Confucius didn´t say: "HUH!?"  Nor did he say: "Yet another farfetched analogy to illustrate a dysfunctional business function to create results with impossible outcomes for jobs that require complete and utter specified tools for specific outcomes, created by people for people in organizations." 

If that made any sense the first time you read it: bloody well done monsieur and mademoiselle!  I wrote it and it still confuses me as much as the manual that came with a recently acquired food processor confused me - because it contained all the directions for use... but only in Arabic.  Knowing that the language was Arabic and that I should page from right-to-left, back-to-front, whatever, still doesn´t mean I know how to use the processor.  Luckily the pictures and a certain amount of commonsense helped a tad. 

But now, let us get to the just of this article.  Just like with the introductory paragraph / sentence and the Users Manual written in Arabic (by the way, note to the manufacturer: this is South Africa... the only Manual in the box was in Arabic... I triple checked - so don´t tell me to R-T-F-M).  Uhm, where was I?  Oh yes, just like the examples above much confusion creeps into the way we conduct business by means of completely and utterly confusing "user manuals".   

...think further and wider than user manuals...   

This goes for the way we do things, the way we tell others to do things, the way we understand things and the tools we provide for getting the job or project done.  When we get completely technical for the sake of explaining a point we could say that there is a huge difference between a ToolBOX and a ToolKIT.  Judging by what I saw in my father´s garage and my friends´ dads´ garages there is, in fact, a big difference between a ToolBOX and a ToolKIT. 

A ToolBOX is exactly what the name states:  a box full of tools to fix whatever... but you may find yourself stuck without the correct tool every now and again... so you improvise and make do with "just get it done and fix it for the moment". 

A ToolKIT, on the other hand, holds specific tools for specific jobs.  A set of Allan Keys to tighten or loosen screws etc on your wife´s knitting machine.  It contains a small tube of lubricant and some extra parts if something breaks, goes missing or simply looses the shape that made it do what it´s supposed to do as effectively as possible.

Now, how often do we, in business, provide our peers, colleagues, clients, suppliers, bosses, superiors, employees, and S-T-A-F-F with a ToolBOX instead of a ToolKIT to do their job or complete whatever project they have to complete.  Often the dream job for the new employee / supplier / manager / director / etc becomes a complete nightmare before the introductory honeymoon phase is even close to being over, simply because the ToolKIT for the job was degraded a couple of notches down, passing the ToolBOX phase, going straight to being a Lucky Packet or Christmas Cracker: you get it, you´re excited about it, but you don´t know what´s in it... and often the response to what´s in it is a combination of confusion, HUH!? And what the hell am I supposed to do with this? 

Please note that the TOOLS mentioned in this article goes beyond just TOOLS... it includes SKILLS, Personal Development, Mentorship, Coaching, yackety-yak and so forth.  Obviously you can´t always force people to do things the way you do it, but one can always add something to the ToolKIT as the need arises... and chuck out old unnecessary items before it´s degraded to a ToolBOX. 

For HR and Training Officers, the following will probably be a better description of the difference between a ToolBOX and a ToolKIT pertaining to job analysis and job description (which I´m not 100% convinced exists any longer with today´s project-driven-teams): 

• A ToolBOX contains lots of interesting NICE-TO-HAVE´s 
• A ToolKIT contains NEED-TO-HAVE´s 

Just a thought...

About the Author 

Lehan Stemmet is one of those rare people who studies one thing and ends up doing something else. His brother reckons: Shrinks are mad, Scientists are eccentric, Marketing people are dilly and Authors just completely lost touch with reality... so much can be said about this young bloke who studied biochemistry, microbiology, psychology and industrial psychology, who ended up in marketing and well, who got his first book (Deal With It - emotional empowerment) published in the USA.