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A review of Fish! Tales

by Stephen C. Lundin, Ph.D., John Christensen, and Harry Paul, with Phillip Strand

Enlightened managers really do exist

Reviewed by: Frances O. Thomas
About Frances O. Thomas

Fish! Tales I've read more than my share of business books. Many of them were on best seller lists so lots of folks in corporate America must've been reading them, too. But what always amazed me was that none of the insurance company managers I reported to ever seemed to be aware of the ideas in all those best sellers. Fish! Tales goes a long way in restoring my faith in the men and women who are running businesses.

Now a fish market seems an unusual place to find philosophers yet the fishmongers at Pike Place in Seattle epitomize four principles that can guide those who follow them to a happier and more productive work life. The authors of Fish! Tales introduced these four principles in their first book, Fish!: Play, Make Their Day, Be There, and Choose Your Attitude. In this book, they relate how the principles have been put into practice in a variety of arenas.

Although the fishmongers incorporate playfulness into their duties by tossing fish to one another, Sprint managers found that creating a lighthearted workplace can be done without pitching and catching skills. That operator who so cheerfully provided you with directory assistance may have been dancing under a glittering disco ball moments earlier.

An equally unlikely testing ground for enlightened management is a car dealership Fish! Tales describes in Minnesota. There, serving the customer trumped focusing on the profit margin. The sales, parts, and service departments began to cooperate with each other to make the customer's day. The first deal offered was the best deal. Even though giving honest information to buyers about advantages and disadvantages replaced dickering over price, sales increased.

A St. Louis hospital's nursing staff caring for severely ill patients used Fish! ideas to be there for each other despite their stressful jobs. Soon, nurses and patients were wearing plastic fish pins as badges received for doing something nice for someone else. As teamwork soared, so did the level of service offered to the patients and the job satisfaction of staffers.

The implications of choosing a positive attitude are revealed by a roofing contracting company. Each day before they set off for a job, regardless of weather, employees decide to have a good day. Conflicts between employees or between management and an employee are resolved in a plastic swimming pool filled with sand, a beach umbrella, and a couple of chairs, dubbed the Pond. Even the firm's safety record improved as a result of the changed internal climate.

If managers in very different situations can put these simple ideas into practice with such heartening results, can the insurance industry be far behind?

Click here to buy this book, or read more about it at Amazon.com: Fish! Tales

Copyright © by Frances O. Thomas, 2003

Reviewed by Frances O. Thomas :
-- Twelve Mile Limit - by Randy Wayne White
-- What Color is Your Parachute 2003 - by Richard Bolles
-- Fish! Tales - by Stephen C. Lundin, Ph.D., John Christensen, and Harry Paul, with Phillip Strand
-- Finding Flow - by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi









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