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Who Moved My Cheese
Now that HB109 has passed and will be the law of the land (I’m presuming the Governor will sign it), I suspect that there could be a fair demand for Who Moved My Cheese? among members of Utah’s various IT departments. I passed copies of this book out to the IT Managers when I was CIO and there were a lot of people who were offended. I didn’t mean for it to be offensive. I think there’s important lessons in this book that everyone needs to review from time to time. So, find the book I gave you, dust it off and take it to lunch. You might even enjoy it.
Posted by windley on March 11, 2005 9:12 AM
Comment from Michael Marx at March 11, 2005 2:08 PM
I agree, "Who Moved My Cheese" is one of those books that you learn something new as you read it through different stages of your life and career.
I first read it in 2001 while I was in school and then read it again just a few months ago. Not only had my definition of "cheese" moved, but after four years of working in the real world, I had a whole new set of experiences to reflect on while reading.
As with real cheese, a second reading of "Who Moved My Cheese" is best when aged.
Comment from Kelly Hall at March 14, 2005 1:45 AM
My current employer used to hand copies of this book to new hires, apparantly to get them used to the idea of being adaptable to change. The company also keeps a trainer on payroll, and we've all been trained on how to adapt to change in the workplace. This all sounds enlightened and progressive at first blush.
After a while, though, hearing messages about adapting to change at work start to sound like Chairman Mao's little red book, and mandatory Kool-Aid drinking in the South American jungle.
On one level, a metaphor about being a mouse in a maze searching for cheese are simple and heart-warming, perhaps even valuable and insightful. On another level, it is demeaning and reinforces our post-industrial-economy class system - your only choice is to be constantly scurrying for temporary security, grateful for whatever you find, or you can starve to death. Welcome to the "sharecropper" society.
Being adaptable to change, in general, is a good thing. But recognizing *bad* change and fighting it (or moving on) is a *better* thing.
Best of luck to all those folks in Utah IT.
Comment from Phil Windley at March 14, 2005 12:10 PM
I can see how this might be used as a bludgeon, but I think that its a mistake to search for security in a company. That's a vision from "Father Knows Best" that wasn't true even then. I see "Who Moved My Cheese" as a great step toward people recognizing that a job and a career are not the same thing.
Comment from Kelly Hall at March 14, 2005 5:31 PM
Hi Phil,
Lifetime employment used to exist. http://www.rieti.go.jp/en/papers/research-review/021.html says that 40% of men in postwar Japan had lifetime employment. My dad and granddad each had "25 year" service pins from Idaho Department of Highways. There was a nice post on Slashdot from an ex-HP Labs scientist who left after 20 years. 20 or 25 years isn't a career, but it's an order of magnitude longer than most people stay in one job these days.
I agree that job and career are not the same thing. The link makes it clear that companies used to re-train their employees over time, in effect giving employees new jobs within the company.
But I'd agree that these days there's little chance of the sort of mutual trust between labor and management required to make lifetime employment reappear. Lots of things likely contribute to that lack of trust - the short lifetime of modern companies, the rapid changes in technology, and the relative cheapness of labor all play a factor.