Fish into a distributed work environment?

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Permalink Reply by Jay Larson on September 10, 2008 at 10:45am

Hey John!
Great question. A lot of the time we think of FISH! as being a group thing or for the workplace and granted, that's the main idea. But, a change to a FISH!-like culture in the workplace begins with the individual.
It sounds like you have individuals spread-out in a variety of workgroups and companies. My suggestion is to get together via phone conference on a regular basis and approach the philosophy from a personal standpoint. Forget, for the moment, that you are part of a company and think of yourselves as just John or Susan or Brad, and go from there. Discuss the benefits and challenges (of FISH!) that people are facing in their different environments and work together to support each others growth and influence.
You can find structure for those conversations in either LeaderFISH! or FISH! Culture to guide you.

Bottom line - FISH! has to happen at the individual level or it will not have a lasting effect on those around you.

Hope this helps! If it doesn't, tell them it was Harry's idea! :)

Take care and good luck!
Jay

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Permalink Reply by John Scott Parsons on September 11, 2008 at 2:01pm

Thanks, Jay. This does help some. My biggest problem is trying to improve the work envoironment within one, distributed organization part of much large company while not using "fancy progam such as Fish and its toys." The principles are good and we can try to implement them, but without the kids stuff. I feel this is missing the point and not going far enough. So many people don't know the principles What is being done leaves out many of the people located at other locations (buildings within the same city). So, ,I am looking for ideas to include the remote members of the organization more using Fish ideas, but not call it Fish or anything to make it look like a program of the month. Other thoughts?

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Permalink Reply by Peter Doby on September 11, 2008 at 10:17am

John,

Harry asked me to respond to your post regarding how to utilize FISH! in a distributed work environment. Let me tell you what we do at my Company. We are spread all over the US with 8 Regions, each headed by a VP who has 8 Team Leaders reporting to them. Each Team Leader has approximately 20 Sales Reps that report to them.

In the past we’ve held small FISH! Camps for our people & then did our follow-up via phone mail & e-mail. We had a FISH! Hot Line set up for people to let us know whenever a FISH! moment occurred. We’d take that message & forward it around the Company. On my weekly phone mail message to my Region I always end the call with “Have a great week, let’s Be There for our Customers & friends & family, & go out & Make Somebody’s Day.”

Lately we get lots of e-mail FISH! stories & we’ll pass those along to the field. We encourage the field to share their FISH! stories & my hope is that we begin to include some of them in our weekly corporate e-mail communication. Right now we just informally pass them along to our respective Regions. We are in the process of creating an extranet site for our Reps to access & we hope to have FISH! represented there in some way.

One time we did eight weeks of FISH! Philosophy principles on phone mail so we could include those folks who were not involved in FISH! Camps. Our intent was to have everyone speaking the language of FISH! so that when we said to “Be There” they knew what we were talking about. We love it when one of our Reps sends an e-mail & the opening line is “Here’s something that’ll Make Your Day.” And it always does!

Keeping FISH! alive at my Company has had a huge impact on our productivity & morale & we continue to look for new ways to spread the word & keep it fun. I hope this helps in your quest to reach your people with the FISH! Philosophy.

Peter Doby

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Permalink Reply by John Scott Parsons on September 11, 2008 at 1:58pm

Thanks, Peter. This does help some. My biggest problem is we are trying to improve the work envoironment within one, distributed organization part of much large company. However, a "fancy progam such as Fish and its toys is not to be used" The principles are good and we can try to implement them, but without the kids stuff. I feel this is missing the point and not going far enough. What is being done leaves out many of the people located at other locations (buildings within the same city). So, ,I am looking for ideas to include the remote members of the organization more using Fish ideas, but not call it Fish or anything to make it look like a program of the month. Other thoughts?

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Permalink Reply by Sean Nolan on September 17, 2008 at 4:27pm

John:

Does your distributed organization have a central website that can be accessed by all members of the organization? Although I understand that maybe the "Play" aspect of the FISH! philosophies is something not to be emphasized too much, having an area of the website dedicated to something other than just the daily grind can produce those smiles and discussions about working and living better that can bring a positive spin and a closeness to a spread-out group of people. Call it an online community of sorts where feel good stories and work successes can be shared by everyone. As far as not looking like the "program of the month", individuals like yourself who believe in the FISH! philosophies can introduce these ideas into the group through your own anecdotes. Hope this helps.

Sean

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Permalink Reply by John Scott Parsons on March 28, 2009 at 4:53am

This is a great idea - I must find a way to make it happen. There are barriers with this approach as well. I'm still trying - people just don't get it. They think doing the same old thing will make a change over night. The thing I fit all the time is "schedule fun time" -- scheduling an event once a month of once a quarter to have fun or show appreciation...what about every other day?

Still trying.

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Permalink Reply by John Scott Parsons on March 28, 2009 at 4:49am

Thanks for the great example Peter... this won't fly (or swim) at my company. People want to improve the work environment without all the Fish terms and new concepts. So this appears to be an individual effort on my part. I have to be a role moel. Some people either don't buy it or they say we already do that stuff - either way they just don't get it.

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