I Moved Your Cheese (5 page)

Big stepped through the hole he had created and walked out of the maze. He would never return to it. The maze was, once again, irrelevant.

Some pursuits are simply too important.

Some lives are not so easily contained.

Some mice are big.

T
HE BEGINNING

I hope you enjoyed the story and that it inspires you to reconsider some of the things that are often taken for granted in your environment. Some of you may look forward to sharing thoughts and reactions with friends or members of your book club. Others may see the book as a tool for structuring discussion and analysis with members of an organization. This section of the book is designed to help foster continued reflection and discussion.

I believe that each reader will naturally extract from a book what is most important to him- or herself. The questions below are not designed to guide or structure your discussion, but rather to get the ball rolling. Feel free to start with any question, to jump around
without regard to the order of the questions, or to ignore the lists altogether.

The first list of questions is for those who wish to engage in personal reflection. As Max, Zed, and Big would tell us, personal reflection is the most important aspect of growth and learning. And yet it can also be helpful to hear how others interpreted the story and what insights they drew from it. They may have focused on something you missed; you may have deciphered a certain lesson that they, too, would benefit from considering. The other lists of questions were motivated by these considerations.

Whether you are sitting with a group of friends, in a conference room with colleagues, or in a classroom with fellow students, a discussion regarding the adventures of Max, Big, and Zed may allow you to define and refine
your own thoughts. Challenging each other's interpretation of an episode may also lead to novel conclusions that no one person reached alone. Hearing what lessons each person drew can also encourage greater appreciation for the variety of perspectives, problems, and solutions different people have encountered in their lives.

1. Describe the key traits of Max, Big, and Zed. Which characteristics are most impressive? Which would be most useful to you if you cultivated them?

2. Who would you most like as a boss: Max, Big, or Zed? Who would you most like as a colleague, or as someone who reports to you? As a friend? Why?

3. Can you think of a time you walked through a wall when no one else thought it was possible? Can you think of a time you escaped from a maze when no one else thought to even pursue that objective? If so, how did you do it? If not, what has kept you from doing so?

4. What are some of the mazes in which you find yourself today? Are they of your choosing? Would you like to escape? How can you do that in a positive, productive way?

5. In the chapter titled “Big,” what does Big mean when he says, “That's not the game I'm playing”? What game is Big playing?

6. What game are you playing? Is it the right game for you?

7. If you told Max about your life, what advice would he give you?

8. If you told Zed about your greatest concerns or fears, what would he say?

9. Are there mazes that you have created for other people? Are there people in your life who are pursuing paths and chasing goals that are of your design, not theirs? Is that fair or reasonable? If so, why? If not, what should you or they do differently?

10. Who in your life would most benefit from hearing about Max, Big, and Zed? Why?

1. What are some of the mazes in which you, or people you care about, seem to be running? How would you describe these mazes? Who designed them? What keeps people running? Would they benefit from an escape?

2. In the chapter titled “The Maze in the Mouse,” what does Zed mean when he says: “You see, Max, the problem is not that the mouse is in the maze, but that the maze is in the mouse”? Do you think this is true? If so, how does that happen? Can you think of mazes that people believe are external but that are really inside the person? How can we escape them?

3. Max, Big, and Zed escape the maze—and each of them does it in a unique way. What traits does each mouse represent? What can we learn from the approach that each of these mice pursued?

4. Do you think Max could have escaped the maze without Big's help?

5. Have you, or anyone you know, ever walked through a wall? How? What does it take? Why can't everyone do it?

6. What do you think of Zed's explanation for his abilities? Does it make sense to you? Do you believe what Zed believes?

7. Why doesn't Zed walk through walls all the time?

8. Do you think other mice will escape the maze? Or is this not possible for everyone? Why?

9. Why does Max return to the maze after all that he has learned?

10. What do you most agree and disagree with in the book's message?

1. If Max were to study your organization, what would he say? What advice would he give?

2. If Zed were asked to evaluate the assumptions in your organization—those things that are taken for granted—what would be his evaluation? What advice would he give?

3. Why were so many of the other mice in the maze uncomfortable with the issues that Max and Zed raised? Clearly, many of these mice had overcome the fear of change. What was the fear that remained?

4. How would you describe the strengths of Max, Big, and Zed? Which of these
strengths do you think are prevalent in your organization? Which of them are under-represented? How can these strengths be cultivated?

5. What are the mazes that exist within your organization, or in your organization's environment? Who designed them? Why do they persist? What are the taken-for-granted goals—your equivalent of the pursuit of cheese—that may be worth reconsidering?

6. What, precisely, stands in the way of changing things in your organization? Are there things that can and should be changed immediately? Are there things that cannot be changed in the short run but that can and should be changed over time? Are there steps that need to be taken today to ensure positive change in the future?

7. Would people with traits like those of Max, Big, or Zed be successful in your organization? Why—or why not?

8. Would Max, Big, and Zed make good leaders? If so, why does no one seem to be following them?

9. What leadership qualities, if any, do you see in Max, Big, and Zed? Which are the hardest to acquire?

10. What would be your organization's equivalent of asking “ridiculous” questions like, “Why is there a maze?” Can ridiculous questions can be safely asked and seriously considered in your organization? Would your organization benefit from asking such questions more often?

Like many of you, I love to teach, and I am constantly looking for better ways to make a positive difference in the lives of students. It would be easy if the goal were simply to provide facts and findings, or to present strategies and frameworks. For many of us, it is at least as important—and perhaps more important—to motivate deeper analyses, inspire greater reflection, and equip students with the habits of mind that will allow them to continue learning and developing once they leave the classroom. My hope is that this book will help in our efforts to do some of these more difficult things. That is the goal. Now for two practical considerations:

First, which students would benefit from
reading this book? In my discussions with students and educators, I have heard two kinds of answers. One group informs me that courses in the fields of leadership, organizational behavior, power and politics, entrepreneurship, and strategy are most likely to benefit from a discussion inspired by this book. Another group informs me that some of the biggest mistakes students make in their lives pertain to the majors they choose and the jobs they pursue; that many of these choices reflect external pressures and expectations rather than a careful evaluation by the student of his or her own goals and passions. Sadly, many students will spend a few years—and some a lifetime—pursuing dreams that are not their own. This book may be helpful in encouraging students to tackle these issues earlier in their journey.

Second, I am aware of the cost of introducing
new material into a course or a program. We need to figure out where this material belongs and how to develop a lesson plan. In this regard, my advice is to trust the students. While there are discussion questions in the book, many of which could be used to initiate and guide classroom conversation, this is the kind of book for which
less teaching will lead to more learning
. Once the book is assigned, students will do most of the heavy lifting. In my experience, those are the sessions that students remember.

Over the last decade, I have taught approximately ten thousand business owners, executives, and managers. Most of this teaching has taken place at Harvard Business School, where I have taught extensively in MBA as well as executive education courses. A large portion of the teaching has also taken place in-house during consulting and training visits to organizations around the world in almost every industry. While most of my teaching and consulting has focused on negotiation and strategic decision making, I have also had the opportunity to engage in deep discussion on a wide range of problems that managers and executives deal with, often daily:

How can we inspire our employees?

How should we structure incentives?

How do we create a culture of innovation?

How can we recruit the best talent?

How can we develop the best leaders?