In 1953, Isaiah Berlin wrote an essay, “The Hedgehog and The Fox,” based on the ancient Greek parable: “The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.”
The parable is about the myriad of ways a wily fox tries to catch a hedgehog. Yet, despite its cunning, it fails with each attempt due to its failure to grasp that the hedgehog knows one big thing well: to roll into a ball and defend itself with its spikey quills when threatened.
Berlin posited that the parable could also be applied to people, dividing them into two distinct groups: foxes and hedgehogs. Foxes, he explained, are easily distracted, attracted to whatever is new and trendy, and thus achieve little if anything worthwhile.
Hedgehogs, by contrast, focus on one thing at a time and are guided by a singular, carefully-defined vision. To a hedgehog, anything that doesn’t make the highest possible contribution to them achieving its goal is ignored and left for the foxes to fight over. [1]
Are You a Fox or a Hedgehog?
In his book, Good to Great, Jim Collins introduces an idea based on Berlin’s essay called the Hedgehog Concept, which describes “A simple, crystalline concept that flows from deep understanding about the intersection of three circles.”
Collins explains that the three questions answer the following:
- What can you be the best in the world at?
- What are you deeply passionate about?
- What best drives your economic or resource engine?
In studying what made good companies great, Collins found that great companies—what he calls hedgehogs—share two critical traits. The first trait is that great companies ask the right questions, which are promoted by the three circles above.
But they do more than that—they attempt to answer them too. Great companies discuss and debate each question at length. They make decisions on what to do next. They analyze their results. And most importantly, they learn from the feedback—all the while staying within the context of the three circles.
The second trait great companies share is that they understand their goals and strategies with “piercing insight and egoless clarity.” Companies that remain merely good sometimes succumb to what Collins calls “the curse of competence”—the insistence to continue doing what works… because it works.
Good-to-great companies understand that doing what they are good at will make them good… and that’s it. But focusing on what they can potentially do better than any other organization is what sets them on the path to true greatness.
What Is Your Hedgehog Concept?
Collins wrote about Hedgehog Concept with good-to-great companies in mind, but that doesn’t mean we can’t adopt similar thinking as individuals aspiring to go further in our careers.
To do that, we must first develop a deep understanding of what we can be the best in the world at and, equally important, what we cannot be the best at—not “what” we want to be best at. [2]
We must also focus on activities that ignite our passion, or as Cal Newport suggests in his book So Good They Can’t Ignore You, activities we can parlay into those that, one day, will ignite our passions. [3]
Knowing what drives our economic engine—admittedly, the least relevant of the three for individuals—requires knowing the type of work that, economically, makes sense to pursue. [4]
To paraphrase Collins, if you make a lot of money doing things at which you could never be the best, you’ll only be good at one thing—making money. Indeed, a hedgehog of sorts, but certainly not the type we’re going for.
Only when we drive toward the interaction of the three circles and translate that intersection into a concept that guides our career choices can we develop a Hedgehog Concept for ourselves and outsmart the foxes, gunning for the top position.
Footnotes
[1] You might say hedgehogs, by that description alone, are Essentialists.
[2] To quote Seth Godin in his excellent read The Dip, “If you’re not going to be #1, you might as well quit.”
[3] Choosing to cultivate the mindset of a deliberate craftsperson will no doubt help here.
[4] Knowing your Life Task will certainly inform whether you’re on the right path, to begin with.
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