I Moved Your Cheese: For Those Who Refuse to Live as Mice in Someone Else's Maze

by Deepak Malhotra

Overview

The author of Negotiating the Impossible “tackles our assumptions about business and life with humor, zest, and wisdom in this delightful fable” (Daniel H. Pink, New York Times-bestselling author).

If you were a mouse trapped in a maze and someone kept moving the cheese, what would you do? In a world where most mice dutifully accept their circumstances, ask no questions, and keep chasing the cheese, Deepak Malhotra tells an inspiring story about three unique and adventurous mice—Max, Big, and Zed—who refuse to accept their reality as given.

I Moved Your Cheese reveals what is possible when we finally discard long-held and widely accepted assumptions about how we should live our lives. After all, achieving extraordinary success, personal or professional, has always depended on the ability to challenge assumptions, reshape the environment, and play by a different set of rules—our own. But rejecting deeply ingrained beliefs is not easy. As Zed explains, “You see, Max, the problem is not that the mouse is in the maze, but that the maze is in the mouse.”

“Deepak Malhotra allows you to glimpse a world of your own making without the limits and barriers that others create.” —Stephen R. Covey, New York Times-bestselling author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

“A magnificent story with a powerful message. As someone who has encouraged scores of professionals into breaking through the maze and defining their own pursuits, I find this to be a gem of a book.” —Vinod Khosla, cofounder, former CEO and Chairman, Sun Microsystems, and founder, Khosla Ventures

“This book’s message is both profound and durable. Malhotra has left the maze, and so can we.” —Foreword Reviews

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781609940676
Publisher:	Berrett-Koehler Publishers
Publication date:	04/14/2022
Series:	0
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	121
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Deepak Malhotra is a professor in the Negotiations, Organizations and Markets Unit at Harvard Business School. He teaches negotiation in the MBA program, as well as in a wide variety of executive programs, including the Owner/President Management Program, Changing the Game, and Families in Business. Malhotra has won numerous awards for his teaching, including the Faculty Award by Harvard Business School’s MBA Class of 2011. He is the coauthor (with Max Bazerman) of Negotiation Genius: How to Overcome Obstacles and Achieve Brilliant Results at the Bargaining Table and Beyond, which won the 2008 Outstanding Book Award by the International Institute for Conflict Prevention and Resolution.

Read an Excerpt

THE GOOD BOOK

They called it a revolution. The lesson—the insight—had spread throughout the maze. Scarcely a mouse remained who had not heard what was contained in the good book.

The insight was profound. More importantly, it did not rely too much on one's ability to reason. And any mouse will tell you that this attribute is the hallmark of all great truths. So it was accepted as perhaps the greatest, and certainly the most important, truth. And it was all so simple.

The book made it clear: Change happens. You can sit there and complain about it, or you can change with the times. Do not fear change. Accept change. What happens in the maze is beyond your control. What you can control is your reaction.

Now, just because every mouse had come to understand this insight does not mean that every one of them was able to adopt it in practice. Some succeeded fully. They learned that change is inevitable and uncontrollable. They accepted that they were helpless to control the workings of the maze—fate, they called it—and they pledged to adapt.

Many others succeeded to a lesser degree. They still had moments of fear, immobility, depression, and despair. But such moments were less frequent than in the past. These mice improved their lot in the maze considerably.

To be sure, there were also mice who rarely thought about what the good book taught them. They agreed with it in principle but did not have the time or energy to change their ways. After all, habits are hard to break. They would work on it later—maybe next week, maybe next year.

Overall, life in the maze was now quite different. In the past, when cheese moved from one location to another, all the mice were in despair. They could not understand what happened. They cursed their luck. They sat and waited in the cheese corner of the past and prayed for its return. They got agitated and lost their temper. They got angry and made an already difficult life even worse.

Now, after reading the good book, the mice reacted differently. The disappearance of the cheese was still traumatic, and it was still impossible to understand why the cheese had moved. But now the mice began to go in search of new cheese depots. Those who had fully adopted the good book's philosophy were the first to set about in search of the new cheese.

Those who struggled with the philosophy, who found it difficult to break old habits, were slower to move. But they, too, understood that they had to change with changing times. They, too, eventually went to look for more cheese.

By learning to change with changing times, the mice succeeded in finding more cheese. They found it more quickly than they had ever done in the past. The good book was right! They had cheese … more cheese, and sooner than ever before. It does not get much better than that if you are a mouse.

And so the mice no longer questioned why the cheese moved. Everyone agreed that such questions had no answers. They did not try to devise plans to try to stop the cheese from moving. Only a fool would think that fate could be controlled. Above all, they never again asked the unreasonable question, “Who moved my cheese?”

Life was simpler now. It all came down to a very simple equation:

You want cheese
+
The cheese is no longer here
= Go elsewhere to find the cheese.

After all, for a mouse in a maze, cheese is really all that matters.

But then …

Well … then there was Max.

And Max was altogether different.

Table of Contents

Preface

I Moved Your Cheese
The Good Book
Max
Zed
Why
Even the Impossible
Up
Big
Out
Who Moved My Cheese
I Moved Your Cheese
Walls
The Maze in the Mouse
A Mouse Like No Other
Some Mice are Big

Reflection Questions for Individuals
Discussion Questions for Groups and Book Clubs
Discussion Questions for your Organization or Team

A Note to Educators
A Note to Managers and Executives
Questions to the Author
Acknowledgments
About the Author

Editorial Reviews

Every once in a while a book comes along that makes you question the way things are. This is the book. Deepak Malhotra allows you to glimpse a world of your own making without the limits and barriers that others create.”
—Stephen R. Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and The Leader in Me

“A magnificent story with a powerful message. As someone who has encouraged scores of professionals into breaking through the maze and defining their own pursuits, I find this to be a gem of a book”
—Vinod Khosla, cofounder and former CEO and Chairman, Sun Microsystems, and founder, Khosla Ventures

“Deepak Malhotra tackles our assumptions about business and life with humor, zest, and wisdom in this delightful fable. If you’ve ever rankled at the thought of being just another mouse in the maze, this is the book for you.”
—Daniel H. Pink, author of Drive and To Sell is Human

From the Publisher

In this fable, the mice are used to a world in which they follow the teachings of the good book, particularly its primary message: Don’t worry about who moved the cheese; just look to see where it was moved. But Max, Zed, and Big each have a different view of the world. Robert Fass narrates this fable as a story to be told to listeners of all ages. He’s animated in the dialogue between the young mice and older mouse Zed as to why the mice are devoted to accumulating cheese. In the voice of a philosopher, Fass delivers Max’s observations that the world can change. At the end, Fass presents a list of questions for further consideration with a sense of interest in the discussions that might follow. J.E.M. © AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine

JANUARY 2012 - AudioFile