1、1The world famous Pike Place Fish storyA Breakthrough for Managers By John Yokoyama and Jim Bergquist 2Fifteen years ago, John Yokoyama, the owner of Pike Place Fish, a retail fish market in Seattles historic Farmers Market, and his employees committed themselves to becoming World Famous Pike Place

2、Fish. With his business at a crisis point, John contacted Jim Bergquist, founder of BizFutures Consulting Company, for advice. Jim invited John to commit to creating an extraordinary future.To begin this process, they created three powerful intentions:To show other business leaders what becomes poss

3、ible when they are willing to commit themselves to empowering their employees.To demonstrate what happens when you create a mighty purpose for your organization that includes prosperity and success as obvious by-products for every employee.To let people see the actual possibility of intentionally cr

4、eating the future through a process that makes a difference in the quality of life for all people.As Jim and John worked together, they asked some significant questions: Whats beyond successful survival and prosperity in business? Can the people in a company intentionally cause their own future? Wha

5、t happens if you truly empower your employees? Can a company make a difference in the quality of life for people? For our planet?Their exploration reveals an incredible adventure into the amazing power of human creativity as it is manifested in a retail fish business. It has opened up both extraordi

6、nary opportunities . . . and more questions. In this essay, John and Jim tell their story.3John Yokoyamas big fish story For me, it all started when I purchased Pike Place Fish back in 1965. At that time, I was one of several employees. The business wasnt very successful, and the owner really hated

7、it. After many unsuccessful attempts to sell the business, my employer offered me the opportunity to purchase Pike Place Fish . . . he really just wanted to get rid of it.At first I said “no.” As a young man of 25, I was hesitant to buy the business. I didnt want the responsibility. However, the mon

8、thly payments on my beautiful, new 1965 Buick Riviera were taking most of my pay. I finally decided I could do better on an owners salary and went ahead and bought the company. So, originally, I purchased Pike Place Fish so I could make my car payments!For the next 20 years, I worked very hard to tr

9、y to make my business successful. During the first six years, I worked 12-hour days, six days a week without ever taking a vacation. While the business wasnt a huge success, it did okay. We made a decent living, but we had to work hard for it. I wanted something more out of my business and started t

10、o consider expanding in some way.Around 1986, I decided to try the wholesale side of the fish business. Boy, was that a big mistake! The person I had in charge of this side of the business put me seriously in the hole in just nine months! At this point, my business and I were in trouble. We were fli

11、rting with bankruptcy. I got my team together at a meeting and told them, “Its either sink or swim.” We decided to swim.Right around the same time, an old friend, Karen Bergquist, called and suggested that I meet with her husband, Jim, who happened to be a consultant. We had a meeting, and Jim told

12、me he had a unique approach to consulting. He said he could coach my team and me and show us how to create a great future. He told me that I was thinking too small . . . that I needed a bigger purpose . . . a bigger game. Then he invited me to commit myself to a three-month trial period.4I told him

13、that I was struggling just to stay in business and that Id be crazy to hire a consultant at that time and so the answer was “no.” He said, “John, this is exactly the perfect time to hire me, and if you dont see results within three months, you can fire me.” I cant say exactly why I changed my mind b

14、ecause it really wasnt a logical business decision. Maybe it was the attraction of creating a really great future, but I decided to do it. That was the beginning of our work together, and 15 years later, Jim still consults with me and leads our bi-weekly staff meetings.5The Pike Place Fish visionIn

15、one of our early Pike Place Fish meetings with BizFutures, we asked, “Who do we want to be?” One of the young kids working for me said, “Hey! Lets be world famous!” I thought, “World famous? What a stupid thing to say!” But the more we talked about it, the more we became excited about being world fa

16、mous. So we printed “World Famous” on our boxes.Then, after a while, we asked, “What does being world famous mean?” And we created our own definition. For us, it means going beyond just providing outstanding service to people. It means really being present with people and relating to them as human b

17、eings. You know, stepping outside the usual “were-in-business-and-youre-a-customer” way of relating to people and intentionally being with them right now, in the present moment, person to person.We take all of our attention off ourselves to be only with them . . . looking for ways to serve them. Wer

18、e out to discover how we can make their day. Weve made a commitment to have our customers leave with the experience of having been served.They experience being known and appreciated whether they buy fish or not. And its not good enough just to want thatit takes an unrelenting commitment. Weve made i

19、t our job to make sure that experience happens for every customer.One time an elderly couple from New York wanted to haggle over the price of our fish. They were upset because the prices werent negotiable. Sammy, one of our fishmongers, overheard the conversation and jumped in with “Hey, are you fro

20、m New York? I grew up in New York. Where do you live?” By the time they left, Sammy knew their names and the kind of work they had done as well as stories about their children, their life in New York, their trip to Seattle and how many people they were having over for dinner when they got back home.

21、 He also knew what kind of fish they were serving because he helped them pick it out and even gave them recipes for cooking it. Their order was for more than $500. A week later, Sammy received a letter telling him all about the great party and thanking him for making a difference for them.6To us, be

22、ing “World Famous” is a way of being. Its about taking care of people. Were always on the lookout for how we can make a difference in peoples lives.Originally, we wondered, “How are we going to become world famous? We dont have any money to advertise!” Jim told us we didnt have to know how to become

23、 world famous. He told us that when youre generating a powerful vision, the future just unfolds. He told us not to believe in it. We just had to be it. He pointed out that theres a big difference between a belief about something and the actual thing itself. Muhammad Ali didnt say, “I believe I am th

24、e greatest.” He said “I am the greatest.” He was declaring himself. Its the difference between the idea of being great and being great out of the commitment that you are. Jim said, “Your commitment to being world famous will naturally give you what to do.” So, as individuals, each of us aligned with

25、 the commitment and declared, “We are World Famous Pike Place Fish.”Jim was right. Once we declared our commitment, things really started happening. W.A. Murray, who wrote The Scottish Himalayan Expedition in 1951, talks about the importance of commitment. In a famous quote, he says:“Until one is co

26、mmitted there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is an elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans; that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All

27、sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in ones favour all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no one could have dreamt would have come their way.”7I have also gained

28、 a deep respect for one of Goethes couplets:“Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it.Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.”So, we committed ourselves and heres what happened.8The little fish who couldFirst, the Goodwill Games came to Seattle. Photographers from all over the world show

29、ed up at the public market to capture some scenes of Seattle. They asked people in the market, “Where are the guys who throw the fish?” They wanted to take pictures of us to show the folks back home. News crews from China, Japan, Zaire, Russia, Germanyfrom everywherefilmed us.Then a film crew from H

30、ollywood asked if we could supply a couple of guys to be in their movie, “Free Willie.” We could and we did.Some time later, one of our employees caught Spike Lee on MTV. He was looking for places to film his famous Levis commercials and for people who had an interesting job. He invited people who t

31、hought they had an interesting job to call or write to him at MTV. Our guy figured that he had an interesting job, and besides that, he was a “World Famous Fishmonger.” He called MTV. Out of more than 600,000 responses, they picked his. We made a Levis 501 commercial with Spike Lee.Meanwhile, our ma

32、nager was being featured on a local radio talk show every morning, talking about the Pike Place Market. When Nordstrom finished building their flagship store, they painted a billboard showing five of Seattles leaders on the side of their building. One was the face of a World Famous Pike Place Fishmo

33、nger.At one point, ESPN showed up to film our fish-throwing crew as a backdrop for their sports programming. Then came ABCs “Good Morning America, live from Pike Place Fish,” NBCs “Frasier,” MTVs “Real World,” and CBSs “Sunday Morning.” We have been captured on film and talked about in print by film

34、makers and journalists from all over the world. In 2001, we appeared in People and Fast Company magazines.We are now a part of the Guinness Book of World Records by setting a world record for catchingwith one handthe most fish in 30 seconds. Two employees flew to Hollywood for the Guinness Records T

35、V show. They were filmed throwing and catching 16 fish in 30 seconds with only one hand.9About four years ago, in one of our staff meetings, my brother Dickey, who is also the manager of Pike Place Fish, said, “OK guys, its time for Pike Place Fish the movie to show up.” Two weeks later, John Christ

36、ensen from ChartHouse International Learning Corporation came to see us and asked if he could make a video of us at work. We said “sure.” So many people tape us every day that it didnt seem unusual. We had no idea that he would produce two award-winning corporate training films, “FISH” and “FISH STI

37、CKS.” These two videos document our company culture at Pike Place Fish as interpreted by ChartHouse International Learning Corporation. They have been translated into 12 languages and have become the best-selling corporate training videos in the world.Then one of John Christensens associates publish

38、ed the best-selling book, FISH!, which made the bestseller list in The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, as well as the bestseller lists in Japan and Germany.In a CNN Special Report in March 2001, CNN identified the two most fun places to work in the United States. The World Famous Pike Pl

39、ace Fish Market was number one.It goes on and on . . . I know Im leaving out many details of our story, but these events show what has happened as a result of our commitment to our vision.Except for our website, weve never advertised. Without spending one penny, weve received more media exposure tha

40、n many large companies that spend tons of money in advertising. All of this is a result of our continuing to come from our vision and be true to our commitment to make a difference for peopleto be “World Famous.”10Our story is really a great testament to the power of commitment. We create intentions

41、 and commit to them. We never know how the results are going to show up. So, while its true that weve intended everything that has happened, the events seemed to come “out of the blue.” Change really happens as Jim says, “Naturally, just out of who youre being.”People want to copy us . . . to do wha

42、t were doing. We keep telling them, “Your success isnt in doing what we do; its in discovering your own way. Dont do what we do. You just have to be. That means commit yourself to being who you say you are: act like, think like, look like, feel like, speak like . . . be it! You will create your own

43、way by doing what you do. Our secret to success lies in our commitment to being who we say we are. Just be it. Your challenge is to just be who you want to be.”11Beyond the biggest fishRecently, we realized that wed accomplished our vision to become world famous. Once we committed to our vision, thi

44、ngs seemed to kind of naturally open up and show us the way and provide opportunities to fulfill our vision. We kept stepping into the opportunities, and we did itwe became world famous!” But then we had a problem because once youve fulfilled a vision, you have to either sit around, rest on your lau

45、rels, get fat-headed and arrogant, or you generate a bigger vision.So we asked ourselves, “Now what?” We began to look at what else we could be world famous for. And we created a new vision.Now our vision is “World Peace, an idea whose time has come.”12How are we going to accomplish this? We dont kn

46、ow fully yet. It will unfold as we go. For example, not long after we declared our commitment to world peace, we were filmed on CBSs “Sunday Morning,” and we shared our vision with millions of people. Out of that program, we received a large number of email messages letting us know that we werent al

47、one in our commitment. One person, a Japanese-American doctor who worked in Nagasaki and Hiroshima after World War II, sent us a book he wrote and called to tell us about a course hes teaching at UCLA, all to promote peace in the world.When you take a stand and commit to something, its amazing how e

48、vents seem to occur to forward your commitment . . . even this article that youre reading is an opportunity to communicate our vision.After the new vision has unfolded, after we know how it happened, well tell you the story just as we are right now. By the way, were inviting you and everyone else on

49、 the planet to join us in making this vision happen. This is whats next for us. But now, Id like you to hear the story as Jim Bergquist tells it.13From music to managementI started out to be a musician. I am a classically trained pianist who earned a living playing in jazz and rock groups. Ive alway

50、s been deeply interested in human creativity and how it shows up in peoples lives, particularly in their work. So, Ive been studying and participating in different creativity and transformation programs for nearly 30 years.14In 1977, I volunteered for “The Hunger Project,” a United Nations non-gover

51、nmental organization whose vision and commitment is to end world hunger. They use a particular approach to managing people that is focused on the innate creativity of every human being. They employ a management style based on inspiring commitment rather than the more conventional motivational models

52、. After a few years, I joined their staff and became adept with this new management approach by managing and coordinating all Hunger Project volunteers worldwide. After completing my job with the Hunger Project, I was invited to work as a management consultant with a firm in Seattle. In 1983, I form

53、ed my own company, BizFutures Consulting Company.15Under new management: Inspiration and creativityThe management approach behind the Pike Place Fish success story starts with the profound realization that human beings are, at their very core, powerful and creative beings. Creating and running a bus

54、iness or an organization is fundamentally a creative endeavor, probably more akin to conducting an orchestra or coaching a sports team than it is to operating a machine.From this basic insight, we derive some underlying principles that allow us to reinvent or really to newly create our companies and

55、 ourselves. For managers, these principles generate a whole new world in which to think and create as well as a way of operating that is at once both simple and powerful. People can create new realities . . . if they choose to do so.By the way, this approach is a complete departure from conventional

56、 management theory, which weve inherited from Frederick W. Taylors mechanical worldview of people in the workplace. Taylor worked as a machinist and shop foreman at the turn of the last century. He became a mechanical engineer and is famous for Principles of Scientific Management, published in 1911,

57、 and for his time and motion studies. Hes considered to be the father of modern management science.Taylor was a brilliant man who lived in a historical time when the universe and everything in it was considered to be one big machine, a concept still commonly held. Its a world metaphor we have inheri

58、ted and take for granted. But were now in the process of evolving out of this old paradigm into a new one.16New paradigm, new principlesAt BizFutures, we believe that the whole field of management is undergoing a paradigm shift, changing from a mechanical view of humans as objects who can be “motiva

59、ted” with carrots or sticks to seeing people as creative beings.In this new paradigm, you work with people at the level of being. By “l(fā)evel of being,” I am implying that when youre working with people from an intention to empower them, its useful to distinguish different levels on which to work. One

60、 level is the physical level, as when a football coach has his linemen practice running through a set of car tires. Another is on an intellectual level, working with ideas and concepts. Another is the psychological level, working with people on their psyche (emotions, beliefs, personal history, self