Who Moved My Cheese - Book Review

Executive Summary

This paper is about the book Who Moved My Cheese? and change management in the work place. Who Moved My Cheese is by Dr. Spencer Johnson and provides an explanation of how to simplify the complexity of a change process through four fictional characters. Each character provides a different outlook on change and how to process it. Change management is defined as the process of ensuring that new interventions such as training practices are accepted and used by employees and managers. Chang management has four issues with change management that include overcoming resistance to change, managing the transition to the new practice, shaping political dynamics, and using training to make change stick. The ADDIE model was used to provide an example of how to implement a training session on change management and the factors that go into using the ADDIE model. Four books were researched as benchmarks providing feedback as to what is common in organizations when dealing with change management. Then discussing the ways that Otterbein could have used change management when the conversion from quarters to semester occurred. This mainly applied to faculty and staff because students were taken care of very well. The conclusion of the project is simply that no matter what job you have change is inevitable and it is something that all people should learn how to deal with. Use the ADDIE model to figure out situations and how to make them better. Who Moved My Cheese? is a great explanation of how to deal with change and provides hope that change can be a good thing.

Introduction

The book Who Moved My Cheese? is a great training solution because it allows people to view how to deal with change happening in the work place or with their personal lives. This book allows people to see the view of being proactive to deal with the change or simply waiting for the change to not work. Change management is something that is becoming more common throughout all companies and is a vital skill that allows upper management to see employee's characteristics. The ADDIE related to change management is something that can be very useful because it allows us to see each step of change in the process of change management. There are many different ways in which researches have come up with the change management process. Otterbein is a great example of how important change management can be with their recent semester conversion. I will discuss the importance of change management, Who Moved My Cheese?, ADDIE and change management, and my research of benchmarks.

Who Moved My Cheese?

Who Moved My Cheese? is by Dr. Spencer Johnson. Johnson provides a great explanation of how to simplify the complexity of change process through four fictional characters. The four characters are Sniff and Scurry the two mice and Hem and Haw the two little people in comparable size to mice. All four characters live in a maze that provides them with challenges about finding their "cheese". Since Sniff and Scurry are animals they are more adaptable to change and react very differently than Hem and Haw. The mice "keep their running shoes around their necks" and waste no time thinking about the cause of their loss, they immediately begin their search for new "cheese". Hem and Haw are the two little people that have human traits, which do not allow them to react to change in the same as mice due to their emotions. The two little people react extremely emotionally to the loss of the "cheese" which takes away valuable time in finding new "cheese". Eventually Haw faces the challenge of moving on from the change and begins a new outlook. Hem on the other hand, is not as lucky and never moves on which inevitably leads to his death.

This book provides guidance on how to deal with change in a way that is not specific to a professional or work change, but can also be used with at home situations. This book provides two reasons for people to understand the change. First, to help them understand that their fear and emotions are natural with the change. Fear and emotions is something that comes natural to all people and it is not wrong to have a specific amount of time that you take to slowly move into a new process. Second, to see that the refusal to change will lead to ineffective work and could ultimately lead to losing their job.

Change Management

According to Noe change management is defined as the process of ensuring that new interventions such as training practices are accepted and used by employees and managers. There are four issues with change management that include overcoming resistance to change, managing the transition to the new practice, shaping political dynamics, and using training to make change stick. The first part of overcoming resistance to change is done by involving the affected people in planning the change and rewarding them for desired behavior. This allows employees to see how new training practices help them meet their needs. The second part managing the transition provides tactics for communicating a clear picture of the future and creating organizational arrangements for the transition. This typically happens when new technology is introduced to the company. The third part is shaping political dynamics, this is done by managers need to seek the support of key power groups including formal and informal leaders. The fourth and final part is making sure training to the change sticks. The goal is to make sure that training plays an important role in ensuring that changes that result from a merger or acquisition are successful. Many practices involve changes in many different areas of the company at one time. For example manager roles can change and with this change everyone's jobs are possible to change with the new management. Change management is something that has become very popular recently and works very well for most organizations.

ADDIE Model

The ADDIE model is made up of analysis, design, develop, implementation, and evaluation. In relation to change management it is a good tool that can be used to help determine the underlying causes to why change may be needed and how to implement the changes. The ADDIE model is very important in solving problems in a timely manner that will provide you with feedback to each situation on hand.

The first step of the ADDIE model is to do an analysis that provides an exploration of the way things are to the way things should be. This will show where the performance gap is in the situation. During the analysis