Help! How Do We Introduce Fish! To A Working Environment if...
I wanted to start a blog for How To's. I am currently needing some help and I am sure others do as well. Here is my situation...
I have been in banking for almost 9 years. I'm a 25 year old, outgoing, and driven women. I have worked for 3 very large banks and decided on moving to a smaller town one. My move has been amazing. The people I work with are great, my customers love us, and the products we offer blow everyone else out of the water...but there is something missing here. I work with a manager that is very old school. She beleives that it all has to be done one and, which is always her way, or it has been done wrong. I have notice some negatives from here when it comes to her faith in other team members at our branch. I recently read the first Fish! book and was so energized after reading it that I sat down and organized an activity for Choose Your Attitude. I was so excited to share it with my manager that after I had everything together I went and presented the idea to her. I was instantly shot down! She started saying things like; "I don't want people to think you're pointing the fingher", "I think our staff does a good job already", "We have problems with that one person but no one else why do we need to change?". I realized shortly after that the biggest problem was with my manager, she wasn't choosing the right attitude. How do I break down the walls to try to get my point accross?
Later that day, after talking to her, I spoke with one of my mentors within our bank that works in the training department and to my surprise I found I wasn't the only one that saw my managers stuborn ways. She told me to keep chipping away because everyone in the company would agree that new life and new ideas from "someone else" would be beneficial to our branch.
So that you all can understand what she was objecting to this is my activity that I have planned:
In our weekly morning meeting we will open up by having a list of attitudes written down on our big flip chart paper. I will hand each employee with a pen and a name tage, which I have printed off from the Fish! website on charthouse.com. I will then ask our staff to write down what their attitude is for the morning and will ask them to be completly honest. To make everyone feel more comfortable I will be wearing a name tag of my own that will have sleepy written on it becasue until recently that was my attitude every morning. After everyone writes their attitude down I will have them put on their name tags and then I will go into my presentation about having the ability to choose your own attitude. At the end of the meeting I will then ask everyone how they would feel about wearing their name tags all day for our customers to see. This will then transition into the fact that even though we may not have a name tag showing the world what attitude we chose they can still see it in our interactions. I will then ask if they want to change their attitude that they chose for that day and will have them cross the one off that they chose and write their new one down. I will then challenge them to put their name tag on their station for them to see all day and remind them to try to maintain that attitude all day long.
Please help me, I need to know how to get through to my manager that something needs to happen here. Our attitudes are not to the standards of our customers, they are good but not great. And I know our business, work moral, and lifes will be much better if I can get the four aspects of the fish philosophy out to our girls!
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Jay Larson on -
Chrystal,
First of all, that exercise is a great idea. I love the learning you are helping people draw from it and the emphasis you have placed on living it out daily.
I have taught this philosophy all over the world and this is a very common situation. So how do you bring FISH! to life in an organization when you are not the decision-maker? Add to that, as in your situation, some degree of open resistance?
The following are some thoughts given what I know about your situation (to be received with the understanding that I don’t know what I don’t know :) ).
You CAN’T choose anyone’s attitude but your own.
Not that we don’t try! We all have a tendency to think that if we just say the right thing or present the right argument, that person that “needs an attitude adjustment” will see the light and start acting like we know they should. Not that you are judging your boss or putting yourself on a pedestal or anything. I say this so that you can step back and take the pressure off of yourself for your boss’s choices. They are not yours.
Those attitude choices are FULLY hers, as are the choices that everyone in her workgroup makes on a daily basis. We can influence others through our decisions and behaviors no doubt, but when push comes to shove, we all own our own choices in this area.
So, back to the question, “Then, how do I change things around here?”
Well…you don’t.
Okay, maybe that’s a little finite or coy, but the truth is, the only way to change someone is through influence. In this case, the job market being what it is, it is best to find a way to align your vision with theirs. For instance, it sounds like your boss thinks things are working pretty well and doesn’t want anyone upsetting the apple cart. I think we can all understand that, and given that she has probably had a hand in getting it to that place, we may even agree.
So the question becomes, “What does she want for the business and how do I align myself with it?" Does she have growth goals she has to hit, numbers to reach, budgets to meet? What keeps her up at night when it comes to her responsibilities with the bank? Positioning your exercise, and the practice of FISH!, as part of the solution for those issues will help move her away from thinking of it as “something else we have to do.” This is often times the cause of resistance that we see.
Here are a few stats that may help you align FISH! with her responsibilities:
- Engaged employees are 20% more productive than others and 80% less likely to leave
- Ranken Jordan Hospital in St. Louis practices FISH! and enjoys 98% customer satisfaction and 97% employee retention
- After implementing FISH!, Citizen’s First Bank in central Florida saw a 50% lift in productivity
- With FISH! an Applebee’s location in Minnesota increased sales by 8% and overall profit by 15% year over year
- Gallup, Inc. has proven that engaged organizations have 2.6 times the earnings per share (EPS) growth rate compared to organizations with lower engagement in their same industry
I hope some of those numbers help to state the case of bringing FISH! to the bank in an organized and purposeful way.
But what if that still doesn’t tip the scales?
Then, we have only one secret weapon left…the famed "When Harry Met Sally Effect". We all remember the scene in the diner and the reaction of the woman at an adjacent table, “I want what she’s having!”
You, Chrystal, need to live the FISH! practices loud and proud! Let everyone know what attitude you have chosen for the day and live it for everyone to see. You’ll have people asking you about it in no time and you will have many opportunities to influence your coworkers. Maybe even your manager!
Hang in there and remember the words of Teddy Roosevelt, “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”
Hope this helps.
Jay Larson
The Prophet of Possibilities
ChartHouse Learning, Inc.
© 2012 Created by ChartHouse Learning.
