The Fish! Philosophy (styled FISH! Philosophy), modeled after the Pike Place Fish Market, is a business technique that is aimed at creating happy individuals in the workplace. John Christensen created this philosophy in 1998 to improve organizational culture. The central four ideas are: "play", "be there", "make their day", and "choose your attitude". [1]
On a visit to Seattle in 1997, John Christensen, owner of ChartHouse Learning, observed fish sellers at Pike Place Fish Market tossing trout and salmon through the air of the market, providing high energy that energized many pedestrians passing by on their lunch breaks. [2] They gave their complete attention to each customer and ensured each had an enjoyable visit.
Christensen noticed the actual work of selling fish was repetitive, cold and exhausting. It occurred to him that the fishmongers might not enjoy every part of their job, but they chose to bring joy to how they approached it. They also sold a lot of fish. He asked the fishmongers if he could film them and they agreed. Lee Copeland Gladwin reports the events at hand spawned a film entitled Fish to be released, June 1998. John Christensen created the Fish Philosophy in 1998. From the film, a book entitled Fish! A Remarkable Way to Boost Morale and Improve Results, by Stephen C. Lundin, Harry Paul, and John Christensen was written. [3] When Christensen and his team examined the footage, they identified four simple practices anyone could apply to their work and life. [4] Karen Boynes, asserts once application of the four concepts of choosing your attitude, play, make someone's day, and be there, start, the environment changes to welcome positivity into the work place. [5] ChartHouse Learning called these concepts The Fish! Philosophy.
A number of organizations have used The Fish! Philosophy language to guide how they approach work.
Ranken Jordan Pediatric Specialty Hospital in St. Louis has four FISH! banners, one for each practice, hanging in its lobby as a symbol of its commitment to patients, parents and visitors. The staff uses the philosophy as a reminder to thank and recognize each other. Ranken Jordan's patient/parent satisfaction is above 95 percent and its employee retention above 97 percent. [6]
Stephania Davis reports that The P.T. Barnum pediatric unit at Bridgeport Hospital applied the four beliefs to the team to help ease the patients' and families' stay. Each principle assigned to a group of the pediatric team that Ms. Gomez, charge nurse of the unit, divided. The feedback from the parents after the change was very promising. Ms. Gomez has stated, “They [the employees] like coming to work again…”. [7]
The Fish! Philosophy is applied in companies as far away as the Middle East. Wild Wadi Water Park, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, uses the video and principles in the socialization process of each of its new hires. The employees also continue to live by its principles under the initiative of the current General Manager, who makes sure that his management style both reflects these principles and that his employees are also working in an environment that allows them to simultaneously have fun and be productive. A visible indicator of this is the team video produced for the Wild Wadi's version of the Harlem Shake (song). [8] In 2004, the water-park won the SWIM Award for their Front Line Employee Training Program using "The Fish Philosophy". The Wild Wadi is not the only company in Dubai to actively use the Fish! philosophy, even the American Hospital uses the video in customer service training for its front line staff.
Customers such as Bill Bean are well aware of when the energy in a business is negative. In an article, he wrote for “The Recorder” he talked about how when he usually visits Ontario Ministry of Health the atmosphere is very dark and cold. On his last visit, the team excitedly welcomed him into the office to renew his Ontario Health Card. The sudden change in the attitude of the staff was all thanks to the implementation of the fish philosophy in day-to-day operations of the business. [9]
Tile Tech, a roofing company in Tacoma, WA, focused on being there for each other to increase awareness of safety hazards, decreasing its injury rate by 50%. [10]
Charlotte Tucker believes Industrial Piping Systems has fully embraced the Fish! ideology, as fish replicas hang from the ceilings and attach to walls to prove it. Christine Wardrop, president of IPS, describes the idea by saying, “They’re the rules of Life… You should focus on them and keep them in your mind”. [11]
Rochester Ford Toyota in Rochester, MN, known for tough negotiating, shifted to a fixed price and an emphasis on making the customer's day. New car sales doubled and it recorded a 30% rise in customer satisfaction. [12]
In April 2000, the Ford Motor Company decided to incorporate the Fish Philosophy in their training programs. This decision came about as a result of the lack of motivation in a certain division of the company. [13]
Sprint call center in Lenexa, KS, used Play to make the job more fun. Employees selected music for common areas and the dress code was relaxed. Managers worked to Be There by asking employees for their ideas on improving the business. Four-year productivity rose 20% and first-year employee retention increased 25%. [12]
Educators may use The Fish! Philosophy to build supportive relationships with students and help students practice personal responsibility. Both are keys in creating effective classrooms. [14] The Fish! Philosophy is thought to spark creativity in the schoolhouse and the workplace. [15] [16] [17]
In his book Organization Theory: A Libertarian Perspective, Kevin Carson calls Fish! "vile" [18] and a "lesson from the powerful to the powerless", [19] adding:
To grasp just how presumptuous Fish! really is, just try a thought experiment: imagine management’s reaction if the circumstances were reversed. Imagine the bosses’ reaction if you and your coworkers matter-of-factly announced that, henceforth, you would be working at a slower pace for the same amount of money, or that you would be receiving a higher hourly wage. Imagine telling the boss "you can’t do anything about these changes, but you can choose to have a good attitude about them!" My guess is your boss would demonstrate in short order that he does have control over events, and that it’s not his attitude that has to be adjusted. That’s because, while you may be powerless, your bosses most certainly are not.
This asymmetrical power relationship is implicit in Fish! Philosophy. And you’d better believe that the people who push it are fully aware of their agenda. [...] They are the ones who do things. We are the ones that things are done to. Learn to enjoy it, or else. That’s the message of Fish! Philosophy. [19]
A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship refers to all new businesses, including self-employment and businesses that never intend to become registered, startups refer to new businesses that intend to grow large beyond the solo founder. At the beginning, startups face high uncertainty and have high rates of failure, but a minority of them do go on to be successful and influential.
Historically there have been differences among investigators regarding the definition of organizational culture. Edgar Schein, a leading researcher in this field, defined "organizational culture" as comprising a number of features, including a shared "pattern of basic assumptions" which group members have acquired over time as they learn to successfully cope with internal and external organizationally relevant problems. Elliott Jaques first introduced the concept of culture in the organizational context in his 1951 book The Changing Culture of a Factory. The book was a published report of "a case study of developments in the social life of one industrial community between April, 1948 and November 1950". The "case" involved a publicly-held British company engaged principally in the manufacture, sale, and servicing of metal bearings. The study concerned itself with the description, analysis, and development of corporate group behaviours.
The Toyota Production System (TPS) is an integrated socio-technical system, developed by Toyota, that comprises its management philosophy and practices. The TPS is a management system that organizes manufacturing and logistics for the automobile manufacturer, including interaction with suppliers and customers. The system is a major precursor of the more generic "lean manufacturing". Taiichi Ohno and Eiji Toyoda, Japanese industrial engineers, developed the system between 1948 and 1975.
Workplace politics is the process and behavior that in human interactions involves power and authority. It is also a tool to assess the operational capacity and to balance diverse views of interested parties. It is also known as office politics and organizational politics. It involves the use of power and social networking within a workplace to achieve changes that benefit the organization or individuals within it. "Organizational politics are self-serving behaviors" that "employees use to increase the probability of obtaining positive outcomes in organizations". Influence by individuals may serve personal interests without regard to their effect on the organization itself. Some of the personal advantages may include:
Dismissal is the termination of employment by an employer against the will of the employee. Though such a decision can be made by an employer for a variety of reasons, ranging from an economic downturn to performance-related problems on the part of the employee, being fired has a strong stigma in some cultures.
Pike Place Fish Market is an open-air fish market at Pike Place Market in Seattle, Washington, United States, located at the corner of Pike Street and Pike Place. Founded in 1930, it is known for its tradition of fishmongers throwing the fish purchased by customers prior to wrapping it. The fish market was near to bankruptcy in 1986, but after the introduction of new practices such as the fish throwing, games, and customer performances, it received significant exposure in national media and on television shows. Pike Place Fish Market is today a world-famous tourist destination, attracting up to 10,000 daily visitors.
Organizational conflict, or workplace conflict, is a state of discord caused by the actual or perceived opposition of needs, values and interests between people working together. Conflict takes many forms in organizations. There is the inevitable clash between formal authority and power and those individuals and groups affected. There are disputes over how revenues should be divided, how the work should be done, and how long and hard people should work. There are jurisdictional disagreements among individuals, departments, and between unions and management. There are subtler forms of conflict involving rivalries, jealousies, personality clashes, role definitions, and struggles for power and favor. There is also conflict within individuals – between competing needs and demands – to which individuals respond in different ways.
Training and development involve improving the effectiveness of organizations and the individuals and teams within them. Training may be viewed as related to immediate changes in organizational effectiveness via organized instruction, while development is related to the progress of longer-term organizational and employee goals. While training and development technically have differing definitions, the two are oftentimes used interchangeably and/or together. Training and development have historically been topics within adult education and applied psychology but have within the last two decades become closely associated with human resources management, talent management, human resources development, instructional design, human factors, and knowledge management.
Enterprise engagement is a sub-discipline of marketing and management that focuses on achieving long-term financial results by strategically fostering the proactive involvement and alignment of customers, distribution partners, salespeople, and all human capital outside and inside of an organization. Enterprise engagement is distinct from the traditional sub-disciplines of financial management, marketing, sales, operations, and human resources in that it seeks to achieve long-term success by integrating these various traditional business disciplines to consistently focus the organization on identifying and meeting target audience needs. Enterprise Engagement is related to brand engagement, a term developed in Great Britain in the 2000s to describe an integrated external and internal marketing approach to achieving long-term success for a brand. Enterprise Engagement applies similar principals to the achievement of an organization's overall financial objectives.
Emotions in the workplace play a large role in how an entire organization communicates within itself and to the outside world. "Events at work have real emotional impact on participants. The consequences of emotional states in the workplace, both behaviors and attitudes, have substantial significance for individuals, groups, and society". "Positive emotions in the workplace help employees obtain favorable outcomes including achievement, job enrichment and higher quality social context". "Negative emotions, such as fear, anger, stress, hostility, sadness, and guilt, however increase the predictability of workplace deviance,", and how the outside world views the organization.
Undercover Boss is a reality television series franchise created by Stephen Lambert and produced in many countries. It originated in 2009 on the British Channel 4. The show’s format features the experiences of senior executives working undercover in their own companies to investigate how their firms really work and to identify how they can be improved, as well as to reward hard-working employees.
Positive psychology is defined as a method of building on what is good and what is already working instead of attempting to stimulate improvement by focusing on the weak links in an individual, a group, or in this case, a company. Implementing positive psychology in the workplace means creating an environment that is more enjoyable, productive, and values individual employees. This also means creating a work schedule that does not lead to emotional and physical distress.
A “toxic workplace” is a colloquial term used to describe a place of work, usually an office environment, that is marked by significant personal conflicts between those who work there. Such infighting can often harm productivity. Toxic workplaces are often considered the result of toxic employers and/or toxic employees who are motivated by personal gain, use unethical means to psychologically manipulate and annoy those around them; and whose motives are to maintain or increase power, money or special status or divert attention away from their performance shortfalls and misdeeds. Toxic workers do not recognize a duty to the organization for which they work or their co-workers in terms of ethics or professional conduct toward others. Toxic workers define relationships with co-workers, not by organizational structure but by co-workers they favour and those they do not like or trust.
Workplace communication is the process of exchanging information and ideas, both verbally and non-verbally between one person or group and another person or group within an organization. It includes e-mails, videoconferencing, text messages, notes, calls, etc. Effective communication is critical in getting the job done, as well as building a sense of trust and increasing productivity. Workers may have different cultures and backgrounds, and may expect different ways of working and understanding how things should be done within an organization's workplace culture. To strengthen employee cooperation and avoid missed deadlines or activity that could affect the company negatively, effective communication is crucial. Ineffective communication leads to communication gaps, which causes confusion, wastes time, and reduces productivity. Managers and lower-level employees must be able to interact clearly and effectively with each other through verbal communication and non-verbal communication to achieve specific business goals. Effective communication with clients also plays a vital role in the development of an organization and the success of any business. When communicating, nonverbal communication must also be taken into consideration. How a person delivers a message has a large impact.
High-commitment management emphasizes personal responsibility, independence, and empowerment of employees across all levels instead of focusing on one higher power; it always intended to keep commitment at high level “calling all the shots”.
The presence of psychopathy in the workplace—although psychopaths typically represent a relatively small fraction of workplace staff—can do enormous damage when in senior management roles. Psychopaths are usually most common at higher levels of corporate organizations, and their actions often cause a ripple effect throughout an organization, setting the tone for an entire corporate culture. Examples of detrimental effects are increased bullying, conflict, stress, staff turnover and absenteeism; reduction in productivity and in social responsibility. Ethical standards of entire organisations can be badly damaged if a corporate psychopath is in charge. A 2017 UK study found that companies with leaders who show "psychopathic characteristics" destroy shareholder value, tending to have poor future returns on equity.
Workplace democracy is the application of democracy in various forms to the workplace. It can be implemented in a variety of ways, depending on the size, culture, and other variables of an organization.
Peter Economy is an American author, editor, and ghostwriter.
Managing Up and Managing Down is a part of management that details how middle managers or supervisors should effectively deal with their managers and subordinates. Promotion to management comes with additional responsibility of managing down. With the additional responsibility for managing their team while remaining accountable to their management teams, managers require additional skills and training to effectively influence up or down. Management levels within large organizations are structured from a hierarchal organization and include senior, middle, and lower management roles.
LRN, founded in 1994, is an American company which provides advising and educating on ethics, regulatory compliance, and corporate culture to other organizations. When founded, the company focused on the legal industry and was named Legal Research Network, before expanding into other fields.