All that left me feeling conflicted. On the one hand, who could possibly object to a happier workplace? I spent a decade managing and being managed in various office situations, and none was remotely as joyous as Pike Place Fish. But when I saw -- on one of the Fish! video sequels -- a gang of crazily dressed call-center operators dancing in a conga line around their cubicles, I cringed. Such workplace antics would only have hastened my decision to become what I am today: a person who works at home, alone, and prefers it that way. Am I cynical? An attitudinal vampire?
Movie time again. We're watching Fish! Sticks, a sequel in which Christensen returns to Pike Place to learn from the fishmongers how they maintain their cheerful attitude over time. Not surprisingly, his investigation produces a whole new set of axioms, all rooted in the notion of personal vision, which the film calls "it." Since the first film was shot, the "it" at Pike Place has apparently shifted, from "being world famous" to "achieving world peace."
In Fish! Sticks we hear a good deal from John Yokoyama, Pike Place's owner, who admits that he was once a grouchy and difficult boss. Then he "got some training" that made him realize change was possible, and he began the journey that transformed his business.
So what was the training that Yokoyama received? The film doesn't say, and the answer isn't in any of the voluminous printed material in our camp packs. In fact, it was EST: the human-potential program created in the early 1970s by Werner Erhard. Dogged by various controversies, some of which were reportedly stoked by Dianetics partisans, Erhard walked away from his business in 1991. But the underlying "technology" lives on through the Landmark Forum, which claims that its programs still draw 125,000 participants a year.
That is not to say that Fish is a reformulation of, or is even based on, EST ideas, and Christensen insists that the movements take different approaches. Only the film Fish! Sticks, with its mantra of "Commit; Be it; Coach it," echoes the language of EST and its successor, the Landmark Forum. "We're on delicate ground on that one," Christensen says when asked about the association. "We stay away from saying it because Landmark in some areas has a really, really negative connotation. People either love it or they think it's a cult."
Christensen says that although Yokoyama had talked up the program's benefits from the beginning, a combination of resistance and a busy schedule kept the filmmaker from seriously looking into it until last year. (He eventually took and enjoyed a Landmark seminar and says about half his employees have gone through the program.) Landmark loves the Fish films, Christensen adds. "It's spreading their gospel in a unique way."
The EST connection certainly doesn't bother Fish's followers, most of whom are apparently unfamiliar with Landmark. Checking in with some fellow campers after the event, I found them, by and large, ebullient. Mike Pierce expressed total confidence that Fish would "take on a life of its own" at his company. Judy Harlow, who works for a small accounting firm in Denver, said her coworkers responded enthusiastically to her report about the camp experience. Carolyn Butler, one of my tablemates and a high school assistant principal from Fredrick County, Va., left "totally energized" and made a Fish presentation for her colleagues. So did another fellow Crappie, Kathy A. Dunn, who works for the 350-employee First Essex Bank, in Andover, Mass., which is many months into a full-out Fish embrace. As a result, customers mention the bankers' sunny attitudes, and employees are getting along better, she assured me.
I also spoke with Dunn's boss, First Essex chairman and CEO Leonard A. Wilson. A Fish-ionado himself, Wilson offers an unsentimental take on the program from management's perspective. "Fish isn't going to make horrible, inexperienced employees into good employees," he says. "It's not going to make up for fundamental flaws in your business plan or training." But most workers could give an extra 10% to 40%, Dunn explains. Fish is a way to get at an employee's "pool of discretionary effort."
Wilson sounds more like Dunn when he explains the changes Fish has wrought on Essex's "internal customers." Thanks to the program, "we treat each other with more courtesy and respect," he says. "You know -- don't take calls while I'm talking to you. Don't give me a disingenuous 'Hello.' Look me in the eye and say 'Good morning.' "
Wilson's words echo a core message of Fish Camp: that business needs to return to a kinder, gentler formulation. And Fish appears overall to be a benign force in the world. Christensen urged me to focus on the fact that Fish has "helped an awful lot of people." That seems to be true.
The only question that still bothers me is one of tolerance. Although Fish's founders would no doubt reject the idea, I suspect that many of its fans are hardwired for rah-rah. A customer-friendly attitude is "excruciatingly hard to instill in people," says Peter Nelson, Southwest Airline's manager of creative development, explaining why his company hires people who already possess that trait.
There's certainly nothing wrong with Fish's positive reinforcement for the preternaturally upbeat nor with any collateral mood boosting that might go on among coworkers. But I found something creepy in the comments of some fellow campers, who said Fish would give less-peppy -- but presumably competent -- coworkers "a chance to fit in." Or that those who didn't fit in would "have to go."
I enjoyed most of the people I met at Fish Camp, particularly my tablemates. If anyone from team Crappie wants to have dinner again, I'd be pleased to. It was fun to spend a couple of days among the radical happy. But I'm not sure I'd want to work with them.
Rob Walker is a columnist for Slate.com. He lives in New Orleans.
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