Customer Reviews

Fish! Sticks.

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

How do you get a group of people to adopt new strategies of coping with change? This story provides food for thought. I recommend you read it along with Optimal Thinking: How to Be Your Best Self. When we use Optimal Thinking, we take the most constructive actions and achieve what is supremely important.

As a manager in a government agency, I utilized the first Fish! book with our team as a part of our Manager's meeting last year this time. It was widely regarded as the best meeting we've ever had. Everyone loved it. Everything that the first book indicated would happen did. It was really pretty awesome. We are now widely regarded as the the best shops in the state, largely because of the practices we put in place with the first book.

We are in the planning stages of this year's manager meeting, and I was looking for a topic for the meeting. Fish! Sticks fits the bill perfectly. Ironically, we were at a point where we were just going to cob some boring presentation together because we had reached exactely the point that this book talks about where we have sorta gotten back to our own ways, prior to the change.

This one evening read was just what the Dr. ordered! I strongly recommend the entire set for folks in managerial positions.

The well known FISH! philosophy can be applied to the health care setting. In this series, the 6th floor of a local hospital is transformed by the FISH! philosophy started by a nurse manager. After she leaves, the health care administrators are concerned that the FISH! philosophy was just a gimick. They plan to ensure a lasting change. This is achieved by helping employees make an internal change of heart rather than only an external or pep rally type of change. The application to health care is very timely and may be very helpful to nurse managers and nursing staff, especially those who work on units with low morale.

You're back in the fishing boat with the crew that brought you the successful Fish! and Fish! Tales. Offering another finny fable, Stephen C. Lundin, John Christensen and Harry Paul present a business parable based on creating and sustaining successful change. The book uses the same fictitious approach as the other two Fish!ing trips, but this time the story is set at a hospital's nursing station. The agent-of-change head nurse has departed and the new head nurse feels that the group is losing its vision. Then, she discovers that a local sushi restaurant is a model of excellence, and all goes swimmingly after that. Although the advice offered isn't particularly unique, some may find a certain charm in the story. Given that this is round three, the format may seem a little repetitive to those who have already Fish!ed. If you want to catch the core of the message on your first cast, look for the highlights on the occasional pages in whale-size type. We recommend the basic common sense of these messages, even if the storytelling is a little fishy.

Change starts with the infusion of external energy and a promise of better things. But soon the gravity of the old ways pulls it back. This book is about sustaining the change process by using our internal energy. Fish! was a good parable with lots of excitement at the Pike place fish market. This is a forward integration, moving up the value chain. We are in Takara Too, a sushi restaurant, where customers don't mind waiting in long queues for the wonderful experience once inside and to be received by a loud cheer from the staff. If you have forgotten your reading glasses and have difficulty in reading the menu card, the waiter will be pleased to offer you half a dozen variations of reading glasses that can help. If your favorite beverage is not on the menu, it is sourced from a nearby store before you realize.

The good news is that the principles behind such a marvelous atmosphere to work in apply to workplaces in any industry. It is important to Find IT, Be IT and Coach IT.

At the end, I realized that the personal tragedy Steve Ludin (author) suffered has had its impact on the story. The loss of Beth, his thirty-one year old daughter in a car accident to whom this book is dedicated. Beth lived a full life true to the spirit of Fish!. In her memory, I rededicate my commitment to Fish!

When I come across the negative reviews like the one below, I want to scream "Get a clue!" Employees who are given business books, as most are these days, are simply not going to read the ones that are 300 pages and full of business jargon and hard-to-follow management philosophies. As someone who formerly ran the world's largest business book club (and who, frankly, used to have a problem with these kinds of books), I soon realized that my members were clamoring for the easy-to-read, back-to-basics approach that books like "Fish!" and "Beans" espoused. There probably hasn't been anything totally new in the world of business since the Industrial Revolution, and these books, while overly simplistic for some people, speak to the masses like none other. If you have a staff that needs to be reminded about dealing with change, staying motivated, and honoring the customer, take the bait and serve up the books in the "Fish!" series. They'll thank you and you'll find your business climate improves in a matter of weeks, if not days. And "Beans" makes a very nice companion book, too.

You're back in the fishing boat with the crew that brought you the successful Fish! and Fish! Tales. Offering another finny fable, Stephen C. Lundin, John Christensen and Harry Paul present a business parable based on creating and sustaining successful change. The book uses the same fictitious approach as the other two Fish!ing trips, but this time the story is set at a hospital's nursing station. The agent-of-change head nurse has departed and the new head nurse feels that the group is losing its vision. Then, she discovers that a local sushi restaurant is a model of excellence, and all goes swimmingly after that. Although the advice offered isn't particularly unique, some may find a certain charm in the story. Given that this is round three, the format may seem a little repetitive to those who have already Fish!ed. If you want to catch the core of the message on your first cast, look for the highlights on the occasional pages in whale-size type. We recommend the basic common sense of these messages, even if the storytelling is a little fishy.

An easy read and good use of the fable to emphasis an often overlooked part of performance management; the importance of each individual finding a piece of their Me Inc. vision within the Business Inc. vision. Although authors Lundin, Christensen, and Paul never use the term Me Inc. in this fable about sustaining a performance transformation within the 6th-floor neurological care ward of Good Samaritan Hospital (Business Inc. in the fable), referring to the connection as IT; they clearly convey the message that sustainable performance is only possible when individuals find their IT within the wards vision of customer care.

Recognizing that sustainable motivation/energy can only be created when individuals connect their purpose, identity, and accountability with their business's performance vision, the authors show how the employee's must Find IT thru individual conversations, Live IT by putting their unique identity into action, and hold each other accountable thru a Coach IT process unencumbered by hierarchy. While fables can only go so far in conveying the complexity of organizational effectiveness, this fable brings a critical piece of the puzzle to the front. It is recommended for use with teams as the next step after the initial visioning and performance goal setting processes of performance management. Dennis DeWilde, author of "The Performance Connection"

After reading about this book I was excited by the opportunity to get some more insight into the "Fish!" world, and I was especially interested in learning about `how to make change stick'. I liked how the book was another "fable" type story, and thought that this might make another good Book Club selection for our company book club.

Well, I read the book, and although I thought it had some merit, it was not nearly as easily accessible and distillable to the same audiences as the first "Fish!" book was. I was still glad I bought the book, and I did get something out of it, but I had real trouble imagining trying to pass this message on to others in our company.

I will say this, though. One message that came out of this book and that hit me loud and clear was that for "change" to stick, the meaning of the change has to be personalized to each individual, and it has to mean something to them, because once all the bells and whistles of the program are gone, and the initial excitement dies down, it will be impossible to keep a culture change program going unless others can relate to it personally and continue to buy into it on a day to day basis.

So, I thought THAT message was valuable and worth buying the book for, but I don't think I will be passing this out at our next book club. It was just not a book that was otherwise easily understandable to a much wider audience.

However, if you haven't read the original "Fish!" book yet, I HIGHLY recommend it...

This is an excellant, easy to read follow up to Fish! It continues the process, to keep the good things going. I strongly recommend this book.