We Move Our Own Cheese!: A Business Fable About Championing Change

Have you ever felt that you had a great insight that would benefit your department, division, or organization and found that you seem to be the only one who can see it? Worse yet, has it ever seemed that while you are struggling to pull your idea into consideration, others are actively holding you back? If you just had the power, you think, great things could be accomplished.

What is your reaction? Have you and others who suggest new ideas been so beaten down in the past that you simply let the idea go because it isn t worth the emotional capital to pursue it? If that is the case, and your idea is indeed a good one, who suffers? You? The organization? The organization s customers? The answer is all of the above.

This book is designed to help those with limited positional power to find ways to get their ideas seriously considered. It is also designed to help those with positional power create a culture that encourages ideas that will benefit the organization regardless of their source.

Inspired by Spencer Johnson s classic fable, Who Moved My Cheese?, the authors of this book decided that there was another story that could be told about taking a more proactive, team-based approach to change. We Move Our Own Cheese! is about creating change. As in Johnson s book, the cheese is a metaphor for what we have in life and what we believe we want more of. In a business context, it represents the business we are in our current paradigm and what it gives us.

Dr. Victor (Vic) Sower is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Operations Management at Sam Houston State University (SHSU) and Partner Emeritus at Sower & Associates, LLC. At SHSU he taught courses in operations management, quality management, technology and innovation management, small business management, and supply chain management and established the Sower Business Technology Laboratory in the College of Business. He has also taught courses in Mexico and Germany. During his academic career he earned numerous awards for his teaching and research including the SHSU university-wide Excellence in Teaching award, the Excellence in Research award, and the Excellence in Service award and he was named a Piper Professor in 2005 by the Minnie Stevens Piper Foundation of Texas. He is the author of eight books and numerous journal articles and presentations. Prior to entering academia, Vic served on active duty as an officer in the U. S. Army Chemical Corps and held a variety of positions in engineering, engineering management, and general management in industry. The characters in this fable are loosely based on composites from his business, academic, and consulting experience.

Dr. Frank Fair is Professor of Philosophy at Sam Houston State University (SHSU) where he has taught since 1971. In that time Frank has won the SHSU university-wide Excellence in Teaching award and the Excellence in Service award, and was named a Piper Professor in 2011 by the Minnie Stevens Piper Foundation of Texas. His list of courses taught includes Critical Thinking, Philosophy of Science, and a multi-year Honors Seminar on Decision-Making. Recently, inspired by the Philosophy for Children movement, Frank About the Authors 86 About the Authors and a team of colleagues from SHSU conducted a study in the local public school system and documented a powerful cognitive effect of one hour per week structured discussions of philosophical ideas in seventh grade classrooms.