Who Moved My Cheese?

Two mice, Sniff and Scurry, and two little people, Hem and Haw, live in a maze. Each day all four go to Station C, where a supply of cheese waits for them. The cheese stands for whatever a person wants from life: a job, a relationship, money or health. One morning it is gone.

The mice never expected the supply to last, so they set off into the maze at once to find more. The little people have built their daily routines around Station C. Hem and Haw stay where they are, wait for the cheese to return, argue over who is to blame, and grow hungrier.

After a while Haw accepts that the cheese is not coming back and walks into the maze alone. As he goes, he leaves notes on the walls, and he starts to learn what it takes to move before circumstances force him to.

This parable dates from 1998 and has sold more than thirty million copies in thirty-seven languages. Written in plain language, it can be finished in an hour.

It sits on self-help shelves and has a long record in corporate training, where it is used to make the case for anticipating change instead of resisting it. A quick, direct fable about adapting at work or in life.