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Summary: Except that we're not lab mice, and you're no psychologist.
Review: The premise of this allegory is fundamentally flawed. We're not lab mice in this rat race, but we are being experimented upon. As the pay gap widens, this book is a brainwashing tool to try to convince us that not only is this okay, but we're bad mice if we don't embrace change which sells us short.
They didn't move the cheese, they stole the cheese and are giving us garbage.As I write this note, this review has been up for a while and 82 people have voted on it so far, 48 finding it helpful. Excellent. I'd like to add that most of the people purchasing this book are actually corporations or managers to give as 'gifts' to the little mice who work for them. A present to give in exchange might be something by Howard Zinn perhaps?
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Summary: Who Moved My Cheese - A Realistic Perspective
Review: Who Moved My Cheese?
By Spender Johnson, M.D. Who Moved My Cheese? A Realistic Perspective Who Moved My Cheese? Is a story about 4 little beings - two mice (Sniff and Scurry) and two little people (Hem and Haw), and Cheese. The story is about how these four little characters adapt to change, which is depicted by the depletion of the cheese supply and the motivation (or the lack of it) to acquire more cheese. At firsts glance, Who Moved My Cheese? Is a very simplistic story...may be too simplistic. The basic message of the book is that change happens, whether we like it or not, whether we are prepared for it or not and that the best we can do is to adapt to it quickly and move on. However, the book is more about fear. We do not oppose change if we perceive it as positive but when we do not know what the change will bring or when we have an inclination that the change will be negative, then we become paralyzed with fear - the fear of the unknown. I think this is what we have to deal with in order to be able to handle and adapt to change. The only way to be really prepared for change is to demystify the change by being prepared...being on the look out for pointers that indicate that change is coming your way and equipping yourself with the necessary tools to deal with it. However, life is not as simplistic as munching away on some cheese and never expecting it to be depleted...we all know that! Change is difficult to adapt to because in most instances, it is sudden and it can be totally unexpected. Picking up after a bad/difficult experience can be a very difficult and painful experience - and truth be told, change does not always lead to better things...at times the grass is greener where you came from no matter how hard you try. Who Moved My Cheese? does not address this type of change because the story is based entirely on being able to predict what will happen in the future. Also, it is interesting to note that the characters in Who Moved My Cheese? are the same size "mice=people" and both have to rely on someone else putting the cheese in some station in the maze. Even the little people do not make their own cheese and their survival depends highly on chance (bumping into some good cheese) than in figuring out how to make their own cheese. This might indicate an imbalance of power (very corporate business thinking). Irrespective of the move to a new cheese station, the amount of cheese in that station is still controlled by another power. Again, adapting to change is not always a "unilateral" decision. A lot can depend on those around you - your family, society, the environment, etc. However, adapting to change does start with the individual.
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Summary: I'm Worth More Than Cheese
Review: If you want a book that you can: a) Buy in bulk, so you can distribute them to all of your employees just prior to a massive lay-off, in some selfish attempt to feel better about it,
or b) Use as evidence that you are a capable manager, when in fact you've run a company into the ground to the point where you need to resort to above-mentioned layoffs ..then buy this piece of junk. It makes a rather profound statement about learning to get on with your life after something bad happens to you... which in and of itself is well and good. But it wraps it up in the wrong package, twisting a fairly harmless philosophy around. That it, instead of teaching people the value in working through a loss, they try to convince people in advance that it is OK to expect a loss and not to fight it when it happens. It's corporate brainwashing of the kind that science fiction writers have been warning us about for decades. I'm not being a comedian: I know of at least three large companies that did (a) and have had conversations with executives that boast (b). That is why this book is still a best-seller... not because it has any literary merit, philosophical worth, or any value whatsoever. Too bad there isn't a "zero" star rating.
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Summary: A Book for the Heart, Not for the Mind
Review: Who Moved My Cheese was not written to enlighten the mind; it was written to encourage the heart. It's no secret that the business environment is churning today. Things are changing so fast, it makes your head spin. There is no security for anyone - from large, established corporations to individual workers. The rules change constantly. Much has been written about the fear of losing one's job. Companies have been downsizing, right-sizing, merging - and dying for several years. The relationship between employers and employees has changed drastically. And the change is not going to stop; the rate of change is going to 'increase. Adapting to all these changes, especially the loss of a sense of security, can be extremely traumatic. Who Moved My Cheese is intended to help people, from CEOs to hourly workers, acknowledge that things are changing and that they can deal with it - even profit from it. It gives people renewed hope, realistic hope. It can help both organizations and individuals redefine who they are and how they can compete in the new marketplace. It's a wake-up call. It's a challenge to transform oneself from a victim to an opportunist.
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Summary: Dealing with change and assessing risk
Review: This short parable about dealing with change helped my son to start a new business after failing in a previous attempt. If you have difficulty dealing with change, this book will help you to overcome it. You will understand the benefits involved in take small steps to create desirable outcomes. I also recommend Optimal Thinking by Rosalene Glickman, Ph.D. (Wiley 2002) to show you how to make the best choices in any situation, evaluate risk, and master the emotions that thwart success.
Rating: 
Summary: Cheesy.
Review: I hate change. It is my biggest weakness. When I was recommended to read 'Who Moved My Cheese,' I was looking for a thick, hard cover book with gold wordings and a dark background in the self-improvement section. But it turned out to be the exact opposite. With a book so thin and words written in font size 16 (I think), I wondered if I could get anything out of it. And I'm still wondering if I did. A childlike story that gets its point across, it's easy for the reader to grasps the importance of embracing change. I think Dr. Johnson was going for a simple story with a huge impact. The discussion part at the end of the book helps the reader understand better by applying real scenarios we go through everyday in our personal and work life. When I was done with the final page, I agreed with Dr. Johnson wholeheartedly. I understood the story and the dangers of resisting change. But so what? We all know that. It just wasn't inspiring and motivating enough for a stubborn mule like me.
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Summary: Stinky Cheese: The World's Most Insipid Management Method
Review: First, let me say that I have never felt my intelligence more insulted than when reading Dr. Spencer Johnson's book, Who Moved My Cheese? With support and acclaim from major corporations such as AAA, General Motors, MCI, Kodak, Time Warner, and Whirlpool, I was expecting just what the front cover promised, "a gem - small and valuable". However, as I began reading this insipid, little book, I realized that it was a trite, loquacious rendering of fourth-grade wisdom.
This "wisdom" comes in the form of a child's bedtime story told by a professional adult to other professional adults. The story takes place in a maze, much like one you might find in a scientist's lab full of scurrying mice tracking down bits of cheese. Two mice, "Sniff" and "Scurry", as well as two "little people" (small creatures - just as their name denotes), "Hem" and "Haw", live in this maze. Their days consist of finding, keeping, and eating cheese, which is magically provided for them by some outside source. One day, they wake to find that the cheese is gone. While "Sniff" and "Scurry" go hunting through the maze for more cheese, "Hem" and "Haw" keep on at the old site waiting days for a new batch of cheese to be provided for them.
Eventually, "Hem" and "Haw" make a journey throughout the maze to find more cheese - obviously, because if they do not, they will die of starvation (let me say that I personally do not consider an all-diary diet as either healthy or nutritious). On their journey, they encounter several high school gym teacher-esque posters with inspirational meditations such as, "Old beliefs to not lead to new cheese"; "Move with the cheese, and enjoy it"; and "It is safer to search in the maze than remain in a cheese-less situation". (Pearls of wisdom if ever were spoken, I'm sure.)
Of course, "Hem" and "Haw" do find a new location full of cheese where "Sniff" and "Scurry" have been for days already. There, they discover the "handwriting on the wall", a rather irreverent and incompetent allusion to the Judeo-Christian Biblical accounts of the Ten Commandments and the book of Daniel's (yes, of the lion's den) divine handwriting on the wall. All seven (according to the Bible's book of Revolation, seven is God's holy number) of the "handwriting on the wall" phrases are including on a handy-dandy little bookmark that comes free (!) with the book (ah, it's all worth it now).
My problem with all of this lovely, itemized wisdom is just that - its lack of any apparent real or new wisdom. I refuse to believe that companies that have enjoyed as much success as Amway, Exxon, Hewlett-Packard, Pepsi, and Shell do not already know and have not already applied the information offered by our distinguished Dr. Johnson. In fact, I daresay that more research into the marketing strategies and company developments of these corporations would prove the very fact that Dr. Johnson has only reiterated what they have been practicing for years already.
Not only does Spencer Johnson spew out some of the most common sense business information, but he also includes a large amount of personal propaganda and praise on the cover and the first several pages of the text:
"Spencer Johnson's unique insights and storytelling make this a rare book..." Randy Harris of Merrill Lynch International proclaims. John Lopiano of the Xerox Corporation says, "This wonderful book is an asset to any person or group". Even Albert Simone, president of Rochester Institute of Technology states that, "Dr. Johnson's enticing images and language give us a fundamentally sound and memorable way of managing change".
Even former co-author, Ken Blanchard, Ph.D. (together they wrote The One Minute Manager) throws in his two cents with a stupefying forward retelling the success of the book within his own companies, "When I told people about the story and then they got to read Who Moved My Cheese? you could almost feel the release of negative energy beginning to occur. Person after person from every department went out of their way to thank me for the book and told me how helpful it had been to them already... The Ken Blanchard Companies are constantly changing. They keep moving our cheese." Thank you Dr. Blanchard.
So, why, you are probably asking, if this book is so ridiculous are all of these distinguished companies and people of fine credentials praising its wonders? In truth, I cannot be sure. My first theory was that they must have been drugged, brainwashed, mind-melded (I don't really know what this is, but I think it's pretty bad) or paid off by Dr. Johnson and his associates in a scheme to hype his book to the public, boosting sales and making them all incredibly wealthy. Next, I thought that perhaps Dr. Johnson and friends had infused the pages of the book with a chemical that shuts down the human brain's ability to recognize useless and crappy self-help manuals (which is why I read my copy with plastic gloves and a gas mask). My last theory had to do with an alien plot for world domination, but I threw that one out after a while.
Honestly, and in all seriousness, I can find no logical reason why any person with the IQ of a rock or higher would read this book and get anything useful from it. Its painfully obvious "discoveries" about the changing nature of the business world are insulting to human intelligence; and its self-serving self-proclamation (touted by Johnson himself) is irreverent and even a little disgusting. As the ancient Roman writer and philosopher Pliny said, "Aiunt enim multum legendum esse, non multa." It means, "Truly they say that much must be read, not many things." Pliny was differentiating between reading much that is good, useful, and wise ("much must be read") and reading a lot without censoring out the "trash" so to speak ("not many things"). My advice to you: wake up and smell the cheese; it stinks.
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Summary: Thoughts about change
Review: Who Moved My Cheese is a nice book to help you reflect on change and the impact on your life. I read it in an evening and it did help me to think quite a bit, and the story was a breeze to get through. I also ordered the Emotional Intelligence Quickbook which was recommended on this page--read them both in one night ;) Anyway, I recommend the Quickbook as well because it taught me how my emotions play a role in how I react to change, and had some really great research on specific strategies that folks have used to get results. It also came with a free emotional intelligence test which was fun and taught me a lot.
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Summary: Simple, Fun, and Enlightening
Review: I avoided this book for months because the title struck me as something I did not have the time for. However, once I overcame my arrogance, I discovered this small book featuring mice in a maze as a metaphor for real life had an important message to tell. People naturally resist change, and in today's societal and economic environment, this means being left behind. The authors do a great job of illustrating how those who anticipate and/or accept change prosper, while those who resist change, fail. This book is a quick read, but offers a valuable lesson for life. I recommend it for anyone brave enough to face their fear of change.
Rating: 
Summary: Nice little book
Review: I work for a fortune 500 company and this book was highly recommended by our management team. So much so that they bought several dozen copies for our employee library and gave several more away as gifts. I really don't understand the people bashing this book. All I can figure out is that they never read it or resist change. In either case, their loss.
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