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Summary: Refreshing change from the typical business "self help" book
Review: For those of us who have read more than our share of business-related self-help books, this one is a refreshing change because it is short and makes its point through a story. While it may not be a "life changing" book for everybody, it will hit home at some level for almost all of us, because in some way we are all change-averse. I would actually recommend this to people whose jobs are being dramatically affected by technology, or to the manager of these people.
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Summary: Simple is sometimes better
Review: Change can be a complex and confusing thing. This book simplifies and provides examples of how each person deals with change. Each person has been one of the four characters at one time or another and have reacted the same way when the "cheese was moved". I found the book to be a simple and very effective way to present a complex and confusing subject like change.
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Summary: Good, but not earthshattering
Review: This is a helpful little book, but I didn't think it was so fantastic that it should be one of the best selling books around. I've read similar books about how to get what you want out of life, and while this one was better than most it certainly wasn't groundbreaking. The book is told as a parable about 2 mice and 2 littlepeople who run around a maze looking for cheese. I love cheese, so I was hooked from the start, but of course the cheese is just a metaphor, and I prefer real cheese to metaphorical cheese. Anyway, the points the book raises are sound advice but rather obvious-- don't expect things to be handed to you, don't be afraid to take risks, don't let doubt frighten you into inaction. A useful and quick read, and one that must have hit a particular nerve in a lot of people to justify it's megaseller popularity. I either don't have that nerve or it's just gone numb.
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Summary: Just borrow someone's copy
Review: "Who Moved My Cheese" deals with one of the most important topics in today's business world, but I'm afraid it does more harm than good because of the lightweight nature. While the message that change happens and we must be flexible enough to respond is good, the book offers little guidance on actually doing it. This book is likely to fall into the hands of executives because it's a quick read, but will likely leave them thinking that just telling people they have to change is sufficient. As someone trained in change management, I can assure you that is very far from the truth. Getting people to change successfully is much more difficult than decreeing it be so. I would recommend this book as a light-hearted introduction to the world of change, but would definately follow it with another of more substance. I'd recommend "Sacred Cows Make the Best Burgers" by Kreigel much more than "Who Moved My Cheese".
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Summary: Remember how much fun fairy tales were?
Review: How much of your early learning was through the mode of fairy tales? Whether it was morality from a Grimm story, spirituality from a bible "story" in Sunday School, or math concepts from something like "Flatland", the use of simple characters to teach complicated concepts dates to Confucious and beyond. This book has two things going for it: easily digested concepts coherently presented, and memorable "visuals" to lock in those concepts. Have fun some lunch hour. Pick this up, read it, put it down, read it again in a week. It's not the Book of All Knowledge, but it's a great brain stimulator!
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Summary: Analyzing our attitudes toward change
Review: Having read several of the reviews of this book, I am struck by a recurring theme. Many of the reviewers who disliked the book also expressed hostile viewpoints about change, either personal or in their workplace. This is not a how-to manual or a cookbook. If you are looking for a guide with Steps 1,2,3 to dealing with change...this is not it. What it is is a short story with a point to it (Aesop's Fable's comes to mind). Read it and think about how it applies to situations you find yourself in. Share it with your kid's and talk to them about trying to be Sniffers and Scratchers instead of Hemmers and Hawers. While on first approach this looks like a quick read, that is deceptive. In order to get something out of it, you;ll have to put some thought into it. Personally, I found it thought provoking and worthwhile.
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Summary: irritatingly, distractingly self-congratulatory
Review: The jacket cover, intro, beginning (even the title!) of this book not only go on endlessly about the book's amazing value to any reader but go so far as to suggest that the reader who doesn't care for the book isn't taking the time to examine his feelings, thoughts, etc. and is otherwise deficient. What a crock! There is no book ever written that deserves such lauding. The book isn't all bad and might offer some useful suggestions to a reader in dealing with change in life and work. It is written simply and is rather simple -- both in the lessons it teaches and in its approach. Indeed, though the book is very short, the story could have been told in half as many pages. The irritating self-congratulatory promotion -- to the point of criticizing those who don't get much from the book -- is entirely unnecessary and fills far too much of the print in this package. I don't like being told that I am lacking or stupid because I may not care for a book -- even before I have read the thing. Additionally, not only does all the jacket and intro info tell you that the story is a parable -- the story itself says so. Talk about no subtlety whatsoever! I would under no circumstances buy this book unless I had to purchase it for a team building or similar project at work.
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Summary: Needs to be read over and over
Review: I found this little book very penetrating. After taking about three hours to read it the first time I am ready to read it again. It has a lot of good lessons for real life.
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Summary: Summer Reading List for Teachers
Review: If students are handed a summer reading list, then teachers should make the commitment to read during the summer as well. As a teacher, I found this book particularly helpful because education is ALWAYS changing. This book helps readers to develop a new perspective on change. Four characters are brought to life in the book. Sniff and Scurry are mice, and Hem and Haw are little humans. The four live in a maze, where cheese is sought as that which represents happiness to them (money, job, relationships). As the little parable unfolds, it becomes clear to readers that change is inevitable, but that it can and should be welcomed as opportunity for improvement. Readers will be prompted to identify with one of the characters and ask, "Which one am I?" You, too, will be comparing yourself to each of the characters as you read their story. Somewhere in the maze is a representation of each of us.....I'm hoping that I can become more like Scurry, but I'm afraid I'll need some help from a fellow Sniff to seek out the changes that will affect my life. Enjoy reading this one!
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Summary: MOUSEY TENSIONS
Review: Because of our power of reasoning, imagining and supposing, we exist mentally in a world of opposites, converses, negatives. There may be some kind of absolute reality that is not like this. There may be other relative realities. But this tensional, or polar, reality is the one we humans inhabit. Anything that exists or can be imagined to exist is a pole. All feelings, ideas, thoughts, are poles; and each pole has counterpoles. This book by Johnson deals with both, attempting to establish an order among constant change, since change creates tension. Tension is the effect on the individual of conflicting feelings, ideas, desires and events. Sometimes the tug-of-war will be one-sided, in the sense that the individual will know quite clearly which "side" he wishes to win. In most political and social contexts this is so. A Jew-hater is not attracted by pro-semitism, a pacifist by armed intervention. There is still tension, since the individual knows that in society the opposing point of view is held. But in many other situations the conflict will be in the INDIVIDUAL. He will be pulled first one way, then the other. This can form a rhythmic and comfortable pattern, as in normal sexual relationships; it can become a torture on the rack; and in extreme cases the knotted ropes, the individual mind, may break under strain. Change produces tension, and the effect of a tension may be good or bad: a game or an anxiety. Tension, like every other mechanism in the universal process, is indifferent to the organisms it affects. It may ravish them, or it may destroy them. Learn to deal with change and tension: this "expensive" (but now greatly reduced by Amazon) pamphlet opens some doors...
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