Spencer Johnson
Self-help guru who had a smash hit with Who Moved My Cheese?
SPENCER JOHNSON, who has died aged 78, trained as a doctor but became a self-help and management guru.
In 1982, with Kenneth Blanchard, he published a brisk guide to being The One Minute Manager (1982), which has sold millions of copies around the world. However, he became best known for a short “motivational business fable” entitled Who Moved My Cheese?: An A-mazing Way to Deal with Change in your Work and in Your Life” (1998).
This featured two mice and two Lilliputian humans looking for cheese (symbolic of happiness and success) in a maze. When they chance on a cheese-filled corridor the humans, assuming the supply will never run out, establish routines around their daily consumption of the cheese, becoming complacent in the process.
When the cheese runs out, they assume someone has stolen it and start looking for culprits, complaining about the unfairness of the situation. The mice, on the other hand, put on their running shoes and set off to find new cheese together.
The moral of the story was encapsulated in seven precepts: Change Happens; Anticipate Change; Monitor Change; Adapt To Change Quickly (the quicker you let go of old cheese, the sooner you can enjoy new cheese); Change; Enjoy Change – and Be Ready To Change Quickly And Enjoy It Again.
At just 70 pages long, the book became a huge hit, selling some 30 million copies. In 1999, Who Moved My Cheese Inc was founded to handle orders from businesses, and for several years the company worked round the clock to keep up with demand. It was also adapted for younger readers and made into a computer game and a range of merchandise.
Spencer Johnson was born on November 24 1938 in Watertown, South Dakota. He took a degree in Psychology at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, and then studied Medicine at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland before joining the Mayo Clinic and Harvard.
Finding treating people’s ailments unsatisfying, he moved into PR and consultancy, becoming medical director of communications for Medtronic, who had developed the cardiac pacemaker, and consultant to such bodies as the Center for the Study of the Person.
Married with four sons, he also embarked on a series of short biographies for children, under the overarching title “Valuetales” (The Value of Patience was an account of the Wright Brothers, The Value of Imagination about Dickens, and so on).
The One Minute Manager aimed to find a happy medium between autocratic management, which can produce results but tends to alienate staff, and democratic management, which risks commercial failure. To keep everyone working for the common good, the “one-minute manager” sets out simple goals which can be referred to easily in no more than a minute, with praise and reprimand delivered in time slots of similar duration.
Johnson and his coauthor published the book themselves, and word of mouth success brought it to the attention of the publisher William Morrow. Despite a high cover price, it proved an instant success, with bulk sales to many corporations, and spawned several sequels.
The idea of the parable of the cheese maze had first come to Johnson during the breakdown of his first marriage, when he was trying to find ways of looking ahead. Encouraged by the response of friends to whom he told the story, he decided to publish it as an improving business fable.
It inspired several parodies including Who Cut the Cheese?: An A-mazing Parody About Change and How We Can Get Our Hands on Yours, and Who Moved My Soap?: the CEO’S guide to surviving prison.
Johnson’s second wife died in 2009 and he is survived by three of his four sons.
Spencer Johnson, born November 24 1938, died July 3 2017