful in the past (for example, an encyclopedia-selling business) cannot rely on its business model working forever. (Its cheese eventually runs out.)
• An important role of managers is to lead employees, who may be uncertain about or fearful of change, by painting a picture of success they can get excited about. (Picture the new cheese.)
• From a management standpoint, understanding which characters your employees emulate can help you to help them adapt, while benefiting the company as a whole.
  • Sniffs can help a company innovate by sniffing out opportunities.
  • Action-oriented Scurrys can get things done.
  • Haws are hesitant but can adapt with encouragement.
  • Hems may choose not to adapt even when given the evidence. They might then stop being a good fit for your organization.

• Personal relationships can appear “old” like “old cheese,” but this may be the result of old, now unproductive behaviors. New attitudes and behaviors can transform a relationship into something better (finding new cheese).

• People are more afraid of and resistant to change when it’s imposed on them from above, because they feel powerless. Peer pressure can also be a factor. Understanding that change is natural and has advantages can help lessen resistance.
  • One suggested strategy is to ask your colleagues to read the book. People can then self-identify with the characters, and no one wants to be seen as a Hem.
• Even though you fear change because of what you think you’re losing, you can end up with something better.
  • Example: A family has to move from the city to the mountains for work. The teenage son is crushed, since he has to give up his swim team. But unexpectedly, he learns to ski and enjoys that even more.

A Guide to Change

Change is inevitable, but it can be addressed successfully. Here’s a guide on what to do and what not to do.

How to Handle Change Successfully

Be prepared for change. Pay attention to signs of change in your environment, whether it’s layoffs at your workplace, new aches and pains, or strains in your home life. Consider how potential changes could affect you and develop a plan to handle them—for instance, by learning new skills.

• In the story: The mice Sniff and Scurry noticed the cheese stockpile getting old and dwindling. They were ready (they kept their running shoes handy) to search for a new supply when the old one disappeared.

Let go of the past. When things change, move forward quickly. The longer you wait, the more resistance you build to moving, and the harder it’ll be to adapt later.

• In the story: Sniff and Scurry were action-oriented, and set off immediately to search for new cheese. It helped that they also kept things simple and didn’t overanalyze or overcomplicate things by, for instance, getting hung up on “what if’s.”
• In the story: Initially, Haw also stayed with Hem and wished for things to return to normal. But Haw came to his senses and realized the world had changed, and he had to change with it. Later he concluded that adapting to change is easier the less you wait.
• Many people who finally muster the courage to leave a job or relationship that’s not working for them, often wonder in retrospect why they hadn’t made the change sooner.

Adapt and be open-minded to new things. There are always experiences and opportunities available beyond those you are currently familiar with. You might like them even more than what you used to have.

• In the story: Haw found bits of new kinds of cheese (e.g. brie instead of the cheddar he was used to), and he tried them and liked them. This gave him confidence to keep pushing forward to even better experiences. (He tried sharing the new types of cheese with Hem but Hem rejected them, saying he wanted only the types he was familiar with.)

Imagine success. Envisioning what success looks like, and imagining yourself succeeding, can improve your attitude. When you think about what you will gain, rather than what you are losing, you realize change can be for the better.

• In the story: Haw at first imagined Sniff and Scurry enjoying new cheese, then he imagined himself, in realistic detail, sitting in his own pile of all kinds of new cheeses. This vision motivated him to keep pushing forward to find new cheese.
• When you imagine success, paint a picture in your mind of vivid detail. Think about how you’d behave in this new successful world. Imagine how you feel and how other people feel.

Handle your fears. Fear can have one of two effects: 1) It can paralyze you if you imagine all that can go wrong if you leave your familiar ground, or 2) it can spur you into action if you fear that things will get worse if you don’t do something. The second fear is productive and healthy.

• In the story: Haw feared not finding new cheese if he ventured out into new areas of the maze. But he also realized he definitely wouldn’t find any by staying put. He asked himself, “What would you do if you weren’t afraid?”

Learn to enjoy change. New experiences, discoveries, and achievements are rewarding, usually more so than continuing to do the same things.

• In the story: Once Haw started searching for new cheese, he realized he felt better just from taking action, and he soon began to enjoy the adventure — he hadn’t realized how complacent he’d gotten from sitting around at the old cheese pile. The key to enjoying change was that he had changed — first his attitude, and then his behavior.

Be prepared for continuous change. Change is a natural part of life. Change should only be a surprise if you aren’t paying attention, or if you’re operating on erroneous assumptions—for instance, that you’re entitled to having things a certain way.

• In the story: After finding the new cheese at the end of the book, Sniff and Scurry expected and prepared for even more change by continuing to explore new parts of the maze. Haw did the same thing, because he had learned from his mistakes and pledged not to be surprised by change again.

What Not to Do

Don’t ignore change and wait for things to return to “normal.” When change happens, it’s natural to hope initially that things will return to the way they were. But if the world really has changed, the longer you entertain that false hope, the more difficult it will be for you to move forward again.

• In the story: Long after Sniff, Scurry, and finally Haw had moved on, Hem refused to accept that the old cheese was never coming back. He was acting against his own interests because he was growing ever hungrier while waiting for the old cheese to reappear.

Don’t try to bring back the past. Sometimes people react to change by working harder in the hope they can stem the tide of change. But that approach is futile. What used to work may no longer work in the new situation.

• In the story: Hem and Haw decided the cheese must still be around somewhere and had just moved a little. So they banged a big hole in the wall to see if the cheese was behind it, which of course it wasn’t. (Haw made the somewhat funny but true observation that there’s a difference between activity and productivity.)
• Practically, this might mean:
  • If you’re about to be laid off for larger economic reasons, trying harder to do your job might not rescue your job. And finding the same job elsewhere might be worse than learning new skills to transition to a new job.
  • Approaching a broken relationship the same way you always have won’t rescue it.

Don’t complain about the unfairness of it all. When change impacts you, it’s easy to get hung up on the “unfairness” of having your work or home life disrupted. But if you get stuck on that thought, you’ll end up hurting yourself. Fair or unfair, the change has happened. Now you have to deal with it.

• In the story: Hem and, initially, Haw complained bitterly about how unfair it was that someone had taken “their” cheese, which they felt they had earned in perpetuity. But that didn’t bring them new cheese, only a growing hunger.

Don’t refuse to adapt. Resisting inevitable change might feel satisfying for a brief period, but staying static in the face of change could eventually lead to extinction.

• In the story: Hem refused to try the new types of cheese that Haw offered to share with him, and he refused to join Haw on the search for new cheese. Hem simply liked his old cheese and just wanted it back.
• If your job is gradually disappearing for larger technological or economic reasons, refusing to learn new skills could mean having no job at all in the future.

Putting It All Together

Let’s put it all together by talking about a common change in many people’s lives — job changes. If your job is redefined or eliminated, applying the principles in Who Moved My Cheese can help you deal with it successfully.

To start with, watch for change by paying attention to company statements, workload and structural changes, and industry trends. If you sniff out change, you can prepare for change by getting your personal finances in order, adding a part-time job, learning a new skill to develop your job in a different direction, or moving to a new company.

Don’t try to hold on to the past (don’t wait for the cheese to reappear) by ignoring warning signs, resisting new skill requirements, or by just working harder at what you know. Changing work can be scary, and it’s tempting to be in denial, but the longer you do this, the more you hurt yourself.

To combat the fear, envision something better (picture new cheese) — this can be an opportunity to do something you’ve always wanted to do, but couldn’t because the job tied you down. Now that you’re free of old constraints, imagine yourself succeeding in a new role. Focus on what you can gain through change rather than what you might lose. Possibilities include a chance to use latent creativity in a different job, having new experiences, or moving to a different part of the world.

Don’t let fear paralyze or hold you back from trying something new, whether it’s learning a new skill at the same company, or doing something different. Don’t be afraid to leave your comfort zone, because doing something offers a better chance of success than doing nothing. If you don’t move quickly to adapt you may lose your best chance. For instance, others will learn new skills and fill jobs that could have been yours.

Learn to enjoy change — it can offer rewards such as greater income, new relationships, or greater job satisfaction from using more of your talents. Finally, expect and prepare for continuous change by always growing and learning in your personal and professional life.

The moral of the story is that the end of the old can also be the beginning of something better.