Rating: 
Summary: Who Bought This Cheese?
Review: This is such an "Emperor's New Clothes" case: All the ballyhoo about this book's insight, depth, and perspective! A must-read in these unstable times!Our manager had everyone read this book when the co. got acquired, and we had to hang little posters from the book in our cubes to remind us of the "insights." Here's the message of this Dick-and-Jane depth book: "Change happens. Deal with it." Wow, deep. Save your money and time.
Rating: 
Summary: Silly story with very few lessons to teach.
Review: If you're planning to read this book then beware... it is designed and structured to manipulate you! I realized this half the way through the book, and it dismayed me. The premise of this book is to use a metaphorical story to simplify complicated life matters in order to deliver the message of the author in an easy and smooth manner. So what's the message of the author? The author is telling you that you should always be ready for change when it happens. And not only be ready for it, but look forward to it. Expect it and be excited to go through it. The author is trying to say, if I understood him correctly, that change is inevitable in our world. That change will happen to you more than once in almost every aspect of your life. Mr. Johnson explains that the first reaction of intelligent humans is to resist change and fear it. Humans resist change because they fear the unknown, and thus would prefer to cling to their old ways of living even if they are not useful anymore just because it's easier to do so. Mr. Johnson wants you to free yourself from that mindset and be flexible and receptive of change. Mr. Johnson decides to deliver this message the same way children are taught important principles and morals at their early ages, and that is through telling a simple story of four characters. The four characters live in a huge sophisticated maze. The maze is very difficult to travel through and the chances of getting lost are high. Two of the characters are mice, and the other two are "little people" called Haw and Hem. These four characters have one purpose in life, which is to find and eat cheese. The story begins when the characters find a vast amount of cheese in one section of the maze. The amount is immeasurable and the possibility of it running out is incomprehensible. Then the unintelligent mice take off their sneakers and hang them on their necks and begin eating the cheese. The intelligent little people on the other hand take off their sneakers and start building a social life around that pile of cheese. One day though, the cheese ran out! And to tell a long story short, the mice, being all ready with their sneakers handy and nothing to get attached to, put on the sneakers and jump back into the maze in search of new cheese. The little people though are stunned! "Who moved my cheese?" is the point they keep going around and around with no intention of searching for new cheese because they are fearful of going back to the scary maze. Haw however begins to realize this and goes through a journey of gradually getting over his fears and going back to the maze and exploring it in search of new cheese, leaving Hem behind because Hem did not accept the fact that he had to change. Once the story is over, the author makes up a discussion between friends at a school reunion discussing how this story resembles aspects of each of their personal lives. They discuss what the "cheese" is to each of them and how they resisted the change when the "cheese" was moved. And the book ends there. Why did I not like this book? Well because of the paradigm it's trying to make me look at myself through! In this story I'm under the mercy of some unknown entity that keeps moving my cheese, and thus I should always be on the look for that! I can't make my own cheese! Instead I'm under the mercy of whoever distributes the cheese across the vast maze. I should always accept change because I'm so weak against it, and if I do choose to resist any type of change then I'll end up cheese-less! Another flaw in this book is the oversimplification! This oversimplification can result in delivering the wrong message! So what if I accept the message and will change whenever I believe that change is required? What about my principles? Should those change too if they seem to be inept with a cruel environment I find myself to be living in? What about relationships? Should I give up on them if it seemed to have ran out of cheese? A neat maneuver at the end of the book tries to escape this last flaw. In the discussion at the end one of the friends mentions that his relationship seems to not be providing him cheese anymore and thus he should end it, or change in other words. Another friend though tells him that what he needs to change is his attitude in this relationship and not the relationship itself! So my question is, how do you know what to change? How do you know which aspect of your life did actually run out of cheese? Does the book answers these questions? Yes. It tells you that you need to change! How brilliant Dr. Johnson! My advice is that you should seek more sophisticated books about personal independence and character power instead. Yet I still give this book 3 stars because it was short. It did not take a lot of my time to finish, which was a smart thing to do. I would've given it more stars if it wasn't for the great revelations the author claims that the readers should expect after finishing the book. Maybe if I was 6 years old I would've experienced tHem, but not at my age. Buy but with low expectations.
Rating:
Summary: A Message For Simpletons Only
Review: The basic theme of "Who Moved My Cheese" is that 'change' is inevitable and that the 'sharpest' people among us are the ones who will unquestioningly accept this idea. On the other hand, I felt this book was aimed at indoctrinating American workers and citizens alike to accept, with sheep-like docility, so-called 'change', rather than critically analyzing the LEGITIMACY of change. Based on this book, the Jews who saw the Nazi holocaust coming should have gone along with 'change', rather than question it. The millions who died under Stalinist rule in the former USSR should have accepted 'change' (as in, the end of their lives) rather than rock the boat and resist it. That is the fundamental message of "Who Moved My Cheese", a book that asks the reader to swallow a poisonous pill of "going with the flow" rather than asking loudly and clearly whether the 'change' one is confronted with is GOOD, such as America's present immigration policies, which we are told are nothing more but 'change'. Well, getting killed in a car wreck or dying from cancer is 'change'. Does that mean it's something we should not resist?
Rating:
Summary: Herd mentality propaganda
Review: Go ahead, laugh at me and call me a Hem, but I must join the ranks of folks who got very little from this little book. I certainly know what the author is saying, and I can't deny that developing a good attitude toward change can be helpful, but the simple fact is that change is not always a good thing. Life is a series of ups and downs, and no amount of visualization and optimism can guarantee that something better can be found just by looking for it. I read this book because I had seen it mentioned and was curious about it; had a corporation or company I worked for suggested I read this book, I would have been mortified. The thought of actually having a business meeting to discuss this simplistic book makes me cringe. It would send a clear message to me that the company wanted to prepare me for bad news or to eliminate criticism in the ranks. Frankly, I found the story rather silly, and there was nothing there that I had not already heard before. Rather than promote free thinking, I can see managers dismissing policy questions or even fruitful suggestions from employees--if the company is moving in one direction, but you think an even better plan involves doing the old thing differently, a manager may well just accuse you of resisting change and not even listen to your idea. The folks who don't embrace change for its own sake fare rather poorly in the author's universe. I cannot recommend this book. Not only is it very short, but it is two or three times longer than it needs to be because the author excels in redundancy; the repetition of the author's "brilliant" points also qualifies in my book as a method of indoctrination. The fact that this book is so popular with managers and executives sets off alarms in my mind; this is because the book encourages their underlings to not only do as they say (no matter if they are right or wrong) but to smile while they are doing it. Expecting a group of employees to read this book and follow its precepts smacks of pied-piper management and herd mentality; the effect I get from the book is one almost antithetical to true individualism and freedom of choice. By all means, look out for yourself and try to plan for the future, but do not betray yourself while doing it. Just as many people are harmed by implementing bad changes as are helped by responding positively to good changes. Bad policy decisions deserve criticism, not blind devotion. Authority should be questioned when it is clearly wrong. I assure you that the secret of happiness is not to be found in these pages. This is one rat who will not be following the Pied Piper's music over the cliff.
Rating: 
Summary: A must read!!
Review: During a rough financial period for my employer, the president of the corporation gave each employee a copy of this book, knowing that we were all going to be faced with a great deal of change in the near future. After a very short read (about 1.5 hours total), I was able to put into immediate action all that I had gleaned from this little gem. I highly recommend this book to anyone and everyone in the workforce.
Rating: 
Summary: Powerful Message
Review: This book articulates a simple yet powerful message: The most competitive people in society predict and adjust to change early. If there is something in the road a mile ahead, change lanes now. Otherwise, you might become part of a twelve-car pile up! The style of presentation is unique and the messsage is simple. This is why readers tend to either love the book or hate it.
Rating:
Summary: whomever let this guy publish a book?
Review: Certain books have the ability to sweep through organizations as the hipist new thing on the planet. "Who Moved My Cheese," by Spencer Johnson is just such a book. After sweeping through the corner office executive world, most middle managers found a copy of Johnson's book in their in box or sitting in their cube. The book starts out at a college reunion. A man passionately relates to his old college buddies how a book he just read called "Who Moved My Cheese" effected his life. While I usually find self referencing material to be interesting, (see "Godel, Escher, Bach" by Douglas R. Hofstadter) Johnson's use of the technique is totally self serving. The character in the book goes on to relate that there was a manager at his company who made negative comments about the book. This manager was laughed and made fun of. This is an obvious and doorky attempt to root out any dissenting opinions. The message right off the bat is, if you disagree with the book or are not sympathetic to it, you do not understands it's message. In law, this type of argument is called an ad hominem. Attacking the person instead of attacking the argument. Attacking the person instead of the argument is typically what you would expect from old time religion, not pseudo philosophical self help management books (I think that is a whole new until now unrecognized genre). Heaven forbid that anyone might actually have some personal insight. Thus, it is very obvious from the get go that Johnson, beyond, not being able to write believable dialog or create meaningful characterization, is in an all out smug of war with the reader. After suffering through the college reunion, the book finally gets to the meat of Johnson's argument. Johnson separates reality into four types of people. In logic, this is called a "biased sample." Common sense will tell you that the whole world's population can not be divided into four different types of people. But I digress. In the book, the four main characters are in pursuit of Cheese. The author tries to equate Cheese with desire. This is most clearly done at the end of the book, where the author uses Cheese as an allegory for relationships. Most of the book does not make this distinction and it is clear throughout that the author is doing a "wink, wink, nod, nod" to the idea that Cheese is anything other then money. Why is this important? While I am certainly a capitalist, it is such an americanism to equate the value of life with money itself. And it is obviously not true. If you do not hold money as a defining atribute, it is then possible to live your life without being in fear of losing it. Evolution is also at a discord with the message of the book. Johnson glorifies the qualities of two characters that use animal instinct to react to change and criticizes the intelligent characters in the book for not reacting using instinct. This is an example of the anti-intellectualism that is often found in western pop philosophy. The book denies the power of proactively affecting change and rewards only the reactive. To put it more simply, "ignorance is bliss." The two characters that use instinct are rats and the two characters that have intelligence are "little people." And yet the two types of characters are fighting for the same food and attack their problems in the same fashion. Evolution proves to us that this would not be the case. The characters with more intelligence would find another niche in their environment higher then that of the rats. Indeed, they might find a way to create their own cheese. So why does the corporate world love this book? Simple, it lets them off the hook. The actual message of the book is that you need to accept that the only one you can depend upon is yourself. Thanks Johnson, that was so deep, I never would have gotten that! Change will happen, react to it with instinct and do not allow your feelings to get in the way of moving on. Forget the fact that you dedicated your life to a company or stayed loyal when no one else did, the company does not exist for you. You are nothing. In conclusion, if you do not identify yourself as a stupid rat or an ignorant little person this book breaks down without a firm grounding in conventional philosophy. For all of the fuzzy logic that goes into the book, the message from upper management giving you a copy of "Who Moved My Cheese" is clear: don't depend upon us.
Rating:
Summary: Who Moved My Cheese?
Review: The book "Who Moved My Cheese" is a lighthearted yet practical look at how to handle life's changing landscape. The four characters in the book, having found a seemingly unlimited supply of cheese, live for some time basking in their glory. Suddenly, it is no longer there. What to do? The two mouse characters simply move on in search of new cheese. The two "human-like" characters however, fret and ponder and complain about how unfair life is. One of them finally strikes out on a quest for new cheese and consequently on a journey of self-discovery, leaving the other one that insists on being left behind. During his journey he discovers that through complacency he and the other mouse missed some telltale signs that things were not as good as they had assumed. "If we had been more aware", the character muses "we would have noticed that the cheese was getting old and moldy for some time and it was disappearing slowly and not all at once as we thought." This theme of awareness and giving attention to your life calls to mind one of my favorite books: "Working on Yourself Doesn't Work" by Ariel and Shya Kane. In it the authors explore how to become fully present in your life and live each moment to its fullest. I highly recommend it for those who want an even deeper understanding of how to live a full and satisfying life.
Rating:
Summary: LIKE EATING MOLDY KRAFT MACARONI
Review: I'm so glad others out there despise this book as much as I. It was given to all employees at my company a month before we were told no one was getting an annual bonus this year. (Coincidence? I think not.) Our CEO claimed it was the best thing he's ever read. Ever feel like you work for an idiot? This book is downright demoralizing and depressing when it's given to you by a company you slave 8-5 for everyday. They must think we have the intelligence of bridge trolls. I hated the message of this book so much, and the condescending stupidity it connotates that I actually burned it at a keg party the following weekend. The scary part? IT WOULDN'T BURN! We had to set it on fire so many times we gave up and threw it in the trash. The one positive was that after reading it I felt smarter than our management team and know now that someday, all the people who hate this book will come together to crush the cheese lovers. Oh yeah.
Rating:
Summary: A bit to trivial
Review: Even for its modest price, this book contains only very little content. All you need to know can be summarized on one page; in fact the author has just done that. Everything around that one page contains a not very interesting story.
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