If times are a-changin', search for new cheese
By Ray Allegrezza, Editor in chief -- Furniture Today, February 10, 2002
I'll bet that when Bob Dylan wrote "The Times They Are A-changin' " during the tumultuous '60s, the furniture industry was the last thing on his mind. I'd also bet that if you read the lyrics, you'd agree the song could be this year's industry national anthem.
In a very short time, we've seen the rise and fall of top producers and retailers in our industry, a flood of product from offshore, changes in distribution, changes in consumer demographics and psychographics and much more.
If Dylan's song alerted a generation to a wave of change, a recent best-selling book by Spencer Johnson offers us an equally simple but no less profound strategy to deal with change.
If you haven't read Johnson's book, "Who Moved My Cheese?" I think you'll find the following synopsis enlightening. And I bet you'll identify with one of the four characters.
The book is a parable and, like all good parables, reveals profound truths using a simple story. Johnson's metaphor for life is a maze, and the various things we search for because we believe they will bring us gratification, sustenance and happiness are referred to as cheese.
The book's four main characters are two mice, Sniff and Scurry, and two little people, Hem and Haw. Hem and Haw, while about the same size as the mice, have the physical and emotional features of humans.
Sniff sniffs out change early in the game. Scurry, meanwhile, is one who hurries into action. Hem tends to deny and resist all change, and Haw decides to change when he realizes that change can lead to something better.
As the story unfolds, we learn that all four are confronted with change. Somehow, the cheese that each had become accustomed to no longer is there.
Hem and Haw, thinking themselves smarter than the mice, initially spin their wheels trying to figure out what happened. Day after day, they return to the cheese station hoping that somehow, some way, their cheese will suddenly reappear. When they realize this won't happen, they waste more time, first in denial, then working through a range of emotions including anger and fear, which ultimately leaves them immobilized.
The mice, faced with the same predicament, are not surprised. Johnson writes, "Since Sniff and Scurry had noticed that the supply of cheese had been getting smaller every day, they were prepared for the inevitable and know instinctively what to do. They did not over-analyze things. They were quickly off in search of New Cheese."
They find it first.
Haw finally decides to overcome his fear, venture into the maze and begin the search for new cheese. He ultimately finds a new storehouse of cheese that is larger and better than anything he's ever seen. Along the way, Haw learns some important truths: change happens, anticipate change, monitor change, adapt to change quickly, enjoy change and be ready to change quickly and enjoy it again.
If you are involved in furniture, you are facing change. You need to know which of the four characters you most resemble.
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