Maslow's hammer: When one tool is not enough

Successes feel good. When we master a complex challenge with a mix of knowledge, skill and a pinch of luck, our brain stores that solution path as a success formula. Faced with the next problem, we reach reflexively for that same formula. Most of the time it works. Sometimes it becomes the problem.

In 1966 the psychologist Abraham Maslow described this mechanism in The Psychology of Science with a sentence that has since become known as "Maslow's hammer" or the "Law of the Instrument":

"I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail."

The gravity of one's own experience

In coaching I regularly see how experienced leaders, in a crisis, reach reflexively for the strategies of their greatest past success. They recognise the patterns of the old in the new problem, weight what feels familiar heavily, and play down the differences.

Daniel Kahneman described this mechanism in Thinking, Fast and Slow as a feature of our "System 1": the fast, intuitive thinking based on pattern recognition that takes mental shortcuts to save effort. In stable environments this is efficient. In new situations, where the old patterns no longer fit, it systematically misleads.

In cognitive psychology this effect is called the "Einstellung effect": the mental set on a particular solution path prevents us from even considering alternatives. We see the nail because we have the hammer in hand.

When sales pays for the product

An example from my practice. I was brought into a project where the client's diagnosis was already fixed: "Sales are collapsing because the sales team is unable to sell the new portfolio."

My brief was to "fix" sales. The analysis showed a completely different picture. During a technology transition the company had bet on the wrong product features. It was as if a smartphone manufacturer had bet everything on speaker quality while the market demanded better cameras.

In this case, management's "hammer" was the conviction: if revenue falls, it is sales' fault. That the problem actually sat in product management – with the people who had given the brief – remained invisible until an open analysis. The people who had defined the problem were part of the problem. They simply could not see it because their hammer prevented them from looking for anything other than a nail.

In my article on the Johari Window I describe the "blind spot" as the quadrant visible to others but hidden from oneself. Maslow's hammer is essentially a blind spot at the level of method: you cannot see your own bias because you are inside it.

How to overcome the hammer reflex

Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett's long-time partner, formulated an elegant answer to Maslow's hammer in Poor Charlie's Almanack (2005): multidisciplinarity. Anyone with a broad repertoire of mental models from different disciplines, by definition, has more tools and is less prone to the hammer reflex.

For leadership work I derive three levers from this.

The first is objectivity before intuition. Intuition is valuable but is often the sum of our past experiences and therefore systematically biased towards what we already know. In new crises we need open-ended analysis before we reach for a tool. A clean situational analysis that includes the possibility that the problem lies elsewhere than suspected is the first step out of the hammer reflex.

The second is cognitive diversity. Discuss planned approaches in groups with people who hold different tools. Anyone bringing a screwdriver, a saw or pliers will quickly tell you your problem is not a nail. In my article First Who, Then What I describe why team composition matters more than strategy. Cognitive diversity is one concrete reason: different perspectives prevent a group from walking together into the same blind spot.

The third is scenario thinking. Never accept only one solution path. Demand at least two alternative scenarios. This forces the brain out of the comfort zone of the familiar success formula. Simply working through alternatives interrupts the hammer reflex and opens the view to other tools.

Expanding the toolbox

In my coaching engagements we work to expand the toolbox. It is rarely about throwing away the hammer. It is a useful instrument with its place. It is about learning when to put it down. And that begins with the willingness to honestly answer one simple question:

Which tool am I most drawn to right now? And does it really fit the problem at hand?

Further reading

• Abraham H. Maslow: The Psychology of Science (Harper & Row 1966) – Original source of Maslow's "Law of the Instrument".
• Daniel Kahneman: Thinking, Fast and Slow (Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2011) – Research on System 1 and System 2: why we resort to mental shortcuts.
• Charlie Munger: Poor Charlie's Almanack (Walsworth 2005) – Munger's case for multidisciplinarity as an antidote to the hammer reflex.