Embrace Change or Die: Why You Shouldn’t Fear Change

Life is constantly changing—every second brings something new, from small everyday shifts to global transformations. Maybe your doctor just banned tomatoes from your diet, even though you love them. Maybe a key employee left right before a company merger. Maybe the euro’s exchange rate jumped, and you run a travel agency. The type of change doesn’t matter. What matters is how you act during times of change.

In 1916, during World War I, BMW was making aircraft engines. Together with German airplane manufacturer Gustav Otto, BMW supplied engines to the Triple Alliance’s air fleet. After the war, the 1919 Treaty of Versailles banned aircraft production in Germany. Otto closed his factory. BMW’s management calmly accepted the change and, that same year, started making train brakes. Later, BMW produced motorcycles, and only after that—the world-famous cars we know today. If BMW’s leadership had been afraid of change, we might never have heard of the brand.

Most changes are out of our control. They just happen. We can either complain about why our company went bankrupt, or we can adapt to new conditions. It’s not easy, but it’s possible with the right approach.

This article is useful for both company leaders and employees. Leaders can learn to spot upcoming changes and adjust their company’s course. Employees can learn to adapt to changes within the company.

A Fable for Adults

There’s no shortage of advice on how to stay calm during change. Authors of books and articles on the topic offer psychological tips like, “Mentally prepare yourself for change.” Sure, these books are motivating—for a couple of days. Then you forget about them.

At first glance, Spencer Johnson’s book Who Moved My Cheese? seems like one of those short-lived motivational reads. But it’s more than that.

The book centers on a fable. In the imaginary land of the “Maze,” two mice and two little people live. Every day, they run through the maze searching for cheese, find it, and enjoy their prize. But soon, the cheese disappears. The author then describes how each character reacts to this situation.

It seems like a simple story. Nothing special. I never understood why Western business leaders bought the book by the box and handed it out to employees. But then I came across an article by American business coach Lex Sisney, who wrote about Who Moved My Cheese?

It wasn’t the usual “buy this book, it’s great” review. Sisney argued that the characters in the fable represent universal human reactions to change.

In Search of Cheese

First and foremost, companies focus on finding their piece of cheese. Cheese is what we strive for. For a leader, cheese might be market share, number of clients, or profit. For an employee, it could be a promotion or a bonus for a job well done.

Like the Maze’s residents, we run through corridors every day searching for our cheese. We just use different methods. The author divides the characters into two pairs: people and mice.

The mice, Sniff and Scurry, searched for cheese instinctively, by trial and error: if one corridor was empty, they’d try another. For people, instinct is replaced by intuition—not the “sixth sense” kind, but a reasoned, experience-based gut feeling. You develop it from past jobs, books, TV shows. At unexpected moments, this intuition points you in the right direction.

Leaders often use this intuitive approach when there’s no time to think things through. You can’t predict the outcome, but by trial and error, you figure out which way to go.

In 2012, Russian print media was losing its audience. People no longer needed to buy newspapers or magazines because the same content was online. The world changed, and so did publishers. In 2013, for the first time in 150 years, the magazine “Vokrug Sveta” put a regular house cat on its cover. The article explained cat behavior from a scientific perspective. The issue with the cat saw a 23% jump in readership. Thanks to a series of intuitive decisions, the magazine’s leadership found a new direction—stories about familiar things from unusual angles—and stopped the audience decline.

There are plenty of successful examples of the intuitive approach. At 16, Richard Branson started a student magazine. At 20, he included music records in one issue—records he’d bought cheap because of damaged packaging. The accidental promotion worked: readers started ordering records by mail. Branson went on to found Virgin, London’s largest music company, and became a billionaire. Branson acted on intuition, and it worked. Steve Jobs often did the same. They didn’t rely on analytics—they did what felt right. If it worked, great. If not, they tried something else.

The people in the fable, Hem and Haw, relied on intellect: they mapped out the Maze and marked corridors they’d already visited. Most companies use this intellectual approach. Before launching a product, they conduct surveys and analyze the market. This approach takes more resources—time and money—but you know exactly when and what results to expect.

For example, the new Megaplan mobile app took five months to develop, but two years were spent gathering user feedback and analyzing the market. As a result, the app turned out just as clients wanted.

With the intellectual approach, the value of your “cheese” increases. The more effort you put in, the more valuable the result. If you suddenly lose your cheese, the disappointment can be paralyzing.

Imagine you run a yogurt factory. One day, the Health Ministry announces that kids under 10 should eat three yogurts a day to improve memory. Moms rush to the stores. Yogurt companies churn out tons of product. Competition is fierce. Everyone makes the same flavors: pineapple, vanilla, chocolate. To beat the competition, you need a unique flavor. You invest in research, surveys, focus groups to find out what kids like best. After months, analysts tell you cherry is the winner. You double production. The batch is ready to ship. Suddenly, the Health Ministry announces that while yogurt improves memory, it worsens eyesight. You invested everything in cherry yogurt, but now no one wants it. If you’d skipped the research and used intuition—released five unique flavors not offered by competitors—you could have made a profit before customers stopped buying yogurt.

Both the intellectual and intuitive approaches work, but in different situations. In a stable market, when you have time, use the intellectual approach—it’s more precise. During times of change, you need to act fast, so intuition helps.

The Thrill of Success

Once you have your cheese, you need to decide what to do with it. The fable describes two common strategies people use after achieving success.

The first is to stick to tried-and-true methods. The second is to simply enjoy success. The mice used the first strategy; the people used the second. Let’s look at the pros and cons of each.

Mice Strategy:

• Pros:
  • In the fable: They keep running through the maze.
  • In real life: They keep working.
  • They check the cheese every day (monitor changes).
• Cons:
  • They always take the same route to the cheese (don’t look for new ways to grow).
  • They notice the cheese smells different but do nothing (hope change will pass them by).
  • They don’t value the cheese they’ve found (don’t appreciate their success).

People Strategy:

• Pros:
  • None listed.
• Cons:
  • In the fable: They stop keeping themselves in shape.
  • In real life: They stop working.
  • They don’t check their cheese supply (don’t monitor changes).
  • They assume the cheese will last forever (overvalue their success).

The people’s strategy is clearly a losing one. They live in the present and don’t think about the future.

The mice’s strategy is more complicated. It seems harmless—they work and take care of their cheese—but their profits never grow. Yes, they work every day. But to keep and grow your cheese, you need to look for new approaches and adapt to changes beyond your control.

In 2007, Nokia held over 40% of the global mobile phone market. But then consumers started preferring touchscreen phones. Nokia’s management ignored this shift. In mid-2007, Apple launched the iPhone, and Nokia’s market share and profits quickly dropped. In 2008, Nokia released its first touchscreen phone, but it was too late. The company never regained its former position. By the end of 2013, Nokia sold its mobile phone division to Microsoft.

If your cheese is going bad and you can’t stop it, you need to look for new cheese. While the old cheese is still good, you have time to search.

The Smartest One

Change is inevitable. Success can’t last forever just because you want it to. There will always be someone who becomes more successful if you don’t change yourself.

In every field, there are professionals who were strong at the start of their careers. But if they’re too conservative and refuse to change, someone more adaptable will take their place and succeed.

One day, the fable’s characters found their cheese supply gone. The mice weren’t surprised. They knew cheese spoils and were ready for change, so they immediately set out to find new cheese—and soon did. The people panicked. They ran around, looked for thieves, and shouted, “Who moved our cheese? This isn’t fair!”

This happened because Hem and Haw made mistakes from the start. The Maze was unstable: no one knew where the cheese came from or when it would disappear. But the people used the intellectual approach, so the cheese became even more valuable to them. They believed it was the most important thing in their lives and needed nothing else. That’s why losing it was a tragedy.

Entrepreneur Derek Sivers started the online music store CD Baby in the early 2000s. It soon became the largest independent music store, with $100 million in sales. But by 2008, sales and profits dropped. Derek had to sell the company while it was still worth something. Instead of investing the money in a new business, Derek blamed his employees. He started writing a book about how they ruined the company. While writing, he realized the failure was his own fault. Instead of an angry book, he published the future bestseller Anything You Want, sharing his insights and inspiring millions.

It took Derek Sivers three years to accept change and change himself. Only then did he find new cheese.

In the fable, Hem couldn’t handle change and stayed behind. But Haw changed. He ventured into the maze alone and found new cheese. Haw learned from the mistakes of both the mice and the people. He stopped thinking about the old cheese and checked the new cheese every day. He kept working and often explored the maze. If this cheese disappears, Haw knows what to do.

Lessons from the Fable

Who Moved My Cheese? is a short story, but it offers more useful advice than it seems at first glance. You just have to find it—like cheese. Here are a few lessons I took from the fable. Maybe they’ll help you too.

• Cheese disappears. Change happens whether we want it or not. Remember this, and losing your cheese won’t be a tragedy.
• Your cheese isn’t the only cheese. You achieved success and got what you wanted. But that’s not all you have. Hem bet everything on a few pieces of cheese and lost.
• Crying over lost cheese is a waste of time. The longer you mourn lost success, the less likely you are to get out of that rut. Losing cheese isn’t a reason to give up. You still have yourself. Take action.
• Going forward alone isn’t so scary. Support is important, but you might not get it. If you have an idea and no one believes in it, try to make it happen yourself. It might work, it might not. You have nothing to lose. When my friend, an economist by training, quit his high-paying job to start a production company, I thought he was crazy. No one believed in his idea. Two years later, he’s making documentaries for a major TV channel and grins when I praise his achievements.
• Competitors aren’t enemies. The mice’s actions pushed Haw to act. Watch what your competitors do. Learn from their strengths and weaknesses. Eliminate the weaknesses, use the strengths, add your own twist, and do it better.
• Cheese goes bad, but you can always find new cheese. If you feel your cheese is going bad, don’t wait for it to rot. Look around, try new things. After leaving my last job, I didn’t know what I wanted to do. So I tried different things: PR, writing ad copy, shooting video stories, even writing a commercial script. I did what I could do.