Stop Decorating the Fish

by Kristen Cox, Yishai Ashlag

**NEW EDITION AVAILABLE ("Stop Decorating the Fish" 2nd Edition, ISBN 978-0884272908) "Stop Decorating the Fish" is a business fable. The prosperous fishing town of Busyville is facing a major challenge. In their efforts to improve the situation, their task force turns to the Seductive Seven a set of tactical and strategic solutions that pulls them in different directions. Will they find a way out of this conundrum? Most problems are not worth solving. "Stop Decorating the Fish" is a reader's guide on how to identify the right problem, set an appropriate objective to solve it, and avoid seductive solutions that won't make any impact. This book helps to differentiate between problems we should consider as noise and ignore and the actual core problems which require our focus and attention.

Genres: Business, Nonfiction

106 pages, Paperback

Published January 15, 2018

Reviews

[Jenny Kenyon-Gentry]

I'm really disappointed in this. I was hoping it would be about how to do root cause analysis. The last 5 pages of the book start to get at this. The first half of the book is a parable illustrating the "Seductive 7" fixes that businesses frequently fall back on. The second half of the book is case studies showing how the "Seductive 7" play out.

The book is all about "don't do this" without offering solutions.

[Klaus]

Interesting, but...

I like the framework of what not to do. But then this book doesn’t really tell you how to find the real issue. The case studies don’t present that approach neither, rather specific solutions that are not even always convincing.

[Dan Messick]

40-60 minute read.
It’s great story to show when not careful we over invest in something that naturally resolves itself, or a more simple solution is there versus a complex state of the art.
The 7 seductive are
1 more money
2 more tech
3 more reorganization
4 more training & communication
5 more data
6 more accountability & assigning blame
7 more strategic planning

Reason low star is its a low value add for the amount production put into creating the book. It is a good reminder but I will not recommend this book as it left out the meat. It only helped bring things to attention if they weren’t already.

If they added more content and strategy i could easy up the stars but it was just a great set up and then felt like budget cut ending or deadline was to soon, the set up was great and engaging but application was poorly executed

[VK]

If you ask me. Go for this Book really simple story can teach what exactly what is the real problem and what Governments /Corporates /We as a Individuals doing to solve this problems.

Do Really all problems are problems???? When Money, Process, Technology More now a days people are stop to think for simple solutions for the problems.

[Jonathan I]

Tactical and practical

The stories presented were interesting and applicable to real business environments while offering tools for getting to root cause and eventual solutions. It also offers several common mistakes made by enterprise problem solvers.

[Lauren Sherman]

My first business book! Really opens your eyes about how to focus on the problem and not going to simple solutions that don’t fix the main problem. Quick read - really informative!

[Darius Daruvalla-riccio]

Simple, memorable, informative.