The key ideas

Who Moved My Cheese?

Spencer Johnson, 1998

One morning the cheese you thought was yours forever is gone. Spencer Johnson tells a parable about two mice and two littlepeople in a maze: some run off at once to look for new cheese, others wait by the empty spot. You will learn what keeps you from moving on and how to stop being afraid of the maze.

Who it is for

For anyone whose life recently changed without asking: a move, a breakup, or a job that stopped bringing joy. And for anyone who feels they are holding on to the past longer than they would like.

What would you do if you weren't afraid?

Lunch the day after the reunion

Sometimes life changes without asking. You move, and the streets you knew are left far behind. What used to bring you joy suddenly doesn't. The person who made everything make sense is no longer there. And one question keeps turning in your head, hurt and bewildered: how did this happen, and who did it?

Spencer Johnson, an American physician and writer who co-wrote the famous book The One Minute Manager with Ken Blanchard, devoted a small book to that question. It opens in Chicago. Former classmates meet for lunch the day after their class reunion and talk about how life turned out nothing like they imagined at school. One of them, Michael, remembers a simple story that once changed how he thought about change.

It is a story about two mice and two littlepeople in a maze, and about cheese that one day disappeared. Johnson makes no secret that all of it is metaphor. Cheese is what we want from life: a good job, love, or peace of mind. The maze is where we look for it.

You will walk through the parable step by step, read the writing one of the characters left on the walls, and hear how the classmates recognised themselves in the characters. You may recognise yourself too.

Two who run, two who think

Four characters live in the maze. Two mice, Sniff and Scurry, and two littlepeople the size of mice, Hem and Haw. The mice think simply: the nose smells cheese, the feet carry them to it. The littlepeople are more complicated. They have big heads full of beliefs and feelings, and those heads, Johnson shows, sometimes just get in the way.

Every morning all four put on their running shoes and head into the maze to look for cheese. The mice search by trial and error: wrong turn, turn around, keep running. The littlepeople rely on their ability to think and learn from the past. But their complicated beliefs and emotions keep hiding from them what is plain to see.

The book's main hint is that all four live in each of us. Sometimes, like Sniff, we are the first to smell change. Sometimes, like Scurry, we rush straight into action. Sometimes, like Hem, we dig in our heels and refuse to change anything. And sometimes, like Haw, we learn to change when we see it will lead to something better.

So the parable doesn't divide people into clever mice and foolish littlepeople. It shows four ways to meet change. And each time, you can choose which one to switch on.

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About the author

Spencer Johnson (1938-2017) was an American physician and writer. With Ken Blanchard he wrote the bestseller The One Minute Manager.

All books by this author: Spencer Johnson

Terms from the book

  • Michael
  • Richard
  • Blanchard: Ken Blanchard (born 1939), an American writer and management consultant. With Spencer Johnson he wrote The One Minute Manager (1982).
  • Chicago: A large city in the north of the United States, on the shore of Lake Michigan. In the book, a group of former classmates meets there.
  • Maze: An image from the book, not a scientific term: the place where a person looks for what they want, such as work, a family or the people around them.
  • Sniff: The mouse in the parable who smells change first.
  • Scurry: The mouse in the parable who rushes straight into action.
  • Hem: The littleperson in the parable who refuses to accept change.
  • Haw: The littleperson in the parable who learns, over time, to change, and leaves writing on the walls.
  • Cheese Station C: The place in the maze where the characters found cheese for a long time, until it ran out.
  • Cheese Station N: The place in the maze where Haw finally finds new cheese.
  • Angela: A character in the frame story, a former classmate who asks the others who they were in the parable.
  • Nathan: A character in the frame story whose family owned a chain of small stores.
  • Jessica: A character in the frame story, a former classmate who worked for an encyclopedia publisher.
  • Cory: A character in the frame story, one of the former classmates, who talks about new cheese in personal relationships.
  • Ehrenreich: Barbara Ehrenreich (1941-2022), an American journalist and writer, known for her books on work and poverty and for her criticism of the culture of positive thinking.

All terms

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