The Pike Place Fish Market in Seattle is an unusual place. As you scan the seafood being sold, you might look up to find a fish flying above your head. The people who work in this market are enthusiastic, hamming it up for their customers and creating a great experience (including throwing fish to their colleagues!), all while getting the job done. This unique and effective approach to workplace positivity led to the FISH! Philosophy, a set of ideas that are applicable to nearly every work environment. Bring the enthusiasm and positivity you’ll find at Pike Place Fish Market to your own work environment with the FISH! training video.

What is the FISH! Philosophy?

The FISH! Philosophy centers around four basic tenants that lead to a great experience for both employees and customers:

1. Be There: Employees shouldn’t just be at their job physically, they should be present emotionally, as well. They are there to do good work and engage with the people around them. Employees who are “in the moment” have more fun, are more productive, and provide a better customer experience.
2. Choose Your Attitude: Employees choose whether to view their job positively or negatively. Choosing a positive attitude notably increases enthusiasm and productivity.
3. Play: Work doesn’t have to be a drag. Having fun at work inspires creativity and helps in maintaining a positive attitude. When customers see employees having fun, they’ll feel happier and be more likely to return.
4. Make Their Day: The people who work at Pike Place Fish Market go out of their way to brighten their customers’ day. By making a difference in others’ lives, the employees increase their own happiness, creating positivity for everyone involved.

The FISH! Philosophy can lead to a huge change in the way your workplace functions.  For more information, visit www.fishphilosophy.com.

Whether talking about work or life in general, a great attitude helps us produce better results and increases our sense of well being.

The Sam Glenn Attitude Series is a set of wonderful training videos hosted by author, chalk board artist and motivational speaker Sam Glenn. In these wildly entertaining videos, Glenn uses humor, inspirational insights, and candid simplicity to encourage people to stay positive.

The programs encourage positivity in multiple ways. Glenn illustrates how fun and creativity enhance interactions with co-workers. He also teaches how to adapt positively to an ever changing world, how to deal with other people’s negative energy, and  how employees can keep their thoughts and actions positive on a day-to-day basis. (more…)

What is the ultimate workplace incentive? It is a question leaders and executives have been asking themselves since the beginning of time, and the answer may surprise you. Is it more money? More flexibility? More vacation? No, no, and no. It turns out that heartfelt appreciation is the ultimate workplace incentive, and it also makes employees feel more valued and connected to their work.

In the inspiring video Encouraging the Heart, best-selling authors and management experts Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner show how to master the art of employee recognition and appreciation. It is hard to put a price on this valuable leadership skill; masters of it are worth their weight in gold. The video depicts ways to motivate and engage employees, while showing the importance of recognizing achievements and linking recognition to organizational results. (more…)

We all want to work in a place where we feel valued and respected. A positive, motivating, and uplifting workplace clearly makes employees happier and more productive. High morale leads to better performance and a better company overall. These are all nice things to think about, but what concrete steps can be taken to ensure a more respectful workplace?

The Respectful Workplace: It Starts With You has the answer. It teaches four important skills that can be used every day to build respect among co-workers. Dramatic scenes depict the negative impact of disrespect while right-way scenes show how respectful, inclusive behavior makes worklife more rewarding for everyone. (more…)

Motivation can be a tricky thing. When you have it, you feel inspired, passionate and ready to take on the world. When you don’t…it’s a whole different story.   That’s why the best organizations make employee motivation a top priority.

It’s easy to keep people motivated and engaged when things are going well, but what about when they’re not? Setbacks affect people differently. While a certain setback may cause some employees to tackle the problem more aggressively, it can demoralize others…leading in turn to job dissatisfaction and high stress.

And When You Fall is an excellent video for addressing the types of motivation issues that can follow a setback.  It chronicles the challenges and stumbles of Olympic speed skater Dan Jansen on his way to winning an Olympic gold medal. We Are the Ones is an inspirational program for organizations in the midst of trying times–it reminds viewers that the time to work together and face the future is now. (more…)

You’ve got a good training design, invited all the right participants (you hope), reviewed the materials, and set the room up just right. Things should be going well, but for some reason, they just don’t seem to be going as you planned.

You’ve hit a roadblock, and you need to work around it. If any of the following five things happen to you, try to catch them early and work them out as quickly as you can – the success of your workshop may depend on it!

1. Someone has made up their mind before the meeting even started that it’s not something they are interested in – so they won’t be an active participant.
Take the person aside at a break. Ask them why they are not involved, and what is needed to get their valuable input. If they remain recalcitrant, allow them to leave. Honest discourse including differences is okay, but not disruptive behavior or allowing one person to ‘cast a pall’ over the whole session. (more…)

Respect isn’t one single big thing.

It’s not a task on our to-do list that we can check off at the end of the day.

And it’s certainly not the same as political correctness (which, ironically, can often lead us to say and do things that are almost as painful as the politically incorrect, stereotyping statements we’re trying to avoid).

Respect is the glue that holds us together in groups.  It’s all the small things that add up, day by day, week by week, year by year, to build relationships … or break them down. (more…)

High workplace morale reduces turnover, improves performance, creates loyalty, and generally makes for a more pleasant work environment. Nothing makes a manager’s job easier than supervising a group of people who enjoy coming to work. What many managers don’t realize is that the best ways to boost the employees motivation is to pump up workplace morale and do it for free–even on no budget.

Multiple surveys show that wages and benefits rank relatively low on the list of things that influence employee morale. So what does influence it? You. An employee’s relationship with his supervisor is a prime determinant of job satisfaction. Here are some cost-free ways to start building morale today: (more…)