Who Moved My Cheese ?? a review

Hello World !!

These days i find enough time to read books ( which i enjoy the most) and to blog( another recent passion of mine). so this post is the result of the interaction of the above two phenomena and here i am writing a review on this book"Who Moved My Cheese??".

A pretty small book ( probably the size of a 1st class book) but with plenty of info which would make us think for a life time, probably this is the most apt comment that can be given for this book. As a quote on its cover page says " It takes just under an hour to read this but has a lifetime worth moral in the content".

Enough of introduction now let us see what the story is about. The concept is simple "Change Mangement". A couple of years ago i read in one of my courses(POM - principles of management) about Porter's analysis of the change in an organization, the few examples presented in this book follow the same principles. So all i can say is it has both a technical as well as a bit of motivational touch to it.

Coming to the story it is about four characters (as the picture shows), two of them are mice SNIFF and SCURRY and two of them are little people HEM and HAW. These names are not just to appear funky but they depict the nature of each of those characters. While sniff can sniff a change(oppurtunity) Scurry on being told wat to do acts on accordingly and immediately, Hem as the name suggests always expresses dissent @ change and Haw though initially reluctant to change with the situation, learns in course of time the need to change and the benifits that one can get.

The story is simple, All four of them live on cheese and they search for it in a maze. One day they find a very good store of cheese in a corner of the big maze. In due course of time the cheese gets over, Sniff and scurry who are ready for the change sense it immediately and after a lot of hard work find another store with lots of cheese. Hem who is always reluctant to change keeps on wondering " Who moved my cheese ?? "and Here comes the character i loved the most-- Haw. Though reluctant to change initially Haw decides to search for new cheese as the situation worsens. He is a higly motivated person and derives his motivation from whatever small success he achieves on the way. This is shown by the incident where he keeps on searching the maze just because he is able to find small crumbles of cheese here and there. Finally he reaches the same store where sniff and scurry are enjoying the cheese. He remebers all the lessons that he had learnt on his adventure and tries to apply them to his future.

In a way or two all these characters represent our thought process in life. There are a gifted few who can sniff change. There are others who get this golden oppurtunity to be guided by those gifted few and take full advantage of that, like Scurry. But for me most of us are like Haw who might not expect change but are willing to give it a try hoping for the best. It is these kind of people who can survive in a world Where change is the only constant thing. But people like Hem who never want to change have only one option left..........

I would like to put here a couple of quotes presented in the book through Haw's character.
"Smell the cheese often so that u know when it is getting old"
&
"It is safer to search in maze than to remain in a cheeseless situation"

I dont say all of u turn out to be sniffs overnite on reading this bk, but there is a gud chance that u start trying to be one. So to know which character of the four lies in u start reading " Who Moved My Cheese??"