Book review
Title: Who moved my cheese
Author: Spencer Johnson, M.D
Student: Sanne Knitel (093415)
Overview main argument
The book tells the story of two mice (Sniff and Scurry) and two little people (Hem and Haw) captive in a labyrinth. In the book ‘’Who moved my cheese” is cheese a metaphor for everything you want in life. In real life everything what mice want is really cheese but for the two little people cheese is a metaphor for security, success, happiness and financial safety. If we find ‘’our cheese’’ we prefer to cling to the cheese. The cheese-stock is exhaustible, a company reorganises, a partner can leave us, in short uncertainties robbery us. The labyrinth in the story represents where we spend time to look for what we want in life. It can be in your relationship, the organization you work and more.
What's very important in the story that the mice and the little people find at one day cheese in the Cheese Station C. They are all very happy with the finding and day after day they come back to the Cheese Station C to get the cheese. There are differ between the mice and the little people: the mice always explore their surrounding when they are in the neighbourhood of Cheese Station C. The little people where very comfortable with the whole situation and this feels like security, success, happiness and financial safety.
Then the story turns: the cheese disappeared from Cheese Station C. The mice and the people react very differently.
Mice: Sniff and Scurry
The mice are surprised but they choose a new direction to find new cheese. They didn’t analyse the situation because change happens. When change happens they know how to deal with it and they immediately start a search for a new Cheese Station. And after a few days they find the new Cheese Station with cheese that was even better than the old cheese.
The little people: Hem and Haw
The little people react very emotional, because Cheese Station C felt like their home. They were shocked, outraged, scared and don’t know what to do. In their comfort they didn’t notice that the cheese was reducing. They felt that the situation was unfair, they stayed in Cheese Station C and hoped that the cheese come back. But the cheese was gone.. After a period Haw felt weak and decides to look for other cheese. He was very afraid of what might happen to him, he was afraid of the unknown. During his seek he was writing life lessons on the walls of the labyrinth like ‘’ Çhange happens, Anticipate Change, Enjoy Change’’. Him stayed in Cheese Station C, it is not clear if he ever reach the new Cheese Station.
The first part of the book former classmates talk about a class reunion about change and how to deal with them in their lives. The second part is the story about the mice and the little people and how they react on the changes in their lives. The third part of the book brings you back to reality in a playful way. It gives you insights in how change processes work at people
Reflection
I like the book because of it’s simple language, it’s metaphors. The book is easy to read and makes you think about yourself and the way you behave and react in change situations. The book deals with fear and show you how to deal with it to overcome yourself. The changes can give you also new opportunities, both businesslike as private. For me sometimes change is scary but the book shows you that change can also be fun. The book gives seems very simple but there are a lot of things in life we do not see anymore. We take it for granted. A few things were very important insights for me after reading this book:
1. If you don’t change you ‘’die’’.
2. If you keep an eye on the little changes you are able to accept the bigger changes more easy.
3. Old beliefs doesn’t lead you to the new ‘stuff’’.
4. If you let go of the fear you will be free
5. In a change situation you have to find new paths for everything you want in life.
For me reading the story was perfectly timed because I just lost my job and I was in a change process myself. The book helped me to view the situation with a helicopter view and I could see the change process in perspective. The book made me smile because of the metaphors and the simple way the author wrote about these difficult and complex change processes.
Value of the book for Imagineering
Imagineering is ‘’a design approach to value co-creation making use of imagination. It’s a way to create a new appealing ‘’lens’’ to find ‘’a blue ocean of uncontested market space’’ that inspires all stakeholders to co-create’’ (Nijs, 2009). Imagineering is a way to approach organisation transformation. As Imagineers we use the Roadmap (Inspiration phase, Creation phase, Exploration phase and Organisation phase) to realise transformation in organisations. Changes are in every part of the Roadmap during the transformation. Alexander de Vries mentioned in one of his lectures: ‘’You have to be in a nothing to loose modus, then you are free’’.This is exactly the lesson I learned from this book. You don’t need control, you need trust for transformations. When you are still in control, you are not driving fast enough. Trust make people grow, but trust is scary for a lot of people. So you need guts to create trust. Trust starts with purpose. Why are we here? Imagineering is a construct which also is able to construct trust.
As an Imagineer / change leader you first have to know yourself to reach something. The book helps you to understand how you react on changes, you are able to compare yourself with the mice and the little people. From a Imagineering point of view it is important to start from a positive thing in change. If we look to the story ‘’Who moved my cheese” the mice are positive to the change and the little people are scared. So in this story we can learn a lot from the mice.
Title: Who moved my cheese
Author: Spencer Johnson, M.D
Student: Sanne Knitel (093415)
Overview main argument
The book tells the story of two mice (Sniff and Scurry) and two little people (Hem and Haw) captive in a labyrinth. In the book ‘’Who moved my cheese” is cheese a metaphor for everything you want in life. In real life everything what mice want is really cheese but for the two little people cheese is a metaphor for security, success, happiness and financial safety. If we find ‘’our cheese’’ we prefer to cling to the cheese. The cheese-stock is exhaustible, a company reorganises, a partner can leave us, in short uncertainties robbery us. The labyrinth in the story represents where we spend time to look for what we want in life. It can be in your relationship, the organization you work and more.
What's very important in the story that the mice and the little people find at one day cheese in the Cheese Station C. They are all very happy with the finding and day after day they come back to the Cheese Station C to get the cheese. There are differ between the mice and the little people: the mice always explore their surrounding when they are in the neighbourhood of Cheese Station C. The little people where very comfortable with the whole situation and this feels like security, success, happiness and financial safety.
Then the story turns: the cheese disappeared from Cheese Station C. The mice and the people react very differently.
Mice: Sniff and Scurry
The mice are surprised but they choose a new direction to find new cheese. They didn’t analyse the situation because change happens. When change happens they know how to deal with it and they immediately start a search for a new Cheese Station. And after a few days they find the new Cheese Station with cheese that was even better than the old cheese.
The little people: Hem and Haw
The little people react very emotional, because Cheese Station C felt like their home. They were shocked, outraged, scared and don’t know what to do. In their comfort they didn’t notice that the cheese was reducing. They felt that the situation was unfair, they stayed in Cheese Station C and hoped that the cheese come back. But the cheese was gone.. After a period Haw felt weak and decides to look for other cheese. He was very afraid of what might happen to him, he was afraid of the unknown. During his seek he was writing life lessons on the walls of the labyrinth like ‘’ Çhange happens, Anticipate Change, Enjoy Change’’. Him stayed in Cheese Station C, it is not clear if he ever reach the new Cheese Station.
The first part of the book former classmates talk about a class reunion about change and how to deal with them in their lives. The second part is the story about the mice and the little people and how they react on the changes in their lives. The third part of the book brings you back to reality in a playful way. It gives you insights in how change processes work at people
Reflection
I like the book because of it’s simple language, it’s metaphors. The book is easy to read and makes you think about yourself and the way you behave and react in change situations. The book deals with fear and show you how to deal with it to overcome yourself. The changes can give you also new opportunities, both businesslike as private. For me sometimes change is scary but the book shows you that change can also be fun. The book gives seems very simple but there are a lot of things in life we do not see anymore. We take it for granted. A few things were very important insights for me after reading this book:
1. If you don’t change you ‘’die’’.
2. If you keep an eye on the little changes you are able to accept the bigger changes more easy.
3. Old beliefs doesn’t lead you to the new ‘stuff’’.
4. If you let go of the fear you will be free
5. In a change situation you have to find new paths for everything you want in life.
For me reading the story was perfectly timed because I just lost my job and I was in a change process myself. The book helped me to view the situation with a helicopter view and I could see the change process in perspective. The book made me smile because of the metaphors and the simple way the author wrote about these difficult and complex change processes.
Value of the book for Imagineering
Imagineering is ‘’a design approach to value co-creation making use of imagination. It’s a way to create a new appealing ‘’lens’’ to find ‘’a blue ocean of uncontested market space’’ that inspires all stakeholders to co-create’’ (Nijs, 2009). Imagineering is a way to approach organisation transformation. As Imagineers we use the Roadmap (Inspiration phase, Creation phase, Exploration phase and Organisation phase) to realise transformation in organisations. Changes are in every part of the Roadmap during the transformation. Alexander de Vries mentioned in one of his lectures: ‘’You have to be in a nothing to loose modus, then you are free’’.This is exactly the lesson I learned from this book. You don’t need control, you need trust for transformations. When you are still in control, you are not driving fast enough. Trust make people grow, but trust is scary for a lot of people. So you need guts to create trust. Trust starts with purpose. Why are we here? Imagineering is a construct which also is able to construct trust.
As an Imagineer / change leader you first have to know yourself to reach something. The book helps you to understand how you react on changes, you are able to compare yourself with the mice and the little people. From a Imagineering point of view it is important to start from a positive thing in change. If we look to the story ‘’Who moved my cheese” the mice are positive to the change and the little people are scared. So in this story we can learn a lot from the mice.
0 comments:
Post a Comment