Who moved by Cheese This is a story about change management its like a parable (dadi maan ki kahanian).

We have changed from typewriter to computer, horse cart to Aeroplane, Pigeons to cell phones. Here Cheese is a metaphor or a symbol of success. It can be health, money, success in work, getting married, romance, education, kids etc. Maze is the work area that brings cheese, office, school, gehri route, gambling den, which is like a BHULBHULIYA filled with dark corners, blind turns and lanes leading nowhere. Now the story is about two mice Sniff and Scury and two little bean/thumb size people Hem and Haw. They all looked for their own special cheese in the Maze. Mice had simple brains with good instincts and chose Trial and error to find the Cheese, while people had complex brains filled with beliefs and emotions and they used sophisticated models to analyse the situation. Both will put on their track suits and running shoes and run/skid across the corridors everyday to find their cheese, sometimes they found it and ate it and sometimes ran into blind alleys. One fine day they came across a big quantity of cheese at chesse station C. They were very happy and thought they have found the gold mine and a reward for their lifetime hardwork. Ate to their full capacity. Everyday they followed the same routine, reaching at Station C and eating the Cheese to their fulfilment. The Mice would wake up early come in their running shoes and hang them around necks (just in case they need them) and enjoy. The people were very satisfied and assumed it will always be there, they hung up their track suits in the cupboard and kept the racing shoes away and changed to slipper, would always come late at the station. Little people felt happy, secure and successful. They built up new homes and their social lifes around Station C. Hem said, we deserve this cheese, we worked pretty hard to find it. This routine went on for some time. Their confidence grew into arrogance of success. Mice still woke up early, put on racing shoes, inspected the cheese everyday to see changes in it and were noticing that the supply of cheese was getting smaller everyday but hey were prepared for the inevitable. As expected one fine day when Mice returned to cheese station C there was no cheese. Since they were prepared they put back their running shoes and started moving into the corridors to find more cheese. Then latter in the day the people came to Cheese station C and were shocked to find no Cheese there. Hem yelled No Cheese, No Cheese very loudly as if that would bring back the cheese. Said who moved my Cheese, how can they do that to us, we deserve benefits and compensation. Its not fair. Haw too was shocked. To Hem Cheese meant like owning a big house at Janpath street and be Boss of others. For Hem Cheese was like feeling safe or having a family some day. Since cheese was important to

them so they spent lot of time looking around cheeseless station C to analyze situation, decide, find out why this happened. They had made all their future plans based on this cheese. They thought this wasnt right, no one had warned them, felt discouraged and depressed. Why did they do this to ,e Haw wrote The more important your cheese is to you the more you want to hold on to it. They returned again next day and somehow expected to find their cheese. THE SITUATION HADNT CHANGED. They wondered where are sniff and scurry. Hem said we are smarter than mice and we will be able to figure it out. Haw said maybe we are not acting smart enough and be we need to change and do things differently. Hem said, why should we change, we are special, we should get benefits, we didnt cause this problem, we will go to the bottom of this. Sniff and Scurry were already on their way they ate whatever they found in different corridors and ultimately they reached station N which had tremendous quantity of all types of Cheese. Haw started imagining finding the new cheese and how the mice would be enjoying it. The more he imagined more he thought of leaving station C. He said lets go . Hem said no we are comfortable here and outside its dangerous. With this Haw also became fearful and his urge of finding new Cheese diminished. Hem said if we work harder we may find cheese in this station itself, they used there tools to dug up holes in the wall but found nothing. Haw was beginning to realise the difference between activity and productivity. Then Haw began laughing at himself, we keep doing the same thing over and over again and no wonder why things dont get better. Haw said life moves on we have to move with it, its Maze time. He wrote , if you do not change you become extint. Hem said who moved my Cheese, Haw said why didnt I move with the Cheese sooner. Haw found that because of fear he didnt venture, he wrote WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF YOU WERENT AFRAID. When you are afraid things are going to get worse, you should not be so afraid that you dont do anything. He moved out first slowly, cautiously and then found cheese here and there to keep him going but he moved on. He reminded its better to have something rather than nothing. He could analyse that the cheese had not disappeared in one day but over a period of time it had reduced slowly its only them who hadnt seen it changing. SMELL THE CHEESE OFTEN TO KNOW WHEN ITS GETTING OLD

He reached a huge Cheese station and found lot of good cheese on the door, but when he went inside it was empty. So he thought if had moved/changed earlier maybe who could have got hold of this opportunity before anyone else could. He got fearful but then reminded himself that what would he do if there was no fear. Moved to new direction, MOVEMENT IN A NEW DIRECITON HELPS YOU TO FIND NEW CHEESE. Also he felt good mving around. WHEN YOU STOP BEING AFRAID YOU FEEL GOOD. He reached cheese station N and found all kinds of Cheese, some he had never seen or tasted. Took some for Hem to encourage him, Hem said I want my cheese and dont want to change and take the new one. THE QUICKER YOU LET GO OF OLD CHEESE THE SOONER YOU FIND NEW CHEESE. When Hem refused to go Haw was disaapointed, he wrote, ITS SAFER TO SEARCH IN THE MAZE THAN TO REMAIN IN THE CHEESELESS SITUATION OLD BELIEFS DO NOT LEAD YOU TO NEW CHEESE NOTICING SMALL CHANGES EARLIER HELPS YOU TO ADOPT TO BIGGER CHANGES LATER

Change is the only constant thing on earth, my senior software developer told me when he talked about my issues being late during my stay in one of my previous companies. Filipinos find if hard to adapt with change, and so makes it hard to deal with change according to him. But in fact, it's not just Filipinos but every people is susceptible to not being able to adapt once a change takes place or imposed. I found what he said a hard pill to swallow but it was true. I was complaining how things used to be the way they were, and so was the reason I was losing interest at work and getting late. Change is something that not only happens on our work. It happens in our families, with our friends, in the mall, on the road (like a sudden, heavy traffic), etc. How do we react? Are we allowing ourselves to be affected by what other people say and conform to how they think and feel instead of making our own minds? My wife gave me a book as our anniversary gift entitled Who Moved My Cheese. It's very short but full of lessons that you could use in your everyday life and story that you could pass on for all generations to come. The book teaches how to deal with change or how to look for the cheese that is being moved all of the time. I will not be telling you about the story here, that is for the book to do. Instead, I'm here to share with you some of the things I learned reading the book. And here they are... We complain instead of doing something - Do you notice in yourself how much we complain instead of doing something? We focus on things we don't have control of, we keep whining instead of getting something done. For example, you're asked to file several folders and instead of doing the job, you start telling your office colleague how much you hate doing it. A lot of time is wasted, imagine how much work has been accomplished if you started doing the job instead of complain? Two kinds of fear - There are two kinds of fear discussed in the book. The fear that makes us do something because we're afraid that things such as our negligence will cause something bad, and a fear that simply holds us back from accomplishing. The second type of fear is destructive as it deprives us of our true potential. There is a certain phrase in the book that says "what would you do if you weren't afraid" and is a very good phrase to remind me all the time if my fear is holding me back from doing something. This kind of fear is often an exaggeration of what is in reality. Take a boy who likes a girl for example. He fears rejection and so he couldn't tell a girl how he feels about her. What would he do if he weren't afraid? If he did that, I'm sure that greater things will follow for him even if he didn't win the girl's heart.

We get too comfortable - We resist change because we refuse to get out of our comfort zone. I wonder what happens when you try to wake up a bear from hibernate mode? We think that there would be an endless supply of cheese when in fact, the world has only so much to give. Being too comfortable has a lot of bad side effects such as getting overweight, dull mind, and finding even greater cheese. Remember, the only way for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing. We blame others for our misfortune - We always look for someone to blame for our misfortune. We blame the government and we think of what the country can do for us instead of what we can do for the country. However, much of our misfortunes stems from our own fault. For example, the flooding that happens around our country stems from irresponsible throwing of garbage such as candy

wrappers and cigarette butts (ooops, sorry). We stop dreaming or have no goal - When are we too old to dream? I think that we're never too old to dream. I have not verified but a mentor once told me that Henry Sy (the founder of SM Malls) still dream big at 80 (not his current age). Our dreams or our goals will make us move forward because we know that at the end of the corridor lies a door and behind it is the reward for our perseverance. By keeping our minds towards our goal there is no amount of fear that can stop us. Even our physical limitations wouldn't be enough to prevent us from reaching our goals. The law of attraction and lessons from the book called The Alchemist suggests that the universe re-arranges itself to help us achieve something if we really want it. Truly, when one has a why (goal) to live, he can overcome any how (roadblocks). Why do we resist change? Should every change in our life be welcomed? I ask myself a similar question and my answer is... Identify the benefits that come with the change. Who moved my cheese also tells us to anticipate change, be ready with change and adapt with change. Being able to adapt with change isn't always external, in fact I find it mostly internal as the things required for us to adapt to change is the change within ourselves and our outlook in life. There's a lot more in the book that I can only do so much to explain. The best way to use it is to read it and reflect upon your past experiences in life and there you'll realize where you've gone wrong and what you could have done to make it right