The Hammer, The Nail and The Mud are just my way of thinking about people and performance in so many organizations. 

A Hammer can be used to lift and straighten a bent nail
so that it can contribute better to the job at hand.

I came up with this Hammer metaphor. My original thought was the Japanese idea, that the nail that sticks up will be hammered down.

That shifted to the idea of a hammer being a versatile tool. I mean, who hasn’t used a hammer for all kinds of projects and endeavors? 

So, the reality that the Hammer can be used to lift and straighten a bent nail sure seemed to be a useful operating framework for managing people — and you can STILL use it to hammer that thing if need be!!!

But lifting and straightening is what managers should be doing with their people, that coaching and mentoring thing, making them the best that they can be and involving and engaging them in personal and organizational development initiatives. People DO want to grow and they DO want to contribute and they DO want to perform. So, we should be helping them. We should be adding some soul to how we manage people in our workplaces.

Poor performers at all levels of an organization are generally TOLERATED. That should not be; poor performance has so many side effects and overall negative influences on others. Poor performers often appear to be unmotivated and disengaged (so many of them really are) but this is NOT their mentality when they first joined the organization. They have been led down this path and into the mud, I believe.

Poor performers cause too much damage to others around them — after all, what workers want the same pay for doing twice as much as them? And how many managers simply have to tolerate those others who keep the organization up to its axles in mud when others are flying along?

What is really happening here? What is the workplace reality?

The basic idea of this image above is that the team are all bogged down in the mud because of the choices they have made and maybe their overall environment. The square wheels represent issues and problems for performance. And those round wheels in the wagon are not even given a thought. And over time, the mud is like grinding paste.

Is their workplace supportive of high performance or are they surrounded by Spectator Sheep and having to deal with the negative and dangerous aspects of their organization, the alligators and sharks that make everyone so competitive rather than collaborative.

Note the team top right. Somehow, they seem to have figured it out and gotten out of the ditch and up on the road. Again, those round wheels were already in the wagon!

How do we deal with the mud? Simple! By discussing issues and opportunities. By taking the time to ask for ideas and listen for opportunities. This generates the active involvement and ownership necessary for motivation to happen, the intrinsic effective kind so different from the negative side effects of extrinsic, added rewards. This is how we can engage the masses and let them see their role in moving our wagons forward.

I call the process DIS-un-engagement.

VERY soon, I will be giving away the main Square Wheels One image below using a Creative Commons, commercial non-derivative licensing process so that people can use this image and idea within their organizations. We NEED to change how we work. So I am offering a tool that I have been using since 1993.

And I want to be offering you some other simple tools that can help you make desired changes in how things work.

If you are interested in playing with ideas, drop me a note or connect with me,

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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 Simmulations, LLC
and cartoons have been copyrighted since 1993,

© Performance Management Company, 1993 – 2025

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