Mike’s Company

“Okay, Tony,” says Roberto, Tony’s supervisor, “let’s take a walk around. I’ll show you the project here, and then I’ll get you started.”

Roberto, who works directly for the owner, Mike, first introduces Tony to the other workers. There are eight of them working on this project. Then he takes Tony to the top floor of the building, where a couple of the guys are putting up the framing. They work quickly and efficiently, sawing lumber, leveling, and nailing.

As Tony walks along the future hallway of the building, he notices dozens of pristine nails scattered all over the floor of the sprawling construction site. They shimmer and sparkle like metallic gems. Stepping over them are several carpenters, all working intently.

Roberto notices Tony staring at the floor. “What’s the matter, Tony?”

“It’s these nails. Perfectly good nails all over the floor. Why don’t the guys pick them up and use them, instead of just digging others out of their aprons? Isn’t that kind of wasteful?”

Roberto smiles, not in a condescending way, but almost like he just found something valuable.

“Tony, you’ve just discovered one of the management principles that we live by in this company. We even have a phrase for it: Don’t Pick Up Nails!

“That’s what we tell all our workers and all our managers. We want everybody to focus on the Vital Few important things and to ignore the Trivial Many things that distract them.

“You’re right, Tony, it does seem wasteful to have all those nails going unused. And we teach our carpenters some tricks so that they won’t drop so many. But these carpenters are being paid a good salary, and they need to be efficient and productive in framing this building. Picking up nails is nothing but a distraction. It takes too long, and the nails are relatively inexpensive. If we paid these guys to pick up nails, we’d be losing money and productivity.”

“Yeah,” Tony says, “I can see the logic in that. But it still bothers me that all those good nails are just sitting there.”

“That’s the whole point, Tony. To us, they’re no longer good nails. The good nails are in the carpenters’ aprons.

“As you work here,” Roberto continues, “you’ll see that there are many things, like those nails, that can easily become distractions—things that can consume time and resources and divert us from our goals. It takes discipline to ignore these distractions. And unfortunately, lots of distractions seem to be as bright and shiny as those nails—they’re real tough to ignore.”