I caught a FISH!
John Christensen, one of the authors of FISH!, gave his FISH! Philosophy presentation today at work. The philosophy can be summed up as four practices, or actions, to use in your life: 1. Be there 2. Play 3. Make their day 4. Choose your attitude
He started off by citing a 2007 Gallup Poll, which showed that 59% of Americans say they are disengaged from their work. Of those, 14% say they even go so far as to sabotage their work. These statistics show a big problem because we spend so much of our time at work that it takes up most of our lives. So we try to separate work from life and in reality, you can’t. Work is a big chunk of our lives and whether we are at work or not, we’re still making choices which shape our life.
Elaborating on the four practices:
1. Be there: Be present in the moment. Listen for what’s being said. Take a breath before responding.
2. Play: Having fun engages people and sparks energy. You have to define the playing field depending on your coworkers, but what it boils down to is building trust. When you can laugh and joke and not be afraid to speak up or admit mistakes, that’s a good place to be.
3. Make their day: Serve the people (customers). Make people happy. Let others in on your fun.
4. Choose your attitude: Choose to choose. You have the choice in everything you do. It’s how we react and the choices we make that makes up our life.
One memorable anecdote he shared was Southwest Airlines implementing this philosophy. He showed a clip of this lady who recounted her job interview. She pretty much had no work experience, limited computer skills, and no knowledge of the industry. They hired her anyway and now she’s in charge of a multi-million dollar account. The point they were making was to “hire for attitude.” This lady had a positive attitude and it showed. All those other skills, teachable.
Everyone in the auditorium was drawn into his presentation. He’s a very engaging speaker and the simplicity of the ideas makes it very inspiring for people to want to adopt this. For sure, I think these are all things to be mindful of daily. I mean we all get frazzled, grumpy, or preoccupied sometimes with everything that goes on around us so this definitely takes a bit of conscientiousness. I asked him during the presentation which practice he felt was the toughest to do and he said he felt the hardest, but also key step, is “Be there.” It’s easy to be doing one thing and thinking of something else. I personally think #4 is the most important, and for me, the most inspiring. You make of it what you want. The message is empowering and I like that.
The point to all this is, when you encourage these practices at work, morale increases, so productivity increases. And that’s the bottom line.
He signed books for everybody afterwards.
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