Fish! Sticks by Stephen C. Lundin, John Christensen and Harry Paul

This is sort of a continuation of the 1st book, Fish!. For those who have not read the 1st book, it would be better if you read it 1st before reading this book. This is in fact the 3rd installment from these authors of the Fish! philosophy. The 2nd book is Fish! Tales, which are real life stories about people who used the Fish! philosopy.

This book differs from the 1st book in that the 1st book teaches about the concept of the philosophy and this book introduces methods to make the change sticks.

There are 3 main ingredients in this book; Find it, Live it and Coach it.

In any job, one must be committed to something. There must be something that you believe dearly in order for you to function as productive worker. There must be something that makes you have passion in what you are doing, so that you are constantly thinking of new improvement ideas. It may be that you want to be supportive to your colleagues, it may be that you want to create a good working environment or it may be that you want to better yourself every year. Whatever it is, you have to "Find it".

After finding your committment, you have to "Live it". If your committment is to support your colleagues, you will find ways to live to your committment. You can observe if your colleagues need assistance in certain jobs, or you can help by simply suggesting a method to make your colleagues' job easier. Living true to your committment requires discipline and consistency.

Coaching others sometimes can be difficult, especially if the other party is a more senior or experienced person. In "Coach it", it does not matter who the other party is. What matters is if you have better ideas and experience in doing that exact task. We are all good at something, be it writing a report, repairing the TV, analysing data or even a leisure workout.

Practising all these 3 parts would help to make any change sticks in any organisation.

Fish! by Stephen C Lundin, Harry Paul and John Christensen

Of the 3 books in the Fish! series, I started reading the last and latest one, Fish! for Life. Reading just a quarter of that book, I felt a compelling urge to get my hands on the 1st installment before continuing with the book.

I am so glad that I got this book in super quick time and also finished reading it within 3-4 hrs. In fact, if you are a fast reader, I believe you should be able to finish the book in 2 hours. I was engrossed when the story unfolds on the work environment as it was very similar to mine. Plain boring to many of my staff. I was interested to know how Mary Jane, the main character, would be able to motivate her staff to have better output and give better customer service.

The 4 main ingredients are:

1) Choose your Attitude. We have a choice to choose our attitude everyday at work. We can choose to be grumpy and be zombie like or we can be as cheerful as a humble bee.

2) Play. Having fun at work with your colleagues would make your job more interesting and produce happier workers.

3) Make their Day. How do we engage our customers so that we can "make their day"?

4) Be Present. When corresponding with a customer, either external or internal, we are often distracted by our phones and interruptions. Being present with the customer shows your respect and your dedication to that person, which in turn will be reciprocated.

Though it looks difficult to implement in my office, I would try to do something. 1st, I believe I have to get a copy for my line manager. Stay tune for the reviews of the next 2 Fish! books.