Square Wheels: Engagement Tools

© Performance Management Company, 1993 - 2014


Please note that our business is involved in selling inexpensive toolkits designed for use by supervisors, leaders, trainers and consultants.




The work involves Wagon Pushers, who cannot see where they are going. They tend to not be too engaged or motivated.



The work involves Wagon Pullers, the people who lead the organization forward and have the vision.



The reality of wagon pulling is that the rope tends to isolate these people from the thumps and bumps of the journey.



The wagon itself works perfectly fine.



The journey forward, and the continuous pushing and pulling, do not make it easy to stop, step back, and implement improvements.



The cartoons and the facilitation process serve to involve and engage participants in the improvement metaphor. It helps THEM step back from their wagons!

So there you have it. How things really work in most organizations. There are things we can do differently. There are different choices that can be made.

The illustrations are all about the realities of engagement, teams and teamwork, continuous continuous improvement of workplace practices, innovation, creativity, leadership, facilitation, intrinsic motivation and many other aspects of people and performance in the workplace.

How might the following

model represent how organizations really work?

We set it up with a question:

We project the illustration and give out a worksheet, allowing tabletops to brainstorm and share ideas.

Don’t Just Don’t Just DODO

Something,Something,Stand There!Stand There!

So, one learning lesson is really a simple one:

Then, we play with their ideas, asking:

And, we move toward asking them for specific ideas:

And we have a variety of worksheets we use for helping to generate, process and collect ideas about performance improvement opportunities.

© Performance Management Company, 1993

And we often need to deal with the un-engaged Spectator Sheep. That is actually not so hard…

How do we engage and motivate this individual?

They tend to be uninvolved and going in the wrong direction.

We just need to involve and engage them in fixing the things that they want fixed!

The View from the Front tends to be lovely…

The View from the Back, not so much…

The key is to share the missions, visions, goals,

objectives and expectations and generate buy-in. At the same time, we can focus on change

and transformation.



We talk a lot about Teaching the Caterpillar to Fly in some of our materials. Those tools are for impacting perspective, choices and change.


Everything we design is used to impact intrinsic motivation, active involvement and engagement. The tools are for implementation and improvement.

Things that I must do more:Stop.Step back.Stand there.Ask.Listen.Allow.Celebrate!Smile and Repeat…© Performance Management Company, 2013

The Main Takeaway:

PMC’sFlagship

TeambuildingExercise

We sell great tools for impacting organizational communications and teamwork, including the best team building game in the world.

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Square Wheels: Engagement Tools