“Problems are not stop signs, they are guidelines.” — Robert H Schuller
In his book, Who moved my cheese?, bestselling author, John Spencer, tells a story of four little characters who ran through a maze, looking for cheese to nourish themselves and make them happy.
Two were mice named Sniff and Scurry and two were little people — beings who were as small as mice, but looked and acted a lot like people today. Their names were Hem and Haw.
Due to their small size, it would be easy not to notice what the four of them were doing. But if you looked closely, you could discover the most amazing things!
Every day the mice and the little people spent time in the maze looking for their own special cheese.
The mice, Sniff and Scurry, possessing only simple rodent brains, but good instincts, searching for the hard nibbling cheese they like. The two little people, Hem and How, used their brains, filled with many beliefs, to search for a very different kind of cheese — with a Capital C — which they believed would make them feel happy and successful.
As different as the mice and little people were, they shared something in common; every morning, they each left their little homes, and raced out into the maze looking for their favourite cheese. Eventually, each found their own kind of cheese in one section of the maze. They ate, every day, for a long time.
One day, as they arrived at the cheese place, they discovered there was no cheese! The mice were not surprised. They had noticed that the supply of cheese had been getting smaller and smaller each day. They looked at each other, and then instinctively took off, running through the maze to find new cheese.
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The little people, on arriving at the cheese station later in the day, were shocked to find no cheese. They panicked, yelled and shouted: “Who moved my cheese?” They ranted and raved at the injustice of it all. “It’s not fair.” Later they returned home, hoping to find the cheese back the next day. But there was no cheese at that station the next day, or the day after.
In your work and life, things are always changing. Sometimes we are too busy to notice the small changes such that we get shocked when big or radical changes come.
Unfortunately, instead of running ahead to find new cheese like mice, we cry, complain and analyse why things have changed, and wish we could go back to the good old days.
The fear of change holds many people back from taking drastic action and seizing new opportunities. We naturally like the comfort of familiarity.
Venturing into new horizons brings out a fear of the unknown. On the contrary, mice are always venturing to find new sources of food; they never waste time analysing or complaining.
Sometimes it is not just fear that holds us back; it is a lack of vision. If you cannot see in your mind that change or action will bring you a new, bigger and better cheese, you will be reluctant to move forward. But remember, the world never stops moving waiting for you.
Change does not happen overnight. There are usually a number of warning signs. In most cases, we miss those signs because we are not looking for them. If you spend all your time running your business, inside your office, market stall, shop or factory, you will not notice the small signs of change taking place in your industry or market.
You will miss consumers’ changing spending and purchasing habits. You will miss new competitors and new trends. For example, your business might have been a very profitable opportunity when you started it. But is it still so? Every business will suffer from diminishing profits when competitors, as is inevitable, enter the market. You need to keep changing to stay ahead.
An excellent presentation entitled: How you can use the power of internet and social media to accelerate your growth, was made at the BusinessLink Networking breakfast meeting last week.
If you missed it, you can download the presentation at my blog or get the DVD. Please visit http://smebusinesslink.com for more information.
- Phillip Chichoni is a business planning and financial management consultant who works with entrepreneurs and growing businesses. You may contact him on [email protected]
