When Fish Fly: Lessons for Creating a Vital and Energized Workplace from the World Famous Pike Place Fish Market

By empowering his employees, helping them buy in to his business vision and encouraging an intense commitment to customer service, Yokoyama turned a struggling Seattle fish market--with many unhappy employees--into the World Famous Pike Place Fish Market. Now""it would be difficult to find any retail store in America that makes more money per square foot of retail space,"" Yokoyama writes;""we haven't had a full-time employee leave within the past five years."" In this volume, which liberally employs fishing metaphors, Yokoyama and Michelli (Humor, Play and Laughter) share lessons and concepts that apply to a wide variety of business ventures. They offer advice for instilling passion in employees, thinking outside the profit box and striving to reach out to the community and customers, solving problems effectively and with a view to improvement, and realizing as goals are achieved, that""the process never ends. The game is simply played at a higher level with time."" Well-placed quotes from such luminaries as Nelson Mandela and Woodrow Wilson enhance the book's inspirational, if idealistic, messages.