It's Greater Than Just Moving The Cheese - Dealing With Change Should Be More Than A Reaction

By: Dan Goldberg
Submitted: 2007-01-17 15:05:17
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Ok, I read it, me and at least a million other people, maybe even you. Who Moved My Cheese? by Spencer Johnson is a wildly successful little book about change in life and in business. It’s a parable about two mice and two little people whose cheese is no longer in the usual place and how they handle the enormous adjustments it brings.

Hmmm……..interesting. How many of us have had our cheese moved right in the middle of enjoying it? Well, if you have than you know that perhaps you should have seen it coming. Change can be a lot easier to deal with if you take time to check out the landscape on a continuous basis before the change actually occurs.

Years ago, American automobile manufacturers had this country all to themselves. I’m sure, as the corporate organizations they were, they had no inkling that over the horizon the Japanese and Germans were getting ready to take over a major share of the market. Certainly, some individuals within the “Big Three” knew something was up, but the entities as a whole felt that they were secure.

If only the Americans would have taken the time to understand that their cheese could be moved in the future, and not have waited for the event to happen (as all our little friends in the book did).

We now know that General Motors, Ford and Chrysler had their heads handed to them by the overseas competition and the market has never been the same.

Geez (or should I say Cheese), what the heck happened?

It was an amazing phenomenon to watch. If you are old enough to remember, when the first Japanese cars were imported here decades ago, they looked somewhat like Nash Metropolitans (a small car of substance, made by a small US manufacturer) without the substance. I recall thinking how much they reminded me of the toy cars I played with when I was a little boy, that were also made in Japan, and wondering if they were held together by the same method, a slot in which a tab of metal was inserted and then bent over to hold the pieces in place. I’m sure the American auto giants weren’t threatened at all.

We drove along getting our ten to twelve miles per gallon and were quite content. Of course we didn’t know any better!

What were the American car designers thinking? Were they all asleep at the wheel?

It didn’t take long for our Japanese and German friends to see that they had an opening. And they went for it with a passion that wasn’t happening in Detroit. Hey, they definitely were not going to wait for their cheese to be moved. They were too busy planning to move ours!

They started by studying the American market. They made changes to their cars more rapidly than the Americans manufacturers did. They created a look that we hadn’t seen before and promoted it in new ways. And on top of all that, their cars got gas mileage that the general public didn’t know existed. Wait a second…..you mean we can get more than twelve miles to the gallon?! And it’s good lookin’ too!

From the original Volkswagen Beetle to the Datsun 280Z, Americans, especially on the East and West Coasts, were starting to fall in love with their imports. And then the stuff hit the fan! OPEC and their oil company buddies decided to have some fun in the early seventies and mess around with our very affordable (upper twenties to mid-thirties) cents a gallon price for gasoline.

It was just about then that the US automobile makers really started to run around trying to figure out not only who moved their cheese but also who threw a large portion of it away. In the mean time, the Japanese and Germans were having our cheese and eating it too.

Incredible, out of what seemed to be nowhere, a change occurred that altered the way we buy one of our most basic “needs” forever. Why? Because someone didn’t wait for their “cheese to be moved” but decided to create something totally out of the “cheese box” (a phrase from a bye-gone era) and put a plan in place to follow their strategy through.

While “Who Moved My Cheese” was a delightful story, we all know that successful business is more about creating change then reacting to it. Too often by the time the reaction happens, it’s too late at worst or brings far less than the return you desired at best.

The competition that exists in today’s market can be overwhelming. The edge goes to the people who analyze the market on a continuous basis, plan for a future that may not be evident, have brainstorming sessions, think creatively, stay open minded and non-judgmental, put strategies and implementation procedures together, and look over the horizon to see who’s coming.

It wasn’t that long ago that we drove DeSotos and Hudsons, used mimeograph machines and actually mailed all our correspondence, even the urgent stuff, spoke only over “regular” phones, and the only screens we looked at were the ones on our TVs and in the movie theaters.

Waiting for change in business can and often is deadly. Do not wait for your cheese to be moved. Don’t even worry about the cheese. Spend some time inventing a cheese alternative! Make sure it tastes great. Test it on a couple of focus groups. Give it a great name, with a super package. Set up a comprehensive distribution network. Put a dynamite promotion together. Place some targeted advertising, marketing and PR. And catch the cheese industry sleeping!

All this food talk is making me hungry.

Let me see….maybe I’ll have some cereal, with soy milk of course!

Article source: Expert Articles