Fish! philosophy
Whenever my students make too much noise, sometimes I comment, ‘It looks like a fish market’. Fish market is always noisy and smelly. But suddenly my perspective changed, after reading the book ‘Fish: A Proven Way to Boost Morale and Improve Results’. It talks about a famous place, ‘Pike place fish market’ where people are happy and have developed good working habits. The authors Stephen Lundin, Harry Paul, and John Christensen have put those working habits in four philosophies:
- Choose your attitude
- Play
- Make their day
- Be there
The FISH! philosophy gives us ideas about what an ideal workplace looks like. More importantly, how you can fall in love with your work.
Mary Jane is the main character of the story. She’s a business woman and has good work ethics. That’s why she’s promoted. This promotion is nothing else but a nightmare. She got exhausted and upset when the second lead character came to the story and that is Looney. He is a complete stranger to Mary after that she shares her problem with Looney who works at a fish market. Here Looney shared this great fish philosophy and Mary Jane’s life completely changed.
Setting of the story is about Mary’s office, especially on the third floor of her office. Mary was aware of the terrible reputation of her department on the third floor. Her boss Bob renamed her department as ‘A Toxic Energy Dump’. The second set of the story is the world-famous Pike Place Fish Market. Here, she got the lessons of life.
This great book gives us life lessons. Here they are,
“There is always a choice about the way you do your work, even if there is not a choice about the work itself.” – Lessons we get from this line: any situation is not always in your control but how to respond to that is in our control.
“Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, and today is a gift… that’s why they call it present”
We can choose our attitude about how we want to start our day. Every work environment needs positive energy. The fish Co-worker has fun while they work, and fun is energizing. If we are happy, we can make our customers happy. We need to find how we can make our work enjoyable.
Other lessons from this book is that we need to understand our attitude towards any work or family members or co-workers. We need to be there for family members or co-workers to understand their situation and feelings. Sometimes we need to make their day when they need to. We just do not need to complain about anything but need to find a solution. If we apply this Fish philosophy to our life then we will be on the path of success.