Dawn of the Toolpeople

Like many families in the 90s, Tim Allen was a popular guy in our household.

Between Toy Story, The Santa Clause and nearly ten years of Home Improvement, we got a lot of Tim. The lovable klutz, a man of practical skill, he learned more than he taught (usually through backfired ideas) but he was, and always will be, "The Toolman."

Full disclosure, I always thought that was a made up word.

I’ve only ever really heard the term used for “Tim the Toolman Taylor,” and it feels like almost too exact of a word for that use-case. Tim’s “Tool Time” character literally is a Toolman. He explores tools, tests them, has an opinion on them, wields them to his advantage and teaches others to do the same.

Home Improvement tools, that is.

Well, shocker to me, Toolman is a real word. Toolmen and Toolwomen exist. The Toolpeople.

But the phrase isn’t actually specific to hammers and screwdrivers. Toolpersoning is really just a way of being. It’s about using and making tools (in the general sense) as a character trait.

Weird word, yes, but it gives a good frame for a core career skill that is becoming more and more (and more) important today – the knack for fluidly adopting new trade tools and making them too.

Let’s get into it.

Note: The below deals mostly with white collar jobs.

Layoffs, cost cutting, automation, robotics, focus on the bottom line, ChatGPT-written cover letters; there’s a lot happening right that’s affecting the workforce. And while it’s not totally true that employers are only keeping the best … that’s kind of the idea.

In this new world where teams get smaller and value creation accelerates, a certain type of talent will set the bar for the best. I’d argue (and anecdotally, this rings true) that it’s not the specialists that win, it’s the generalists.

Even today, job descriptions often list comically boilerplate requirements like “Google Workspace Suite” or “Excel.” Has this ever swayed somebody to not apply?

In the new world of versatile competency and comfort with adopting new ways of work actively, these tired platform experience requirements are making less and less sense. It's proof of a person’s ability to leverage their own intelligence alongside niche tools to problem solve and execute. That’s what matters.

This skill needs a better name though.
We can’t be going around calling each other, “Toolpeople.”

Let's call the skill "Stacking." Basically, the capability to build and refine your own tool stack for work. That'll sound nice on a profile.

A key thing about Stackers is that part of their tool wielding skill is their ability to bridge discipline gaps. They get more of the job done, semi-autonomously and nimbly. They democratize functional execution to solve bigger problems within their teams.

Now, I'm not suggesting that zero specialization is required. Consider these hybrid Stackers....

• Great design minds capable of wielding front-end code creation tools to build better prototypes.
• Marketers who can rapidly spin up BI dashboards and video-based KPI reports to align leadership.
• Polyglot programmers, who can also build a nice presentation.
• Sales executives who can craft data-rich custom thought leadership for contacts, merging market insight and client context, with a nice webpage to host it.

In all cases, the specialty matters but it's future-useless without the generalized ability to use the latest tools, real-time, to outperform expectations. Ignore Stacking at your own risk.

This concept is obviously not entirely new. Multi-hat competency is something people have said for many years. The modern 'renaissance man.' What's distinct here is the emphasis on emersion in the latest tech to do the work. And that might take new behaviors on the employer side to enable, too.

How employers might enable Stackers ("Toolpersons").

The most important thing is tinkering. Let people tinker. Give time for it. Mandate it even. Request periodic reports on tinkering and share findings. Make tinkering cultural and remove blockers where possible.

Tinkering is something that side-hustlers and entrepreneurial thinkers do well; people who have ideas that they want to bring to the world and seek out solutions to create them. These people tend to find new tools and ideas habitually, driven by near-FOMO in their trial signups.

Thankfully, there are more and more of these types out there. The system is self-correcting. With the 2010s rise of gig work, indie hacking and even influencers (the modern "personal brand"), there is now a massive community of people subscribed to daily "AI newsletters", demoing the latest capabilities live on X and Reels, debating strengths and weaknesses on Hacker News and making Small Bets off of their side projects.

And, yes, employers, this is good. These are the people you want.

Couple that hunger for creating solutions with some degree of career specialization and you have a learner, a knowledge center, a champion for doing better work and Stacker in your ranks.

Enable it and celebrate it.

Looking ahead, things get interesting in the world of these Stackers.

I once took an "Excel Skill Assessment" for some vanity badge on my LinkedIn. They've since retired that feature btw... they see where the tide's going.

Maybe we'll see new assessments, trainings and certifications for this more fluid tool-filled world. How can we measure and track a person's aptitude for leveraging tools and curiosity to try the next one? TBD.

One interesting near-term outcome might be IP becoming part of the candidate package. Imagine a world where resumes list bespoke tooling, built by the candidate, that comes as part of their ability to execute in their function.

What a world. Keep curious.

-CG