The four key points of the philosophy are:

* Play - have fun and create energy at home or at the office.
* Make their day - how can you engage fellow employees, customers and make each other's day?
* Be Present - How can you make sure you are fully available and aware during conversations with people? It is about create a greater sense of intimacy between individuals.
* Choose Your Attitude - Each day you choose how you are going to act or which "side of the bed" you wake up on. The choice is yours and, the way you act, affects others.

In my opinion, this business parable, like the rest of them, is great and horrible at the same time.

It is a great read for the following reasons:

1. It is a quick read. I read it in about 2 - 2.5 hours and I am a fairly slow reader.
2. The book is able to illustrate one point extremely effectively. For example, in this book they show how workers attitudes can impact a setting and how many of us don't understand how our attitude impacts our work setting and quality of life.
3. These are the kinds of books that employees will read as they are 100-150 pages in length and easy to read so a massive investment of time and energy isn't required by employees.

It is a poor book for the following reasons:
1. The authors never give you ways to implement the ideas. Once I was done reading the book I was thinking, "WOW, this is great stuff. Now how do I implement it in my company and, more importantly, what will it take for this to be successful." Which leads me to the next point...
2. While they illustrate certain key elements in the book they neglect to mention that:
a.Employees must trust management.
b.Top managers must be fully committed and "practice what
they preach."
c.Both of the above points are conveyed in the story but
the authors don't tell you about the importance of what
academics term "social capital" in an organization.

My concluding thoughts: This is a brief, simple, but elegant book that is an eye opener for those of us who grew up with notions like: "Work is serious, let's have no fooling around!" or "Profit is 'the only' way to measure business success." I commend the authors on conveying this to readers. HOWEVER, the cons outweigh the pros in this book. Like I pointed out, I really enjoyed reading the book and thought it was pretty effective in showing how an organization can completely turn around but, at the end of the day, no tools were presented to help the reader understand how to implement the FISH philosophy. If top managers don't cooperate or "practice what they preach" or understand why and how this philosophy works it goes nowhere, just like most management programs designed to attain all of the above mentioned goals of productivity, energy, etc.

If you want a great book on business principles I highly encourage everyone to read "The Essential Drucker" by Peter Drucker. Jack Welch is a big Drucker fan and this book is a compilation of his best work of over 60 years and 30 books on management principles.


It's about life!   February 24, 2000
 147 out of 167 found this review helpful

This is a brief, simple, but elegant book that is an eye opener for those of us who grew up with notions like: "Work is serious, let's have no fooling around!" or "Profit is 'the only' way to measure business success."

The story is told in the context of a familiar business departmental crisis. Traditional management processes have failed and those who tried to implement change left convinced that conditions would never improve in that department (nicknamed the "Toxic Energy Dump").

A new departmental manager is assigned; she must find and implement new solutions or suffer the burden of defeat experienced by her predecessors.

Serendipitously, during her lunch break, she discovers a fish market that does not fit preconceptions for that environment most of us would have, i.e., hard, tedious work under unpleasant, uncomfortable conditions. What she does experience is a group of people who are totally involved with their customers, having a lot of fun, and selling lots of fish!

She asks one of the fishmongers about how they do this. And so begins the odyssey that uncovers the four key lessons she applies to turn her department around. I believe that these lessons are cornerstones for success both at work and in personal life. The lessons may seem simple and obvious, but they are based the deep needs we all have to feel that we matter, to contribute to others, and to enjoy our work.

I attended the first "Fish Camp" in Minneapolis that Steve Lundin and his associates facilitated (they did a great job); I left with the lessons contained in this book. I have discussed these lessons with almost all of the executives I currently coach and have concluded, from their comments, that they both appreciate and apply these insights with success in their work/personal lives and settings. This book is a useful tool in helping people, and groups of people, reframe how they see their work; many discover that they can find enjoyment and satisfaction in their ordinary day-to-day work lives.


What can you learn from a smelly fishmonger!   April 5, 2000
 86 out of 100 found this review helpful

Can creativity and enthusiasm be learned from a smelly, fishmonger?

You bet! One of the most important values I learned from this book is that it's possible to gain wisdom from some of the most unsuspecting places. Never judge a book by its cover... you could be missing out on a lot!

One thing that I will never understand about society is how easily we get trapped into ruts in our professional and personal lives. Yet, we do nothing to rectify the situation. Complaining doesn't count, my friends!

With thousands of business "How-to" books flooding the market, Fish! is a welcome change as it tackles some very important issues in a fun and easily understood manner.

In this engrossing parable, a single mom/corporate manager is given a seemingly impossible task. She is responsible for turning an office that has been described as a toxic-energy dump into an enthusiastic and productive environment.

Overcome with fear of losing her job, the book's main character, Mary Jane, loses hope and retreats to her own private world every lunch hour as she walks the downtown Seattle streets. One afternoon she walks to the world-famous Pike Street Fish Market for the first time. Little did she know that when she met a smelly fishmonger named Lonnie, it would be the beginning of a wonderful new life!

If you are content to live with whatever life throws your way, this book is not for you. If you feel that you hold within your hands the power to change your destiny, this book is an effective tool that will help you on your path to success. Endorsed by some of the world's most successful businessmen, Fish! is a surprisingly important book you can't afford to miss.


Dear God, it'scome to this   October 26, 2002
 79 out of 119 found this review helpful

Here's a few ideas for all we can have fun in the workplace: We cap CEO salaries so they're not making 400 times what the average worker is making. We get a decent national health care system so Americans have a choice besides enslaving themselves to corporations. We give all Americans a decent amount of vacation. We apply labor laws across the board, ending the 60 to 70 hour work week that so many of us now routinely endure. We stop shipping our skilled jobs overseas. That's how we can all have fun in the workplace.

See, here's the problem - if you're a manager who forced this nonsense on your employees you probably didn't bother to ask them if they wanted a toy fish. If they wanted a "sand box." It probably never even occured to you to step up to one of your employees and ask "how would you like to be humiliated and treated like a small child? How would you like to be forced to go home after 9 awful hours and bake cookies for everyone in the office to avoid being labeled 'not a team player'?" Because that's what "living the fish! philosophy" really means.

None of it even occured to you, and that's the problem. From some particularly cruel act of fate you, who think that handing out children's toys to adults is treating them with respect, have somehow become a cog in the ever-turning wheels of power in this country. Somehow, people with the emotinal awareness of 2 year olds and the intellectual debth of sand crabs have taken control, and the rest of us are being forced to suffer for it.

Anything which can be written out on a 3x5 card is not a philosophy. Anything which involves handing out a stuffed fish is not respect.


A Fish Story That's Real & Inspirational   September 6, 2000
 78 out of 84 found this review helpful

What does a "Toxic Energy Dump" and throwing fish have to do with life, especially performance in the workplace? A great deal according to the authors of The Fish.

In this parable you learn very quickly and easily how to turn around a "toxic" environment. Although the solutions may sound simple and obvious, they remind us - that regardless of our position in an organization, it's a great thing to find enjoyment and satisfaction in our ordinary day-to-day work lives. The writers provide simple descriptions of what attitude and fun can do to turn around the "toxic energy dump" in the workplace. The fable and principles show you how to bring hope and excitement to the people who perform the "back room" functions.

This book is a quick read, with principles that are easy to grasp and apply. Laughter and fun are great bridge builders between people - I encourage you to try The Fish and see how these principles are used to build bridges not only at a renowned fish market in Seattle, but between people within a back room department and other departments.