Who Moved My Cheese?

Well... This was awful.

Who moved my cheese was one of the books that made me lose interest the minutes I opened it. It only holds a little amount of pages, but it reads like it was 1000 pages long and every page is the same.

The story addresses a group of friends who all have dealt with changes in their life. Imagine a stock picture of a bunch of random people in a coffee shop sitting together. One of them tells a little story about two mice and two mini humans, who all search for cheese. The cheese is moved and everyone acts different. The friends reflect the story on their lives.

The way the book is written makes you feel like it was written by a writer who was fired on several sitcoms and found a way to express his sadness through telling his sad story mixed with some leftovers from the sitcoms. The whole book feels like it was written on a pamphlet you could hand out when you fire somebody; ‘Your cheese has moved, please move along mice'. It even has no shame in addressing that fact. ‘Please buy this books to give it to your employees (you might fire hehe)'; Read between the lines at Page 1.

Let me say first and foremost I am not against people seeking help for changes. I mean, I read this book because of it. But this book is not going to help you one bit. It's just Kubler Ross' change curve personified in four characters, portrayed as a children's's tale written in font-size that will give you epilepsy.

The bottom line of the book is also very depressing and not something I can personally get behind. Here are some things I can get behind. Change is all around and will always occur and monitoring and predicting change may be hard but is worth the effort. Here is the bottom-line of the book, which I don't agree; “Change will happen, find a way with it or be left behind”. Which roughly translates in “Be one of the mice”.

Especially don't take your time to be sad, or have some doubts. You don't need doubts. True business players have no doubts. They never hesitate, let alone not take action on changes. Or if you lose somebody that was very close to you. Just be the action mice. “Get over it, you silly boy!”. Just don't have doubts, changes will always turn out right in the end and life is a maze one day you'll find cheese.

Most of those statements are dated philosophies in my opinion. There isn't a cheese for everybody. Moving on isn't always the easiest and best option and shouldn't be forced. Changes aren't always positive and shouldn't be chosen for you.

You should decide the tempo. Don't let anyone haste you into the process of mourning or choosing the right path. That's for you to find out. It's better to think about it and lose some time, than to take the path you don't want to or are forced upon.

I just picture some corporate leader firing his people, sending them a mail; “Don't worry this book will cheer you up! Change is great ! “, and getting a mail back “Instructions unclear, couldn't feed starving children with book.”. Or somebody who lost his partner to cancer. “Just move on to some other Cheese, society doesn't want you slacking around”.

And that's the bottom line. Society doesn't want you slacking around. It wants you up there, working, being a good model employee and participant. Not feeling or doubting. And if you should feel some aspect of doubt or loss, here is Kubler Ross' change curve portrayed by some mice. This will make you feel better.

This was one of the worst books I've ever read, and I don't advise anyone to read it.
I'm going to leave it at this. You've read enough of my review anyway. Now, stop feeling sorry, get back to work and stop wasting time on the internet. There is cheese waiting somewhere in the running wheel the'll portray as a maze full of opportunities.

Short read, but some really good insights that I will be able to put to use very quickly this year. My cheese was moved towards the end of last year and this book has made it clear to me which character I was acting like. It also showed me how I can change to another character and embrace the coming change as a great new opportunity rather than a bad thing.

Highly recommended to anyone as this topic pertains to any aspect of life where change can happen (which is every aspect in case you have not figured that out).

I am not really a fan of self help. Some of the concepts in here were reasonable but I couldn't connect with the parable and I found some gaping holes in its logic. Over all a lovely simplistic idea but with no practical relevancy. This book does not provide a full proof plan to sort your life out and adapt to change as advertised. It simply regurgitates some rather badly worded cliche lines about finding success by visualising it. I was made to read this by my sister and I was not impressed.

Why did I pick this book?
Recommended as a staple book to read in the category self-development. Was a short read and available in my library.

The book
It's a very short read. Made even shorter by pictures filling entire pages and short chapters.
The book itself is divided into three parts; starting with a story setting the scene; a group of friends meeting at a high school reunion and reflecting on being afraid of changes. Then the actual story of ‘Who moved my cheese' is about; mice and men that need to navigate a maze to find cheese. Each of the four characters has a different approach to address this challenge and the story expertly highlights the strengths and weaknesses of each approach.
The last chapter is again from the focus of the high school friends that reflect on how the story's few on change can help them.

My recommendation
A very nicely crafted story. I like how they included especially the last chapter to also reflect on how this story could help people in their day-to-day life. It gives an example of how to interpret the story and an example of how to address someones resistance to change in a positive way.

The story itself is nicely written, easy to digest, and it's neither too dreamy/fuzzy nor too straight-cut as an example story. Due to the translation to mice/cheese and a maze, I think it's easier for a reader to distance themselves from the hard-lessons to learn and easier to jokingly agree that they might resemble one of the characters (as is done in the last chapter).

Definitely recommend for everyone.
Would recommend to follow up with ‘The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People' to give direction to your search for ‘new cheese'.

There's nothing wrong with this little book, but a lot of things are very well known by now, so I don't think it is groundbreaking or that enlightening in 2020. It is an extremely short read or you can listen to it during a short gym workout or run and it will entertain you a little bit, but if you read other self improvement books in your life, chances are that you will not find anything new...