Of mice, men and mazes

SOMETIME the late 1990s, every white-collar father was getting the same gift on Father's Day - the business book Who Moved My Cheese? written by Dr Spencer Johnson. Okay, well, that's a slight exaggeration. But the book did sell almost 30 million copies in 37 languages. And one couldn't walk into an airport bookstore then without seeing it on the "Highlight" shelves.

It was so ubiquitous, in fact, that bosses quoted it to subordinates, managers distributed it to employees before an organisational restructuring, and other writers parodied it with publications such as Who Cut The Cheese?, Nobody Moved Your Cheese!, and Who Moved My Soap?: The CEO's Guide to Surviving Prison.

Who Moved My Cheese? is a slim 94-page self-help guide for embracing change. It tells the fable of two mice and two little men who live off the cheese inside a maze. Ordinarily, the four of them go to Cheese Station C for its cheese supply, which is at first delicious and abundant, but eventuall…