little book with a one-word title has a lot to say about some of the most important workplace issues we all face every day.

Unhappy employees make miserable coworkers. Miserable coworkers don't work together well and stifle creativity. Business and customer service suffer.

When you're on the receiving end of bad customer service, you can hang up the phone, ask to speak to a supervisor or decide to take your business elsewhere. But imagine - and this is probably not too much of a stretch for most of us - that you are an employee of a business where your coworkers are lazy, rude, unknowledgeable or uncaring.

Will you look forward to spending the day with them? Will they inspire you? Will work get done efficiently? Will anyone take extra steps to go the extra mile? Will your internal and external customers enjoy dealing with you, your department or your team?

If those negative connotations are truly accurate descriptions, why were those people hired? How in the world did they ever get jobs? Maybe their outlooks weren't always so bleak. Maybe the negativity is environmental. Maybe it can be corrected. Morale can be boosted and output improved.

"Fish!" is a parable whose message is simple and straightforward. Talk about a quick read: You can finish it during your lunch hour and then immediately begin applying the lessons to every area of your life.

In the introduction, the authors describe the tale as "an invented story about finding the deep source of energy, creativity and passion that exists inside each of us by learning to love what we do, even if at the moment we may not be doing exactly what we love."

"Fish!" is the story of a manager charged with revitalizing a "toxic energy dump" of a department. She appears to be facing an impossible task and struggles to find the way to energize her staff and improve the quality of work they're producing.

She finds the solution in a very unlikely place: Watching the fishmongers at the Pike Place Fish Market in Seattle, she realizes that they've made the smelly, messy business of buying and selling fish ... fun.

They're boisterous and rowdy, they fling fish through the air to each other and out into the crowd of customers enjoying the show. The manager learns that the secret to finding fulfillment in any job is all about attitude.

Through conversations with one of the fishmongers, she also learns that having fun at work is energizing, that including customers in the fun engages them, and that it's essential to be present in and focused on each moment.

The authors, Stephen C. Lundin, Ph.D, Harry Paul and John Christensen call the secrets they've identified in energized workplaces the "Fish! Philosophy." It includes all sorts of support materials, from videos to a Web site, to help put the philosophy to work and inspire people to "catch the energy and release the potential."

The contrived construction of the "Fish!" fable is probably necessary to speed along the lessons, but the points are clearly made, simple to understand and sound easy to implement.

Especially if your livelihood is sales, enthusiasm for what you do for a living is contagious. Everyone can use a morale booster now and then; "Fish!" could become an inspirational reference to keep on hand.

For further information on the Fish! Philosophy, visit their Web site at www.fishphilosophy.com or phone 800-328-3789.

A Remarkable Way to Boost Morale and Improve Results

By Stephen C. Lundin, Ph.D.,

Harry Paul and John Christensen

Hyperion Books, New York, 2000

ISBN 0-7868-6602-0

112 pages