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| Authors: Stephen C. Lundin, Harry Paul, John Christensen
Creator: Ken Blanchard
Publisher: Hyperion
Category: Book
List Price: $19.95
Buy New: $13.57
You Save: $6.38 (32%)
Rating:  228 reviews
Sales Rank: 580
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 112
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 8.4 x 5.6 x 0.7
ISBN: 0786866020
Dewey Decimal Number: 658.314
EAN: 9780786888825
Publication Date: March 8, 2000
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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| Customer Reviews:
 4 simple principles to make your organization fun. November 29, 2000
46 out of 51 found this review helpful
Fish is simple. The book espouses 4 principles that are simple to understand yet often missing in most workplaces. Reading this book will help any business leader/manager look for ways to involve their employees in making their jobs fun and enjoyable and thereby a place they want to be. I manage the accounting and finance areas of my organization and I purchased Fish for all my employees. We have begun meeting and discussing ways to apply the principles found in Fish, the first dealing directly with the employee and their attitude when they walk in the door. The attitude they bring to work will effect their day and the effect the people around them. Fish leads you from helping your employees understand the importance of their attitude to helping them make the workplace vibrant and enjoyable for everyone. There are a million books in the marketplace telling you how to make your employee's lives easier. Fish tackles the concept that the employee is responsible for taking the first step to make the organization a great place. Too often, we are told the company makes the people. The fact is, the people make the company. Fish will help you decide whether to allow your people to languish or lead them to a better and happier life and job.
 Pointing The Way To Happier Staff And Happier Clients !! October 7, 2000
38 out of 43 found this review helpful
The title sounds "FISHY" but the contents do deliver concrete information on making everyone's work day more pleasant, while gaining happier customers. There are only 112 fast-reading pages in this new book, but they provide a wealth of knowledge and things to think about. Seattle's Pike Place Fish Market provided the fundamentals for this book which can be used in any work environment and situation- office work as well as front-line work. You'll learn eye-opening fundamentals and common sense approaches to dealing with customers and staff actions and accountability, that produce not only happier customers, but happier staff members as well. Did I find any magic formula in this book to accomplish all of this? Not really. But there's a wealth of stuff to think about. The fundamentals presented are: Choose Your Attitude, Make Their Day, and Be There. The principles taught by this book are currently being used by organizations all over the world with great success being reported. The FISH pilosophy is relevant to nearly every issue facing business today: productivity, teamwork, quality improvement, customer service, creativity and innovation, employee turnover and job satisfaction. What else is there ? Simple lessons are presented, teaching managers how to energize staff and how to result in a completely improved workplace. The information is easy to learn and apply. The principles presented are a win-win for everyone from management, to staff, to customers. Well worth reading !!
 Always Smell Your Fish Before You Buy July 12, 2004
38 out of 46 found this review helpful
This book was given to me as part of a Fish seminar conducted by my company. The book must be addressed on three different levels: as a story, as a philosophy, and as a business book. The story is about a woman who takes over a failing department in her company, finds the inmates are running the asylum, learns some pearls of wisdom from some local fishmongers, teaches the employees the philosophy, and ends up with a successful department. The preceding explanation is only slightly shorter than the book itself, which contains so much white-space that it could easily be halved, and repeats so often that it could easily be halved again. As bad as the story and writing are, the philosophy underlying the Fish idea is even worse. It is essentially a hedonistic philosophy - that what employees really need to perform well is enough fun at work. The problem is that all jobs and careers involve a certain amount of tedium. Everone must "pay their dues." Too often the people complaining the loudest are those that refuse to deal with tedium as a fact of life. As a business book it fails as so many business books do because the ultimate goal of the book is not to attract a reader, but to convince corporations to buy a whole suite of products and services: the books, videotapes, fun fish things, decorations. Avoid this book, read Drucker instead.
"Cheese" is the first course, "Fish" is the entree... July 7, 2001
33 out of 43 found this review helpful
After all of the hype surrounding "Who Moved My Cheese" in recent months, I am truly surprised that this book has not gotten more media attention. It is an easily readable story that talks about one manager's challenge to turn around the morale of her new, highly negative team, and the innovative fish market that teaches her how to do it. Fish is by far the best book that I have ever read about motivating a team through creative leadership, and isn't that what change management is all about? Many management books provide information on how to begin improving your work environment, but they involve complex analyses that no fast-moving manager has time to complete or constantly reference. The genius of Fish lies in the fact that it provides easily implementable examples of how to dramatically increase the morale of your workplace, and takes only an hour to read. The basic principle is simple: by creating an environment where your employees are expected to have a great deal of fun each day, your customer service and business results will improve. The atmosphere of fun is created by redefining how you look at your current work responsibilities. Each manager that reads this book will find a different way that the principles apply to his.her particular work situation, and the flexibilty of the authors' message shows how truly brilliant it is. Fish is a conversation starter and a life changer. No manager who considers him/herself innovative should be without a copy!
hidden agendas! May 21, 2002
32 out of 36 found this review helpful
One of the most telling points in "Fish" comes late in the book. AFTER the bit about having your employees have a "designated creativity area" called "The Sand Box" (ugh). And AFTER the bit about having employees walk around on colored circles of paper, reading out the ideas for improving their workplace when the music stops on them (gag). No, my favorite part is when the fictional employees on the "Choose Your Attitude" team suggest that their co-workers read "Personal Accountability: The Path to A Rewarding Work Life." No mention is made of the fact that that book is written by THE SAME AUTHOR as "Fish"! But, then again, this clearly isn't aimed at anyone with an IQ over about 80... If you feel your employees will benefit from reading this book, then you clearly do not have an intelligent workforce. Rather than spending money on this brain-numbing parable, why not try to hire some employees who don't need the obvious explained to them? What's next in this "dumbing down" of Corporate America, anyway? A parable to convince employees that bathing is in their best interests?!?
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