It is standard reading for business students, but I read it in my Educating Adults master program. It is a allegory for change. If I can recap a quick, Wikipedia version, interpretation of the story, it goes like this:
There are two mice, Sniff and Scurry and two mini peoples, Hem and Haw. They live and work in a maze that is overseen by corporate heads way above them that they cannot see or communicate with. The point of being in the maze is to get your cheese. The mini people and the mice find the cheese and establish routines around the cheese. The mini people become arrogant about the stash of cheese they are working on and they become lazy. The mice, Sniff and Scurry, are always noticing things, warning signs, and sniffing the cheese to see if it is getting old.
One day they come to the maze and there is no cheese. Scurry goes off hunting for new cheese, as he had read the warning signs. Sniff is not far behind him. Hem and Haw return to the same station and continue to find no cheese. They complain about the unfairness. Hem finally goes out looking for new cheese, but Haw remains in the victimized mindset. Haw remains hoping for change.
Meanwhile Sniff and Scurry have found a new cheese station and it has new flavors of cheese. The two of them quickly adapt to the new flavor of cheese.
Hem begins to laugh at his situation and posts on the wall a message he hope Haw will see: "If you don't change you become extinct."
Haw finds new cheese and learns to smell the cheese to see if it getting to a point where change will take the cheese away. Haw learns to adapt quickly and writes on the wall "the sooner you move off old cheese the sooner you will enjoy new cheese."
So the answer is not a simple as find another maze to go work in. It's not about finding another job. The lesson from Sniff and Scurry is to become life long learners and always be ready to accommodate new learning and new situations. It is about being less arrogant and listening to new people and people that are different. When they let you know it's time to change, find a way to change. The corporate maze keeper will always want to try new flavors of cheese, will always want to make some type of change, just to keep the day filled with activities. It's true there is no concern for what is going on in the maze and what the mice are going through.
Once upon a time, I was brought into a maze that had some arrogant mini-people with some very old stinky cheese. I knew I was a lifelong learner and hoped to show the old mini-people new ways. I hoped to illustrate to them the writing on the walls, that I read when I saw the corporate headquarters change. I think I was brought into the maze along with a bunch of other new mice to see if we could change the mini-people into new way of thinking.
It sadly did not work out. The old mini-people pushed the new mice around, bullying and brazenly using arrogance to intimidate the new mice. If any of the new mice spoke up against the treatment, they were cast away as outsiders who could not play well with others. The once upon a time story has no happy ending. All the mini-people will be put in one small maze and they will battle it out in a bloody fashion. Being one of the new mice, lifelong learning has never stopped for me. This mouse was sniffing the cheese and reading the walls a long time ago.
T.
