Okay. You know when a company will hear of a new motivational thing.. and they'll bring it to the company to try to motivate the staff.. but will overdo it and get crucial points wrong so that it just makes a joke of itself?
Well, ACCU just did that.
Welcome to FISH.
There is a cute motivaitonal book called fish. It's a good read.. it's motivating. We read it. It should have stopped there. The book follows a woman who is a manager of a floor of people who hate their jobs. She is trying to motivate them. She accidentally stumbles across a fish market which is lively and fun and they teach her how to make any job fun. She then takes this information back to her staff.. starts well, motivates them a bit.. and then follows through to become an embarrassing joke of the point it originally tried to make. (okay that's not how the book put it).

The principles of fish are really simple:
1. Choose your attitude. (Why have a crap day when you can choose to have a good one?)
2. Play (Make normal tasks fun)
3. Be there (focus your attention on the task/person)
4. Make their day (ensure people have good memories of meeting you)

Generally good principles for day to day life too. But ACCU went too far. They covered the whole floor in cartoon fish and toy fish. It feels like a kindergarten. We are playing games in team meetings. We have decorated cardboard fish with glitter and sequins. We have had a week of focussing on each of those points. It's driving me nuts. They missed the point. They're making it about the fish... and about childish playing that is unrelated to work.. rather than being playful about the work we *are* doing. They just missed the point.


Posted at 9:39 AM #

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Okay. You know when a company will hear of a new motivational thing.. and they'll bring it to the company to try to motivate the staff.. but will overdo it and get crucial points wrong so that it just makes a joke of itself?
Well, ACCU just did that.
Welcome to FISH.
There is a cute motivaitonal book called fish. It's a good read.. it's motivating. We read it. It should have stopped there. The book follows a woman who is a manager of a floor of people who hate their jobs. She is trying to motivate them. She accidentally stumbles across a fish market which is lively and fun and they teach her how to make any job fun. She then takes this information back to her staff.. starts well, motivates them a bit.. and then follows through to become an embarrassing joke of the point it originally tried to make. (okay that's not how the book put it).

The principles of fish are really simple:
1. Choose your attitude. (Why have a crap day when you can choose to have a good one?)
2. Play (Make normal tasks fun)
3. Be there (focus your attention on the task/person)
4. Make their day (ensure people have good memories of meeting you)

Generally good principles for day to day life too. But ACCU went too far. They covered the whole floor in cartoon fish and toy fish. It feels like a kindergarten. We are playing games in team meetings. We have decorated cardboard fish with glitter and sequins. We have had a week of focussing on each of those points. It's driving me nuts. They missed the point. They're making it about the fish... and about childish playing that is unrelated to work.. rather than being playful about the work we *are* doing. They just missed the point.