By Katie Burns

The famed fishmongers of Pike Place Fish Market practice team-building with a smile.Fish flew during the AVMA Opening Session on Saturday morning.

Six fishmongers from Seattle's Pike Place Fish Market began the keynote presentation by tossing fish over the heads of the audience. The crowd captured the fish on camera—and a few even tried to catch the fish as they flew by.

After the fishmongers introduced themselves, the keynote speakers began their discussion about teamwork in the workplace.

John Yokoyama, owner of Pike Place Fish Market, was facing bankruptcy years ago when he consulted business coach Jim Bergquist. Following four business principles, Yokoyama and Bergquist transformed the company into a world-famous operation.

Bergquist said the first business principle is to create the future of a company not by extrapolating from the past but by looking at the possibilities.

"It's a question of, what are you willing to create?" Bergquist said.

Using this principle, one of the employees at the fish market suggested that the operation become world famous. And, Yokoyama decided to pursue what seemed like a crazy idea.

Bergquist said the second business principle is to realize the power of personal responsibility in creating the company's future.

"We're the source of our experience in life," Yokoyama said. "You have the ability as a human being to choose the experience you will have."

Yokoyama said people need to choose their internal conversations. When his wife is mad, he stops his automatic negative reaction by telling himself she is the most wonderful wife in the world. When Yokoyama changed his negative perceptions of certain employees, the employees started to change in response.

Bergquist said the third business principle is to embrace the idea of co-creation—the idea that teammates must take responsibility for the success of one another.

Yokoyama had to stop thinking of his younger brother as his "stupid little brother" when the brother became manager of the fish market. Instead, Yokoyama decided to tell himself that his brother was the greatest manager that the company ever had. Once he committed to that statement, his brother started breaking records.

"When you put someone in a box, that's the only arena they can play in," he said.

Bergquist said the fourth business principle is to allow for the potential nonlinear results of a company transformation. After the Pike Place Fish Market started playing up its traditional fish throwing, media attention made the company world famous.

Yokoyama illustrated this point by telling how he reluctantly agreed to give live presentations: first in Seattle, then across the country, and then in places as far away as Scotland and Singapore. Bergquist said that even when opportunities are scary, a company should take advantage of them.

To conclude the morning's presentation, the two speakers and six fishmongers took questions from the audience. In response to one question, the fishmongers asserted that they never miss a fish.