Let me share some ideas about facilitating engagement, alignment and involvement with cartoons, my images of Square Wheels®. This is really simple stuff but amazingly effective.

It is really simple to use the image and ask for ideas for workplace improvement because EVERYONE HAS THEM!

Sometimes, I think that everyone already knows what I do and how simple it is to do and how well it works to involve and engage people in workplace improvement and get their ideas about what things need to be done differently. If they have seen me present, only a few tips are needed. And if they have NOT seen me present, only a few tips are needed! 

Then, I have a phone conversation with someone and I cycle right back to the beginning, and I start talking about how simple and straightforward it can be to involve people because they want to solve problems and improve their workplace, given all the time then spend there… And THEN, I realize how much fun this all is and how wonderful the approach I have taken for the past 20 years really works.

The Situation around facilitating engagement and active involvement

The people are demotivated and unengaged (lots of statistics and maybe 20% of your workforce (see link)). And the theme of building some teamwork is suggested by the boss’ boss. Only there is no budget and no time. And no support from Training. “Just get it done!” we are told…

So, connect with me and get access to Square Wheels One and permission to use it.

Please avoid legal problems and ask me for permission to use. Simple. Collaborative, too.

The process:

Show the image and simply ask: “How might this represent how most organizations really work?”Then you can pretty much let things flow undirected. Let people think and consider, let them play with the ideas at hand and the issues and opportunities. We’ve figured out a lot of different ideas and frameworks for facilitation and structuring the resulting issues and opportunities, with handouts like, “What are some Square Wheels we deal with” and “What are some Round Wheel ideas to fix this Square Wheel” and stuff like that.

AND a few colored marking pens and some easel pad paper are pretty much all you need to generate the gap between the way things are and the way they should be and to generate the teamwork and energy and focus needed for most people in most organizations to be motivated to close the gap

Heck, you can even select one person who has natural leadership skills and just let them self-direct the group in rolling downhill and forward.

I read these articles about how difficult it is to engage people in the workplace and how people are resistant to change and how to motivate people and all that. All it does is make things SEEM really complicated and confusing.

I will bet you can do all that with just the cartoon above. Ya think?
I could do a two hour session around the one cartoon but why? I have dozens!

Oh, almost forgot. The Square Wheels One illustration above is how things work in MOST places. Here is how things tend to work in some others:

Yep, that is just a little joke.

But I have really amazing tools you can use. Let’s chat, And see yourself facilitating engagement, more alignment and much much more active involvement in the disruptive innovation in your workplace,

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For the FUN of It!

Dr. Scott Simmerman is a designer of team building games and organization improvement tools.
Managing Partner of Performance Management Company since 1984, he is an experienced presenter and consultant who is trying to retire!! He now lives in Cuenca, Ecuador.

You can reach Scott at scott@squarewheels.com
Learn more about Scott at his LinkedIn site.

Square Wheels® are a registered trademark of Performance Management
and cartoons have been copyrighted since 1993,

© Performance Management Company, 1993 – 2025