History and pre-historical evidence shows that we use tools to create even more tools. The tree branch became a wooden stick and then a lever; the rudimentary stone was used to chip another stone resulting in the hand axe, the stone knife, and the first digging tools.

Consistent gathering of knowledge, refinement of technique, and acquisition and use of better raw materials lead to copper and iron tools, the gear; the gear and the lever brought us to mechanical counters and adding machines, and eventually, with knowledge, experimentation, materials, and innovation, to the modern desktop computer.

But there are other tools that we use, and have used consistently from our very beginnings. These tools are within our nature, inherent, and a part of our natural being.

Sometimes, in the midst of daily routine or during a crisis, we do not call these tools into use.

A contributing factor to this problem of limited or intermittent use is not naming such tools in a way that we can understand their functions and benefits. Not having an awareness of an electric circular saw (understanding function, benefits and naming), we will continue to use a handsaw.

Another limiting factor is that we fail to routinely practice with the tool to become proficient and effective.

Effective tool use leads to effective results, and we can truly distinguish the results of the novice and the professional carpenter using a tool like the circular saw. We see it in speed, accuracy, end user satisfaction, and ultimately in the finished product. Tool use must be practiced to proficiency for excellent results and products.

An important inherent tool we all have at our disposal is our vision.

Vision is like a wood chisel; honed sharp, it smoothly and effortlessly shapes our raw material to end product.

Vision, not honed, makes the work of shaping our organizations, processes, and people more difficult, and reduces the quality of the product to be developed. We have no clear understanding of the finished work.

With clear vision, we intimately comprehend what is to be built, created, developed, shaped, or drawn – in other words, we can see the end result before it happens. Michealangelo, one of humanities greatest artists and sculptors, would see the finished piece in a block of marble, and chip away all that was not the image he saw. Thus came the Pieta and other famous works.

When we actually envision the end result, and the required steps that lead us to the target, we begin to feel confident that the obstacles in our path are only things that we maneuver around and over to arrive at the goal.

Effective managers recognized this concept in different forms throughout the ages. More recently, during the second world war, and refined in the fifties, project management techniques such as Program Evaluation and Review Techniques (PERT) were contrived to identify the steps to end product, and help us move there efficiently. PERT was, and is, a strategy to implement vision.

Sadly, PERT, in many organizations settled to the background because to use the technique required discipline, time, and financial support by the organization. The problem was not PERT, but the effort to required to use such a beneficial strategy. It required drawing the PERT chart, calculating and accumulating time and expense, constant revision, and much re-work maintaining the charts.

However, today, with the benefit of computers and appropriate software, the initial work and required, iterative re-work becomes almost incidental. It can happen as we envision the end goals and targets. The vision of PERT becomes immediately possible, and effective managers are rediscovering a valuable tool controlling progress to excellent results.

Comprehension of the initial problem, combined with consistently refined tools have allowed vision to facilitate further vision. As managers, we can incorporate newer generations of tools to implement our personal and organizational vision.

Next month, we begin to select other tools for the toolkit.