What most do not understand about medieval sword fighting is that the sword was most deadly when the swordsman used metal or shielded gauntlets to grasp the blade and deliver direct, targeted attacks on the opponent. This did not come to light until more concrete study of the martial arts at play during the feudal days of Europe and surrounding regions. Sword fighting, as was discovered, was a brutal affair that often ended with an opponent down in a matter of seconds, rather than the drawn out, fanciful duels we see in movies.
This idea carries a lesson. If you use an instrument or tool out of context, you are likely playing around rather than being effective. Many of us in life and in business find ourselves using the instruments of a trade without really knowing why, or for what purpose those things were intended. By doing so, we end up needlessly spending energy, money, and resources trying to force a technology into a scenario for which it was not intended. This could be a good thing, you might discover a method that is far more efficient than you thought possible, but most of the time that is not the case. You are trying to put a round peg into a square hole.
This brings up an interesting thought. When I was a toddler, I would not accept that the round peg could not fit into that pesky square hole. Instead of doing the logical thing and finding the square peg, I would spend most of my time trying to figure out how to make the round one fit. This led to partial victories, a stuck peg, or me getting angry and frustrated until I sat down and cried myself to sleep. I remember vividly the day I discovered I could open the contraption by pulling and twisting it apart. I could stuff all the blocks I wanted inside and close it up again. I still remember the feeling of victory, followed by a sense of betrayal. What else were these adults hiding from me.
This is what many of us are tempted to do. I have heard that HubSpot is amazing and the solution to every problem a small business could face. So we try to cram that software into everything we do. Every nail we see, we hit with the HubSpot hammer. We spend countless hours figuring out how to integrate it with everything, spending money, time, and energy contemplating fields, automations, routines, and every other fancy word that HubSpot invented to make us pay more. The problem is that there is a tool for everything you can imagine, and if you are not careful, tool sprawl will sink you fast.
Remember the show MacGyver. The group would be stuck in a room with no way out. The lead character would have a paper clip, a hair tie, a small amount of adhesive, and a few other sundry items. He would lay it all out on the floor and then, voilà, hatch an elaborate escape plan using some concocted machine. A Deus ex machina in every episode. This is actually what you should ask your team to do occasionally. No more tools. No more subscriptions. No magic eight balls. You get to solve the problem with what you have. MacGyver style. We used to call this engineering.
I remember the day a young, excited engineer brought me a solution to a client’s big problem. He had worked on it all weekend and he was proud of his design. He had pieced together the latest and greatest technology into a neat stack of equipment and software. The price tag would make a billionaire cry. I looked at the design and made one comment. I love your plan, now figure out how to do this without spending any money on hardware and software. Do it with what the client already has. He looked at me, dumbfounded. That is going to be really hard. Yes. That is what we are getting paid to figure out.
Those who know and understand scarcity tend to solve problems with what they have. My great grandmother would never let a rubber band go to waste. Whenever she saw a scrap of wood, a piece of metal, or a bit of rubber lying around, she would collect it, catalog it, and keep it ready for when that raw material might be needed. She would never have conceived of simply going to buy something to solve her problem. She could figure it out with the inventory on hand. Later generations would laugh at that pragmatism, then run down to Walmart and buy another sack of rubber bands, or pay twenty dollars for a pine two by four at Home Depot. Those who come from plenty tend to be more imaginative about what they do not have, and those who come from scarcity tend to be more imaginative about the resources they do have.
Both mindsets are needed. You would not want someone so closed off to new tools that they ignore something that could save a great deal of time. However, you also do not want the HubSpot zealot running amok. A balance, usually tipped in favor of less, is often the best approach. One piece of advice before you start your endless run through the subscription forest. Bring in an expert or two to help you decide which tool fits the job. Do not build a deck with steel screws that will rust and discolor your wood. Do not use drywall screws when you require tension strength. Just as you would hire a contractor to help you build a house, do the same when you build your technology stack. Choose the right tool for the job, and save yourself a lot of time trying to MacGyver your way out of the room you are locked in.
Just as in medieval times, the sword served a deadly purpose and, when used correctly, could save the day in a tight skirmish. However, most commanders of the age would settle for a troop of spearmen. They were cheap, easy to train, and hard to beat when facing a line of charging, sword wielding knights in clumsy armor.
