"Fish" is a parable that deals with Mary Jane who was assigned to the third floor of her company who had the reputation of being ineffective, unfriendly and labelled a "toxic energy dump." Mary Jane had to find ways to improve morale and basically changed the attitudes of some thirty employees under her supervision. She employed the tactics of fishmongers at Pike Place Fish, a world famous market in Seattle in order to learn from them how to make the workspace more fun and effective.

The four principles that Mary Jane learned from the fishmongers are "choose your attitude," "play," "make their day," and "be present." The book basically explains how these principles would improve morale in the workplace, making it fun to work even if the work itself is boring and at the same time, valuing both their internal and external customers. "Fish" is quite encouraging and it reminds me a lot of "Who Moved My Cheese?" as both books are short, concise and easy to understand.

Since we spend more than one-third of our lives at work, thinking about work, preparing for work, we might as well make work a fun thing to do. Besides, we will get the same paycheck regardless of whether we are enjoying it or not :) Some of us are not fortunate enough to have the option of leaving our job or changing our physical surroundings, however we could still learn to enjoy our current job and surroundings by changing our perceptions. It is as simple as that! The keyword here is "learn". I think it is definitely a learning process to see and cherish what we already have, enjoy the most out of it instead of longing or regretting for things that we don't have and complaining about the pithole that we are in. Don't worry, there is nothing scientific about how to improve your quality of life by changing your perception, this very inspiring little book Fish! will guide you to better enjoy your work. This book is narrating a story about how fish sellers are thoroughly enjoying their job selling fishes in the fish market and how their enthusiasm inspire those who are around them. Very entertaining!

A wonderful book that simplifies the steps to have the right atmosphere in any environment.

Mary Jane has been given the difficult task of turning around the 3rd floor inefficiency to be a productive and pleasant place to work. In helping her in the task she meets Lonnie, who works in the fish market, and who makes her see how he managed to bring the best out of his employees even though they work in a stinky place.

The four lessons learned to achieve such results are: Attitude, Play, Make their day, and Be present. Those simple words and how to carry them between the employees and be able to transmit them to the customers should be enough to turn the life around.

A great book, that also helps with our daily lives and how to approach life on daily basis, make the best of things, give it your best shot and the rest is history.

Things are going swimmingly in Fish! land. In the latest volume, Fish! Tales, authors Stephen C. Lundin, John Christensen, Harry Paul and Philip Strand build on the successful training program that evolved from their first Fish book. Tales shows how four companies - a long-distance call center; a hospital neural-renal unit, a car dealership and a roofing company - have applied Fish! theories effectively. They also provide short examples from other companies to show how well the Fish! function. The four main principles are familiar by now - keep the work fun, seek to serve others, stay focused on your customers and have an enthusiastic attitude - but the examples in the book bring them alive. Along the way, the authors heavily sell their Fish! courses and merchandise - that's just good salesmanship - but the real catch of the day is the final how-to section, showing ways to apply these principles in any organization. The lively writing style helps keep you hooked. We from getAbstract suggest that if you haven't yet caught any Fish!, start with this one. Its cheery, accessible methods should lure you in, hook, line and sinker.

I'm the General Manager Don Freeman that this book "Fish Tales" refers to in a full chapter who worked for Sprint. The great thing about this book Fish is that it outlines in detail what we were already trying to do before learning about FISH years earlier. It defined it in a way that assisted us in bringing a greater level of understanding and participation for all our employees. "Fish Tales" now brings it to a level showing it works and can be adapted in many different work groups. I implemented it in our call center but I was dressing as Elvis long before reading FISH. This book helped me legitimize my creative fun leadership style with my peers and show that work is fun. The great thing about this book is that you can see in Fish Tales that you have to find your own employee culture and way of making the FISH PHILOSOPHY work in your own Company or Department. It will depend on the type of work being done, product and location in the country. This book gives many ideas on possibilities and helps to open the creative juices!! You don't have to be Elvis! I found the creative "Board of Director meetings" (mentioned in the book) and acting those activities out a fun way to get participation and great fun for all employees too. Go Fish!!
While having fun, it is important to keep the vision and purpose of your business as part of the philosophy. Fish Tales is a great book with wonderful examples you can use. It works well with other work culture initiatives too.

As I was looking for the next offering to read from the authors of Fish!, I was astonished--shocked, in fact-- to read the negative, cynical reviews from other readers. It made me wonder what some of these folks were doing while they were "reading," since my experience and opinion of both of the fish books is extremely positive. So, I felt compelled to share my opinion.

I used to be cynical about this "touchy feely" stuff. But, I've been around long enough to have experienced a lot of the opposite--complex, "50,000-step, multi-phased initiatives" implemented by expensive consultants that ended up as dismal failures.

The Fish Tales book was even better than the first because of the "real" examples. These companies actually took the simple concepts and made them work. You can't argue with their success. I know. I have had the experience of employing similar strategies and activities in the places I've worked, and the whole tone and outlook of my work teams changed for the better. You can't underestimate the power people have when they've committed to working on a few, simple things that make positive differences. Confidence builds. They get better at their jobs. And they know that they are doing something special--something worthwhile.

Fish Tales shows what is possible. The beauty of it is that it tells how to reach the hearts of employees and customers. How to connect with people and accomplish great things. It doesn't always take an expensive, complex initiative. We didn't need complex initiatives for galvanizing people to do great things after Dec.7,1941, or 9/11. It took an instantaneous connection and reminder about what life is about. Fish Tales will help people feel what is truly real in life. Simply, inexpensively, enjoyably, energetically. Profitably.