About this episode

Carl Gould discusses the contrasting productivity and cleanliness of day and night shifts on an oil rig, using the metaphor of 'clean fish' and 'muddy fish' to illustrate different work styles.

Hi everyone, Carl Gould here with your #70secondCEO. Just a little over one minute investment every day for a lifetime of results. Years ago, I did personality assessments on an oil rig. This oil company had us analyze their two shifts. And I said, " What's the issue? And they said, I said, we can't figure it out. We have two incredibly different types of activities, and we can't figure out why it's happening. They said, " Well, tell me about it. And they said, well, the day shift, the day shift is amazing. You can eat off the oil rig. It's spotless. We pass every time, as a matter of fact, every time we have an inspection, we tell them to come during the day. We pass every inspection. It's awesome. But we're not producing any oil. Like, we're not hitting our goals at all. I mean, it's just like we spend all day jam packing four hours worth of work in an eight-hour day. We can't figure it out why. And I said, all right, well, tell me about the night shift. It goes on the night shift, unbelievable. The only reason we're making any money is that we're hitting our goals is because of the night shift. But we've had three oil spills. They've lit the rig on fire twice. He goes, what's…

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