Fish! Sticks: A Remarkable Way to Adapt to Changing Times and Keep Your Work Fresh

Amazon.com
In this third installment in the popular Fish! series, the authors examine change as a necessary, ongoing process that should never stop--at least not if one wants to keep the workplace vital and fully alive. Using a fictitious sushi restaurant as an example, this fable examines the three principles that Lundin, Christensen, and Paul believe are necessary for continuing success: Find It ("it" being each employee's personal vision of the business), Live It, and Coach It. Readers of the authors' previous books--Fish! A Remarkable Way to Boost Morale and Improve Results and Fish! Tales--should find its familiarity comforting. For those new to the series, this standalone volume is easy to read and highly valuable. --David Bombeck


From Publishers Weekly
This audio version of the third book in the Fish series uses as its example the work at one ward of a large suburban hospital. Rhonda, the supervisor, had been promoted, and her mentor, whom she succeeded, had been an ardent follower of the Fish program. Rhonda believed her staff was paying attention to the patients and were providing a level of service far beyond that at other facilities. However, after some time, she began to notice staffers were sloughing off and seemed not to be providing the absolute best care to the patients. The problem? Keeping the Fish principles fresh and new was difficult. After a visit to a successful sushi restaurant, Rhonda regained her enthusiasm for the program and, with the help of the sushi chef, was able to inspire her staff. In fact, her work was so effective, her staff was able to take over for Rhonda after she suffered a family tragedy. There's something charming about the Fish program, which counsels, "Find it, live it and coach it" ("it" is each employee's vision). The notion that individual workers can have a vision for their workplace and their place within a large organization is indeed empowering. And Rhonda's story offers insights into both personal and professional worlds. However, the simple message is rendered even more unsophisticated by the artificial voices on this audio. There's a kind of squeaky, schoolmarm voice for the older nurse who comes onto the ward, and the intonations used for the various nurses are similar and somewhat grating. Still, in spite of these flaws, the story and the business lessons within it are worth hearing.Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From AudioFile
An allegory about a thriving Japanese restaurant is used to show how organizational change can be sustained only when individual members connect with the organization's vision. The restaurant's owner is the teacher here, while a nearby hospital--suffering every kind of institutional malaise one can imagine--is the student as it struggles through familiar bureaucratic and human problems. People impatient with narratives might glaze over at this one; it's drawn out and overacted. But the lessons have value for managers trying to motivate their troops to pull in the same direction. In spite of its excesses and length, the story does support the principles it teaches and offers a good organizational lesson. T.W. © AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine


Book Description
"It doesn't matter if you are an individual contributor who wants to hang on to a better work life or a CEO who wants to maintain a new high level of productivity: Sustaining change is the true test of leadership. Holding on to a culture of innovation, maintaining a higher quality of work life, constantly renewing an important customer service program, or retaining a more participative management style require the use of an unique set of principles that are different than those used simply to initiate a change . . . External energy is often what it takes to catch our attention in a busy world. But external energy cannot sustain a change. That takes a different source of energy: natural energy." --from the Introduction to FISH! Sticks With more than two million copies in print worldwide, FISH! and FISH! Tales have been fixtures on the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Business Week, New York Times Business, and Publishers Weekly bestseller lists. The FISH! philosophy has been featured widely in People, Fast Company, and on CBS Television's Sunday Morning, and CNN's Business Unusual. Thousands of organizations are using the FISH! philosophy to bring more energy and passion to their work, including Abbott Labs, Arrow Electronics UK Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Ford, Harley-Davidson, the Mayo Clinic, Nabisco, the National Weather Service, Nordstrom, P&G, Prudential, Sprint, the U.S. Army, and Wells Fargo. There are many ways to make good changes. This brilliant new parable will show you how to help make those changes stick -- for good. Effecting change in an organization is a piece of cake -– compared to the real challenge of getting change to stick.  Now, the authors of FISH!, the million-plus copy international bestselling book and video phenomenon, have returned with an all-new, stand-alone business parable that shows how anyone can do exactly that.  Here is a remarkable way to keep your work vital, alive, and fresh as you navigate staff turnover, tough times, and general run-of-the-mill cynicism and burnout. When Rhonda, a new manager, takes over from a popular and now promoted boss, she is faced with the problem of how to keep spirits and performance up in a newly-energized unit that has, frankly, started to get bored and cranky and return to its old ways.  But then she visits the amazing Tsunami Too, a fictional sushi restaurant that always has a huge line of customers cheerfully waiting for hours to get in.  Soon, she realizes that the way to keep her staff and herself motivated and at the top of their game can be learned from a brilliant sushi chef and a bunch of waiters who continually teach one another everything they need to know about giving great customer service, integrating new employees, and maintaining an atmosphere of  constant innovation and overall excellence. FISH! Sticks employs the same kind of easy-to-use story that was used in Fish! to illustrate its three main commitments for continued success: Find IT, Live IT, Coach IT, where the "IT" is each employee's own personal vision, found withing the overall vision for the business. Chock full of easy-to-grasp examples, this book provides advice that is concrete and can produce immediate improvements in employee morale, customer satisfaction, and productivity -- both for the short and long-term.  If you have ever made a change or innovation only to feel soon after that you were backsliding -– or if you want to identify what's working in your workplace and make sure that it keeps working -– then FISH! Sticks is a book that will help you achieve your goals.


Download Description
The "o-FISH!-al" follow-up to the phenomenal bestselling Fish! and Fish! Tales, Fish! Sticks is a stand alone business parable that shows you how to come up with a vision for your business and how to keep it alive, vital, and renewed through tough times, such as turnover in management and staff or a troubled economy.

Using the example of a hugely successful, fictional sushi restaurant as a model for a vision of continual renewal, Fish! Sticks employs the same kind of easy-to-read story that was used in Fish! to illustrate its three major principals of continued success: Commit, Be it, and Coach it.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"It doesn't matter if you are an individual contributor who wants to hang on to a better work life or a CEO who wants to maintain a new high level of productivity: Sustaining change is the true test of leadership. Holding on to a culture of innovation, maintaining a higher quality of work life, constantly renewing an important customer service program, or retaining a more participative management style require the use of an unique set of principles that are different than those used simply to initiate a change . . . External energy is often what it takes to catch our attention in a busy world. But external energy cannot sustain a change. That takes a different source of energy: natural energy." --from the Introduction to FISH! Sticks

With more than two million copies in print worldwide, FISH! and FISH! Tales have been fixtures on the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Business Week, New York Times Business, and Publishers Weekly bestseller lists. The FISH! philosophy has been featured widely in People, Fast Company, and on CBS Television's Sunday Morning, and CNN's Business Unusual. Thousands of organizations are using the FISH! philosophy to bring more energy and passion to their work, including Abbott Labs, Arrow Electronics UK Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Ford, Harley-Davidson, the Mayo Clinic, Nabisco, the National Weather Service, Nordstrom, P&G, Prudential, Sprint, the U.S. Army, and Wells Fargo.

There are many ways to make good changes. This brilliant new parable will show you how to help make those changes stick -- for good.

Effecting change in an organization is a piece of cake -￯﾿ﾽ compared to the real challenge of getting change to stick.￯﾿ﾽ Now, the authors of FISH!, the million-plus copy international bestselling book and video phenomenon, have returned with an all-new, stand-alone business parable that shows how anyone can do exactly that.￯﾿ﾽHere is a remarkable way to keep your work vital, alive, and fresh as you navigate staff turnover, tough times, and general run-of-the-mill cynicism and burnout.

When Rhonda, a new manager, takes over from a popular and now promoted boss, she is faced with the problem of how to keep spirits and performance up in a newly-energized unit that has, frankly, started to get bored and cranky and return to its old ways.￯﾿ﾽ But then she visits the amazing Tsunami Too, a fictional sushi restaurant that always has a huge line of customers cheerfully waiting for hours to get in.￯﾿ﾽ Soon, she realizes that the way to keep her staff and herself motivated and at the top of their game can be learned from a brilliant sushi chef and a bunch of waiters who continually teach one another everything they need to know about giving great customer service, integrating new employees, and maintaining an atmosphere of￯﾿ﾽ constant innovation and overall excellence.

FISH! Sticks employs the same kind of easy-to-use story that was used in Fish! to illustrate its three main commitments for continued success: Find IT, Live IT, Coach IT, where the "IT" is each employee's own personal vision, found withing the overall vision for the business. Chock full of easy-to-grasp examples, this book provides advice that is concrete and can produce immediate improvements in employee morale, customer satisfaction, and productivity -- both for the short and long-term.

If you have ever made a change or innovation only to feel soon after that you were backsliding -￯﾿ﾽ or if you want to identify what's working in your workplace and make sure that it keeps working -￯﾿ﾽ then FISH! Sticks is a book that will help you achieve your goals.

Stephen C. Lundin, the Big Tuna Ph.D., is a writer, filmmaker, and public speaker. He serves as head counselor of the popular Fish! Camps.

John Christensen is a filmmaker and CEO of ChartHouse Learning, the leading producer of corporate learning programs, including FISH!, the video.

Harry Paul, a professional speaker, is a consulting partner with the Ken Blanchard Companies and the director of speaker services at Nelson Motivation.

SYNOPSIS

The phenomenal bestselling Fish! philosophy is applied to keeping your company's vision alive and renewed, using the example of a fictional sushi bar that is always two steps ahead of the competition.

FROM THE CRITICS

Soundview Executive Book Summaries

A Short Parable with Big Applications
In Fish! Sticks, the authors who originated the original FISH! philosophy to help people add energy and passion to their work have produced another short business parable to help leaders sustain a change effort after the original momentum has subsided. In a tale about a health-care leader who is working to keep a successful change initiative alive in her hospital, the authors deliver poignant advice about holding on to a culture of innovation before efforts backslide. As other characters add depth and color to the points Fish! Sticks delivers, a set of principles emerges about the next steps that must be taken after an initial change.

'Find IT, Live IT and Coach IT'
Fish! Sticks packs much wisdom about sustaining vision, finding personal passion, and facing challenges into a short book. Its clarity and timeless lessons are put into the contexts of a busy hospital, as well as a successful sushi restaurant, as the main character strives to make change stick. Characters who cross her path help her find the passion and vision to perpetuate the good work of the powerful leader who came before her. She also learns to understand the importance of finding a personal piece of the vision, called "IT." The lessons she learns are defined and shared through simple, useful features in the book, such as a list of vision principles that demonstrate how leaders can "Find IT, Live IT and Coach IT."