Rating: 
Summary: Wolves in Monks Clothing
Review: The cheese is desire, we are all in a maze called life chasing the cheese. True. And we all need to realize that change is the one certainty. We are happiest when we let go of clinging to our idea of cheese and live in reality, truly living genuine, open lives. (You have just read the book- dont bother buying it.) What makes me ill is that all this simplicity and truth seems to be a corporate way of saying that you had better buck up and have a good attitude because all Hem's are history. Insult to injury, it really IS written at about a 3rd grade reading level. "See Spot run!" can be life changing, too... if it is the first book you have ever read about dogs.
Rating: 
Summary: All the Fuss About A Fable? Take a Fresh Look.
Review: Even if you resent the thrust of this book as do many reviewers and corporate recipients, there are reasons to read it. The ancient use of fables that this book utilizes is to simplify and impersonalize the issues so that an evaluation can be made. You might call it a way to turn human relations into something like arithmetic. Life is far more complicated than a fable. The fable should allow you to think without emotional baggage. After all, no one is suggesting anything is true or relevant in a fable it is up to you to decide. Because the book has stirred up so much emotions and sales for the author and publisher, we are going to see a lot more fables in books. I suspect many will be better written and offer more comprehensive insight.The books popularity as a gift to employees is fascinating. Given the emphasis on individual action to be one of the good characters in the fable, the message is forget team work, forget the company, take care of your family and self-- no matter what it takes. The company has little responsibility to you. Management and boards of directors have slowly learned that their responsibility is to the shareholders-end of story. I have thought for sometime that middle management and employees that would awaken to the reality that their is very little reason for loyalty to the corporation. The popularity of this book with top managements would indicate that they are ready to speak plainly, perhaps they can't handle the emotional baggage of what happens to employees and they want to set the contract down with complete clarity. The loyalty of the corporation is from paycheck to paycheck and the employee should not take offense. If you can find a better deal outside the company you will be gone. If you are there for the next paycheck, you did not find a better deal. More than ever before, a management that pays less than the replacement value of an employee is foolish. The changes that face corporations are dramatically greater than even a decade ago. Managers have always had trouble seeing change-just look at any group of long-term stock price charts randomly selected. Because CEOs are not very good at anticipating change, boards of directors are replacing CEOs at a much faster rate than ever before. Society at all levels has to deal with much greater rates of change-- much more widespread and profound than anything suggested by this book. Morality and ethics at the level of the individual needs to be strengthened and factored into who you employ, who you follow and who you vote for more than ever before because the future is more uncertain as well as more exciting.
Rating: 
Summary: Great book
Review: I agree with the author's assessment of his story -- that we each derive our own value from this book's topic and content. Personally, it had timely and profound meaning. I felt this book is less about management, though I can see why it might be interpreted as such. Rather, it is about our personal psychology on how we want to live a life. (To that end, I saw some parallels with Jonar Nader's How to Lose Friends and Infuriate People.) The key thing this book did was to help me dig down inside of myself and make conscious what I already know. I believe that is the author's purpose; not to teach or preach, but to have readers rethink some self-obvious truths that are sometimes suppressed when we settle for long-term comfort. I feel the simple english and plain images helps us (at least me) do that in a non-threatening way. After reading it, I submitted my resignation. I have a good job in management that I could be comfortable in for at least ten years or more. But I hate mediocrity, especially within myself. And I felt what I was doing was not challenging my true potential. That will eventually hurt my peers, senior management, and the great people who work for me. So, I dared myself to move on and take a look at the world. The book was not a driver, but a catalyst to that end.
Rating: 
Summary: The key message is to Anticipate Change
Review: Changes happen frequently in our life, some good, some bad, some no point questioning whether it is good or bad because they cannot be reversed and the only way to react to it is to accept and adapt. For example, other companies coming to compete with you (as mentioned in the discussion section of the book), crash of the stock market, lost of loved ones etc. As for bad changes like your boss overlooking your promotion (mentioned by one of the reviewers), I do not think it is the intention of the author to tell us to just accept it (bad change) blindly. When the author describes the reaction of Hem towards the missing cheese, the point he wants to make is not about not questioning the change and accept it as it is. The point he wants to make is that we should not deny the change or over question or analyse the change to the extend of bogging ourselves down and missing opportunities (hence the portion of the story where Haw found little pieces of left over cheese at a cheese station visited by someone else earlier). Unfortunately, who can tell us how much of questioning and analysing the change is too much? Therefore, the key message I got from the parable is not about questioning and analysing the change, and then reacting to it, but to anticipate the change! Imagine if you know that your boss can be quite careless sometime, and hence you anticipate that he might overlook your promotion, you would be able to hint to him in advance so that he does not move your cheese. Imagine if you realize that you and your spouse are drifting apart, and anticipate that it would lead to a divorce, then you would be able to take actions to save the relationship before it is too late. Therefore, it is not the intention of the author to tell us to accept change blindly. The author merely points out the problem of questioning or anaylsing the change too much. The best thing for us to do is to anticipate change. The real reason why Sniff and Scurry can react to the change so quickly is not because of their instinct, but because they anticipated the change. The real reason why Hem and Haw need to question and analyse the change is not because they are smart people, but because they did not anticipate the change.
Rating:
Summary: Good Advise, Easy Read
Review: The story is very easy to read and helps you look at change as an opportunity. Most of the info is common sense, but it does help highlight some of the poor the choices we make if we view the world as though we were victims.
Rating:
Summary: A badge to label the addle minded
Review: A mere ninety-four pages in length and I haven't seen typeface that large since Dick and Jane saw Spot run. So-called educated people will see this book as worthy. Intelligent people, on the other hand, will see the true value of this book, a beacon to identify the thoughtless and the dull.
Rating:
Summary: Simple but helpful
Review: People seem too quick to dismiss this book. Don't do it. Though it is simple in its presentation and short in length, the message is powerful. Our entire staff read this as we went through an organizational change. We adopted the metaphor, and it helped us to put words to the struggles we faced in our transition. The perfect companion to management in transition, or anyone facing the battle of change.
Rating:
Summary: A New Look At Life
Review: Whether you relate this book towards your work life, or your personal life, it's analogies are insightful and completely eye opening. I think this can relate to any situation of change in any aspect of your life and offers great guidance. A must have on the bookshelf during any time of uncertainty for anyone and everyone!
Rating:
Summary: "Why is this cheese being moved so much?"
Review: The reviewers who ask, "Why is this cheese being moved so much?", are the very people for whom this book was written, and they just don't know it. Bad things happen, so why waste your time asking "why"? It is best to be ready and just "get on with it". If you don't like the cheese being moved all the time by the "higher ups", have the guts to quit and find other work. The bad news is you will find the same problem at your next job. No one is entitled to things working the way they want. Life doesn't work that way. Stop complaining and adapt. Also, ALL change can be positive, if you look at it with a positive attitude.
Rating:
Summary: The death of management accountability
Review: While flexibility can have its merits versus inflexibility as an employee, both extremes can be ill-fated. This book seeks to teach the philosophy that the key to operating in today's workforce is simply to "go with the flow" no matter what the situation. The parable's message is essentially to look on the bright side and find exciting opportunities in chaos. What it fails to mention, however, is that the chaos that ensued was generally caused by poor management. No longer is the onus on management to lead, to guide, to plan, or to foster. Instead, employees are simply tasks and must bend to the wind that takes them. Welcome to the New Economy. I would suggest that corporations instead encourage their employees to read "Requisite Organization" by Elliott Jaques and "How Come Every Time I Get Stabbed in the Back My Fingerprints Are on the Knife?:And Other Meditations on Management" by Jerry Harvey. Companies must demand management personnel perform the function they are paid for - to work for the success of the firm by being strategic in developing both their customers AND their employees.
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