Are you a fox or a hedgehog? If you manage a business, you probably want to be a hedgehog (or at least act like one).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
People can be divided into foxes and hedgehogs<\/a>: Foxes know many things and engage with a complex world on its own terms; hedgehogs know one big thing and subsume the world\u2019s complexity to a single, simple, unifying idea.<\/strong> We’ll cover why hedgehogs make the best leaders, how to act like a hedgehog if it doesn’t come naturally to you, and how to answer the question, Are you a fox or a hedgehog?<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n Are you a fox or a hedgehog? Where does this distinction come from? This division is based on the parable of the fox and the hedgehog: whereas the clever fox is forever coming up with new ways to attack the hedgehog, the hedgehog always defends itself the same effective way: by curling up into an untouchable ball of spikes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Good-to-great leaders are hedgehogs<\/em>\u2014they develop a simple concept in response to the facts of reality and pursue that concept vigorously and with singular focus<\/a>. If you’re a leader, hopefully you know your answer to Are you a fox or a hedgehog?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Consider the thinkers with the most long-lasting influence: Adam Smith, Darwin, Marx, Freud, Einstein\u2014each took the seeming chaos of the world and boiled it down to a single, easy-to-understand concept. These leaders were hedgehogs. Are you a fox or a hedgehog? Like these thinkers, good-to-great leaders look at a complex world and produce simple, elegant concepts to filter out noise and provide a steady guide for their companies<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even if your answer to the question Are you a fox or a hedgehog? is “fox,” you can still create a hedgehog concept<\/a>. At a glance, a Hedgehog Concept might just seem like sound strategy or sharp business sense. But Collins et al<\/em>. discovered that good-to-great companies\u2019 guiding concepts were driven by research and understanding along three axes. Imagine a Venn diagram composed of three circles<\/strong>: Rather than focus on \u201ccore competences,\u201d good-to-great companies homed in on an area of their business they led (or could<\/em> lead) the world in. It’s important to focus on your strengths<\/a> regardless of your answer to the question, Are you a fox or a hedgehog? For example, by the 1960s, Abbott Labs hadn\u2019t invested enough in R&D to compete with major pharma companies like Merck. So, even though Abbott had focused on pharmaceuticals for its entire existence, CEO George Cain decided to move the company into the areas of hospital nutritional products and diagnostic devices, areas with which the company had flirted and in which opportunity was significant. Abbott eventually became leading company in both these areas. The takeaway is this: If you can\u2019t be the best in the world in a particular area, even if it\u2019s your core business, then it can\u2019t be part of your Hedgehog Concept<\/em><\/strong>. It\u2019s equally useful to define what you cannot <\/em>be the best in the world at, and to avoid that sector. It might be tempting to assume that the good-to-great companies happened to be operating in booming industries at the transition point\u2014but, in fact, only one <\/em>of the good-to-great companies was in a high-return industry. (Collins et al<\/em>. ranked each of the good-to-great companies\u2019 industries by averaging returns for the top companies within <\/em>those industries.)Answering: “Are you a fox or a hedgehog?”<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Qualities of Hedgehogs<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\nDevelop Your Hedgehog Concept<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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<\/p>\n\n\n\nCircle #1: What can I do better than anyone else in the world?<\/strong>
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<\/p>\n\n\n\nCircle #2: What\u2019s my economic engine?<\/strong>
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