Fish story

Nurses General Nursing

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Has anyone read or been in a department that has used the "fish philosophy" to boost staff morale and improve patient satisfaction scores? If so, give me details. I just read the book and it sounds like an interesting and effective way to boost morale. :confused:

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Hmmm...no, care to enlighten me?

-Russell

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Its is a management philosophy based on the Pike Place Fish Market in Seattle. I is all common sense stuff. But the book really puts it in a way that makes sense. There are four principles to boost your staff's morale. First on the "choose your attitude" And it goes on to explain all four steps. The book describes how one company was able to put the principles into play and how much happier the workers and the customers were.

Just wondering if it had been used in the healthcare setting.

I am looking for creative ways to increase our patient satisfaction scores. And I feel that I have to start by increasing the staff's morale. (It is really low right now because of changes and one staff member who likes to create problems. And administration isn't ready to get rid off that particular staff member - yet!!!)

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Yeah.. Our hospital uses it...

I don't think it went over very well, b/c they required us to sign a statement saying we will abide by this philosophy and if we don't then there might be some reprocusions...

They even fired someone who refused to sign it.. Yeah they are following the philosophy.. :)hehe

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is it similar to Zap!?

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My husbands office had everyone watch a video based on the book and management is trying to apply the fish principles to the office environment.

I never read it but my husband says it's a joke.

I think, as with any type of morale boosting mambo jambo, that management usually doesn't have a clue as to the real reasons why morale, team work and leadership in their office is low. They try to force new types of management principles on everyone and wonder why their employees think it's joke when they don't even go to their employees to find out why their current plan isn't working.

I think a lot more could be accomplished if management would just sit down with the employees and ask them what is good, what is bad and what they think can be done to fix it.

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Specializes in MS Home Health.

Yes I have. It was on 60 minutes or some show like that. Was awesome. Get the book.

renerian

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I agree with Colleen..

When the hospital started this that had these big meetings talking about how great it was gonna be, sang retarded songs, and even threw around a stuff fish, just to see if people would cooperate by catching it... :rolleyes:

THey also passed out these lil fish things that went on your name badges if you did something to impress them over a couple of weeks, well needless to say I still don't have one :( But then again I don't work enough.. And Im sure not gonna kiss someones butt just to get a stinkin fish tag.. :)hehe

I think management doesn't realize that the people who are hard workers and good team players are STILL that way... And the people who are lazy and hateful are still lazy and hateful...

Now they are laying people off, talk about morale booster :)hehe

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Nurse2B,

That makes me think of the IT company I used to work for. We started laying people off left and right. It was so bad they were actually paging people over the intercom system to meet at a particular conference room and then they would get axed. Literally let go 3/4 of all the employees.

During all this management said that if we all read that "Who Took My Cheese" Book we would all feel better.

Yeah, we all worked 10-12 hour days, weekends, holidays, for years and years with no over-time or compensation. They give you 2 maybe 3 weeks severance if your lucky, don't appropriately designate your duties to the sorry ones still working. But it's ok, "Who Moved My Cheese" made it all better. Now I know that it's completely acceptable to work like a dog for people who don't appreciate it and then they rationalize their behavior by reading dumb books that say, "That's Life!"

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But I'm not Bitter

:D

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Our hospital makes you watch the fish video at new employee orientation. They make a big deal over it and spend an entire morning on Service Excellence training. Lots of rah rah stuff...then, once you have been working there awhile, and spend a lot of time on the phone or otherwise interacting with other departments, you feel like you have been slapped by a fish because so FEW of your co workers are providing service excellence to their colleagues!!!

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