Long ago, I had the good fortune of meeting a Kaizen superstar.

He said something that fundamentally shifted my view on consulting tools.

“You learn a tool to solve a problem. But one day,
you stop seeing the problem—
and start applying the tool everywhere.”

And then?

You become that person.
“Sugar hai?” Stop eating rice.
“Weight karna hai?” Stop eating rice.
“Headache?” Bhai, rice!
“Shaadi nahi ho rahi hai?” Only if you stop eating rice!
Rice becomes the villain of every problem.

And you become the self-proclaimed “rice hatao, life banao” expert. 😄

We do the same thing with business tools.

Got a cash flow problem? Grow more.

Struggling with customer retention? Implement a CRM.

Sales team not performing? More training.

Too many client complaints? Let’s automate.

Same tools.

We stop looking at what the problem actually needs.
And just apply whatever tool we’re most comfortable with.

You can’t fight battles with axes.
And you can’t cut trees with swords.

A CRM won’t fix your lead gen problem.
Automating bad processes won’t make them good.
More training won’t fix a broken sales strategy.

Don’t fall in love with the tool.
Ask:
“What’s the right problem to solve here?”