August 21, 2025: The Pencil Lesson

How many people does it take to make a pencil?

The question sounds silly at first, yet I love using it with teams. Economist Leonard Read inspired the concept back in 1958 with his essay, “I, Pencil.”

The big idea? This humble tool is far too complicated for a single person to produce alone.

Creating one requires a vast and invisible web of cooperation, starting with the harvesting of a tree. Imagine the loggers, truck drivers, and the workers in sawmills and factories.

But a pencil is more than just cedar wood. Consider the graphite, glue, paint, metal, and rubber, with each component requiring more experts. Miners extract ore. Chemists produce synthetic mixtures. Then there’s shipping and distribution.

Layer by layer, the number grows countless. Tens of thousands of people, maybe hundreds of thousands, contribute directly and indirectly.

One object carries global stories. So the next time you pick up a pencil, think about the multitude of hidden hands who made it possible.

Suddenly, snapping one in half feels like a crime.