We Become Our Tools
Tools are supposed to serve us. But give a leader a hammer, and before long, everything starts to look like a nail. Mastery becomes maintenance. Expertise becomes blindness. You keep refining your favorite tool long after the work has changed. That’s how craftspeople become bureaucrats — and how innovation quietly dies.
Patterns I See
Tool worship: Teams defend systems that no longer serve purpose. “We’ve always used this.”
Professional deformation: People see every problem through the lens of their function or specialty.
Efficiency obsession: Optimization replaces imagination. The machine runs perfectly — right off the cliff.
What Leaders Miss
Tools come with hidden agendas. Each one defines what’s possible and what’s not.
When your tools shape your questions, they also limit your answers.
Real mastery isn’t about control; it’s about creativity. It’s knowing when to use the tool, when to modify it, and when to throw it out.
The best leaders know how to break their own tools before the tools break them.
Working With It
Re-examine your toolkit. What assumptions are baked into your processes, metrics, and software?
Relearn curiosity. Ask “What’s this for?” before “How do we optimize it?”
Change mediums. Draw instead of write. Walk instead of meet. Talk to a beginner. Shake up the circuitry.
Separate craft from purpose. The goal isn’t to get better at the tool — it’s to get better at the work.
Questions Worth Asking
What tools am I serving that no longer serve me?
Where has mastery turned into maintenance?
What’s become unquestionable in our process?
How do we create space for improvisation again?
Field Truth
Tools amplify intent — they don’t replace it.
When the hammer starts swinging you, it’s time to drop it.
