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Summary: A Parable (Actual Story) for the Buisness World
Review: This is a quick read, but it is a very useful book. We are constantly faced with changes, both in our professional and social lives. We need to recognizite change, cope with it, and manage our lives around it. I have survived 2 rounds of layoffs and one merger, which helped me relate very well to this story.Most of us will relate to the "mice" in this story. Some of them remind me of my coworkers and family members. Sometimes humans have a hard time coming to grips with the obvious and they need to be "shown the way." This book is a must read for business people, although everyone will enjoy it.
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Summary: Read book, took test, felt bored, not impressed
Review: My public-sector organization not only had to read "Who Moved My Cheese?" recently, but had to spend a full day retreat, complete with outside consultant, to take the personality test that goes with it, and be categorized. I turn out to be a Thinker (Haw plus a little Sniff), and I "Think" this was a criminal waste of tax dollars. The book is, as almost a thousand other reviewers have pointed out, inane and juvenile in presentation, but sinister and propagandistic in intent. Its core idea--that if you get moving as soon as your livelihood (your "cheese") has been removed, you will find a bigger store of cheese just around a few corners--is a bizarre and outdated combination of 90s boom-time delirium and New Age pablum. But it's pablum with ground glass in it--it's easy-to-swallow Newspeak for "You're probably gonna get fired soon." I give this (physically and intellectually) slim volume a second star only because during the 20 minutes it took me to read it, I did get one valuable insight about a particular problem in my workplace. Otherwise, I recommend viewing this book with suspicion and misgivings, if indeed you're forced to view it at all.
Rating: 
Summary: Who Moved My Cheese
Review: WHO MOVED MY CHEESE is a parable. Under it's thin veneer of mazes mice and cheese is the story of our quest for satisfaction in life and what tends to happen when the rug gets pulled out from under us. Humans have the unique ability to think our way into problems that are found nowhere else in the animal kingdom. When life throws us a curveball our natural reaction is to fret about the future, ponder the past and to complain and argue against what is happening to us now. Every other creature, it seems, simply moves on and does the best it can. WHO MOVED MY CHEESE makes the point that in the face of change (unexpected or not) one needs to put those feet in motion and seek out new territories. More so the authors suggest that being more aware of what is happening in your life will make change less unexpected and energize you to seek out new challenges and rewards before the old ones get stale. Awareness is the antidote to complacency.
To complement the advice in WHO MOVED MY CHEESE I suggest WORKING ON YOURSELF DOESN'T WORK by Ariel and Shya Kane. WORKING ON YOURSELF DOESN'T WORK is about awareness and being present in you life moment by moment. The authors offer simple, practical and profound principles that can transform your life and make it magical. My personal work with the authors has shown me beyond a doubt that anything I have done to try and fix what I though was wrong with me simply didn't work and that simply applying awareness (a non-judgmental seeing of what is) to situations is enough to transform them.
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Summary: Downward Spiral of Traditions
Review: One Minute Manager was a good book for new managers who just didn't have any style. The authors missed with Who Moved My Cheese, in my opinion. Who Moved My Cheese is rhetoric of almost infantile style aimed at deteriorating the thought process of respect amongst those that are human. Stop moving my cheese! Just because I'm a nonconformist doesn't mean I don't think. Just because I don't happen to agree, doesn't mean I'm not correct. Sure, we create these little microcosms in our places of employment. Yes, we need to change . . . keeping pace with our competitors. Yes, this overly simplified philosophy would probably be useful for someplace such as McDonalds, Burger King, and the like. The world in general, though, is not this simple. Our (America's) education system is dwindling because of this very logic. Soon we will all be followers reading books like this one.
Rating:
Summary: Mediocrity at its finest
Review: Overhyped by management gurus as the next best thing since the sliced pan, supposed to open up ones eyes to the world of change, give me a break, take any management principles book summary and give it large fonts and say it will change the way you look at the world and presto who moved my cheese. If this is they new way of looking at the world then get me a mouse trap. However,well done to the authors for selling it so well.
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Summary: Reading the book is the easy part.
Review: "Who Moved My Cheese?" is a simple parable that illustrates the natural tendency to resist change. The uncertainty that generally accompanies change in the workplace provides a level of discomfort that some try to escape. Rather than take the necessary steps for change, some employees cling to old notions and actions that produce little or no results. Of course, it has been known for decades that people tend to avoid tasks that cause physical, mental, or emotional discomfort. Why it takes a simple little story about mice and cheese for some people to understand this is beyond me. Perhaps it provides a non-threatening, feel-good reminder of what we already know about ourselves? The problem I see with "Who Moved My Cheese?" is not the message, but the difficulty in reducing such a simple little concept into practice. Knowing that we need to "search around the maze for new cheese" is equivalent to the stock market wizards telling us to buy low and sell high, or business experts telling us that we need to possess organizational savvy to be successful. These are things we all nod our heads in agreement with . . . but then what? We are left without any guidelines for determining when we are "moving around the maze" or simply "sitting at the cheese station." Reading "Who Moved My Cheese?" is like signing up for the membership at the health club. It sure feels good, and it can be the start to something better, but the real work is yet to come. Read the book. Ponder its contents. But expect some discomfort if you really want to make progress.
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Summary: Please Move the Cheese, It Reeks
Review: This book was introduced to me as "highly recommended." It was an extreme disappointment. Simple can be charming, and less can be more, but not in this case. The writer seems to think that his audience is about, oh, say, seven years old. (I won't go as high as eight, since even the South Park gang would find it too puerile.) Hem, Haw and Co. are less dynamic than Dick and Jane, and less intelligent as well, if that is possible. No one enjoys being spoken down to, and this has to be one of the most extreme examples of supercilious writing I have ever encountered. It is not only boring, but insulting to the reader. The only reason I finished this literary work was because I was incredulous that it was considered a "best seller" and a motivator for employees. If the supervisors in a company really think the employees are such dolts that "literature" (or should I say litter-ature?) such as this is the answer, we are indeed in peril. Corny, home-spun humor as a teaching tool has its place, (far, far away, one hopes) and this is where "Who Moved the Cheese" should be laid to rest.
Rating:
Summary: weakly developed metaphor
Review: I agree with reviewers who said beware if your company starts handing out this book. In fact, the only reason I read a copy is because a friend got one after her company went through layoffs. Admittedly, the advice on this level is sound: don't get too comfortable; we ain't running a charity here. There is nothing profound about the tale unless people really are astounded to hear that their job (small business, romantic relationship, etc.) is not an entitlement but something they have to work at, take responsibility for, and be prepared to replace if they have to. On the other hand, people do make a lot of plans--buying a house, raising kids--that are contingent on their "cheese" staying in one place for a while. So it's insensitive for this kind of message to be sent out from upper management. I also agree that this book says nothing about business process. It appears to be a guide to self-preservation under anarchic conditions. This is a useful skill, surely, but not one that a functioning business should rely on as the path to success. It's also insulting on the level that all success is reduced to "cheese" given by some mysterious benevolence. Haw doesn't consider leaving the maze, getting some cows and making his own cheese. The post-discussion is insulting as well. Can't the reader draw his or her own conclusions? Just how insulting is this little book? Let me count the ways... no enough has been said about this already. Without even criticizing the message, I just think that the story is weakly developed. There are the mice, who respond to change well because they don't really plan on things staying the same. There are the humans who get comfortable and resist change. Hem refuses to respond to change. Haw reluctantly responds to change and becomes self-empowered, finding something better than he lost. The story is almost entirely about Haw. The point of the mice is not very clear. Presumably, the mice also represent human responses to change, just less sophisticated ones. But very little is said about the mice apart from their specific strategies. Sniff senses cheese, Scurry just moves around a lot (I guess) till he finds some. Are there other strategies that could be identified? What is special about these two? It is unclear whether the mouse characters serve any purpose other than to establish the maze setting for the story. The reader is mostly invited to identify with Haw. But why not the mice? It is stated that Haw is smarter than the mice. Other than his ability to express himself in trite platitudes, there is little to support that contention. Hem is a non entity, just a thinly developed example of who not to be like. Nobody will identify with such a shallow complaining character, so his role is not very effective. From a purely utilitarian standpoint, the mice seem to have the right idea (don't get too comfortable; nobody's running a charity; get ready to move on when you have to). There is no way in which Haw is at any advantage over the mice. He doesn't think his way to the cheese; he uses the same search techniques as the mice, but he delays until it gets dangerous. His mind only serves as emotional accompanyment. This appears to be the author's understanding of the human experience. It does not take you to any higher levels than animal instincts; it merely annoys and amuses you in uniquely human ways. It appears that the best strategy would be to emulate the mice, but we just don't because we would rather complain a bit first. If I had to summarize the allegory in one word, I'd say "lazy." There's nothing especially challenging here, nothing that a moderately realistic person would disagree with. But many elements of the tale are just filler, or if there is some specific purpose to them, it is not made clear. There are no compelling take-aways that could not be stated much more simply.
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Summary: Beware if this book is given to you at work!!
Review: I worked for a large food company that was (is) always in turmoil. When things were really looking bleak a couple of years ago the Vice President of Sales/Marketing gave everyone this book for Christmas. Six months later just about everyone in sales and marketing was gone - me included. My boss the Director of Marketing read it the night it was given to him and said it was insightful but he wondered about the message and his job. Yep he got canned too! I admit I never read it. I knew my cheese was about to get moved already. My wife read it and said it was "interesting" and then suggested I start looking for a job. I guess the only saving grace of my story and this book is that somebody moved the cheese on the Vice President of Sales/Marketing as well. I hope he kept a copy for himself as he had plenty of time on his hands to read it!
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Summary: Ridiculous and Insulting!
Review: I can't believe this ridiculous little booklet, written for a kindergarten mentality! The cheesey concepts are insulting to all hardworking employees, but are typical of the bias in many management advice books that foster counterproductive, arrogant management behavior at the root of all the corporate scandals. Surely, it is such rotten management's excessive "compensation cheese" that should be moved, not that of the other employees on whose many labors an organization's success depends! My advice is that you don't even bother with this dim-witted, badly produced booklet. Have a well-deserved, good laugh instead at real-life management shennanigans. Altogether, it's high time we employees had our laugh at the kind of insensitive management, which supports offensive booklets like, "Who Moved My Cheese?". We deserve to take a wicked, satirical poke at the management bubble of self-importance --- and without doubt, "Management By Vice" is my choice and recommendation for an honest, fun-filled expose of the "vices" of "cheesey management" practices!
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