Preface
The World Famous Pike Place Fish Market is located in the Pike Place Public Market in Seattle, Washington. When John Yokoyama (Johnny) purchased the fish market in 1965, it was nothing like it is today. In the beginning, it was pretty ordinary and operated just as one would expect any fish market to operate. Although it is still one of four fish markets at the Pike Place Public Market, there is nothing ordinary about World Famous Pike Place Fish.
World Famous Pike Place Fish is now a destination point for visitors to Seattle. Even people unfamiliar with Pike Place Fish by name usually recognize it as the place that throws fish when customers make a purchase. Often they have seen the fish market on NBC's Frasier or MTV's The Real World, on Emeril Live or Wheel of Fortune, or in the movie Free Willie. Pike Place Fish has also been publicized in any number of magazines and newspapers, including Fast Company and the Toronto Star, and they hold a Guinness world record for the most fish thrown in a minute!
ChartHouse Learning Corporation produced two award-winning corporate training films about the market, Fish! and Fish! Sticks, and published Fish!, a book that made the Wall Street Journal and New York Times bestseller lists, and lists in Japan and Germany. In March 2001, CNN identified the World Famous Pike Place Fish Market as "the most fun place to work" in the United States. Hardly what one would expect from a bunch of fishmongers, but these are no ordinary fishmongers.
These days, Pike Place Fish and their partner biz-FUTURES Consulting are working together to share their insights with organizations both domestically and internationally. Johnny, Jim Bergquist, and a handful of fishmongers travel to organizations and conferences to throw fish, create a lot of excitement, and generate interest in a more powerful way of doing business and living life. Most importantly, they make a difference for people.
Pike Place Fish employs fifteen to seventeen fishmongers, depending on seasonal activity. The term fishmonger is a fifteenth-century term meaning "fish dealer." On any given day, six to nine fishmongers sell fish at the Market. Pike Place Fish is open for business every day of the year —twelve hours a day Monday through Saturday, and ten hours on Sunday. While they are best known for the energy and excitement they generate at the Market, they are less known for their unprecedented financial results. In the past seventeen years, Pike Place Fish's cost of doing business has dropped nearly twenty-five percent, revenues have quadrupled, and profits have increased tenfold!
I teach quality assurance and corporate training in the Industrial Technology Department at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, California, and I learned about Pike Place Fish at a leadership conference in fall 2001. At first, I thought Pike Place Fish might be offering a new organizational quality initiative, and I wanted more information, to see if I should incorporate their concepts into my classes.
The hype surrounding Pike Place Fish intrigued me. It was unclear why a little fish market in Seattle was getting so much acclaim from corporations large and small in virtually every sector imaginable. I even found several companies in San Luis Obispo talking about Pike Place Fish, including the local feed store where I buy supplies for my horse. It appeared everyone was interested in Pike Place Fish!
My curiosity turned into a desire to tell their story. At the time, I wasn't sure how this might come about, but I felt strongly that people everywhere could benefit from learning more about the guiding principles of Pike Place Fish. It is my intention to make a difference in people's lives, and I was amazed to find a business that held many beliefs similar to my own. It seemed there was much to be learned behind the scenes at this little fish market, so I contacted the owner of Pike Place Fish and proposed sharing the organization's underlying beliefs and guiding principles with the rest of the world.
I first met the fishmongers in February 2002, and I visited them several times throughout the year while continuing to teach at Cal Poly. During my visits I worked at the Market, set up the smoked salmon and box displays, and helped put things away at night. I learned the physical aspects of the job as well as the fishmongers' jargon and the mental aspects of their work. I spent a lot of time talking to the guys—sometimes in formal interview settings, and sometimes just in casual conversations. I was even fortunate enough to be hit in the head by a flying crab and locked in the cooler on the same day—it was quite an experience!
One of the biggest and most important life lessons I learned from the fishmongers is that I am responsible for what I experience in my life and for whatever future I cause to happen in my life. The fishmongers call that idea "It's all over here"—each person is solely responsible for his or her thoughts, feelings, emotions, decisions, actions… everything. Virtually every story in Catch! illustrates the guiding principle at Pike Place Fish: You are responsible for your life.
For example, if I am upset because I have to stand in a long line at the grocery store, I am not upset at the line or the people in line. I am upset because I am choosing to be upset; chances are, standing in line does not match my expectation of going to the grocery store. The idea is that nothing outside of yourself makes you happy or sad—it's all within you; hence, "It's all over here."
Catch! is the story behind the hype, and it relates the real experiences of the fishmongers who work at Pike Place Fish. At times, the language they use may seem a bit awkward because they use many catchphrases (no pun intended) with one another, at work and in their personal lives. However, it's not the specific language they use that makes the stories so powerful. Rather, the language is simply a reflection of their underlying guiding principles. Through their stories, you will experience their guiding principles and their own personal transformations, and if the fishmongers can do it, so can you. How did they do it? Welcome to their stories…
The first chapter tells you about World Famous Pike Place Fish. It introduces you to the fishmongers, gives you a glimpse into a normal day at the Market, and provides insights into the language—and into the thinking behind the language. The second chapter reveals the main underlying tenets that allow effective use of the guiding principles. Chapter 3 discusses the notions of intention and commitment, because the remaining chapters derive from one's clear understanding of his or her intention and commitment.
Once you find your intention and are committed to making it happen, your eyes will be open to new and exciting opportunities, as revealed in Chapter 4. In Chapter 5, you will see how these new opportunities—and how you think about these opportunities—begin to shape your new reality. You will see the importance of language as a tool in this shaping and in connecting to other human beings.
Once you have these new ideas under your belt, Chapter 6 gives a specific application of them and invites you to recognize conflict and problems as a good thing, since creative conflict leads to many opportunities for growth and development.
Finally, all of the guiding principles are integrated in Chapter 7, giving you the tools to access a more effective and meaningful way of living and working. Through their stories, you will learn how all members of one company are nurturing and sustaining a healthy work environment. I hope you will be inspired to more fully actualize these concepts in your life and to really catch Catch!
Cyndi Crother
August 2003
