Work In Colour - Work. Think. Live. In Colour
Tuesday 16th March 2010 | 10 comments
I went to a great Network Central breakfast in Sydney a couple of weeks ago. The speaker was a guy called Peter Webb, speaking about decision-making.
He quoted the well-known story of the Hedgehog and the Fox, made famous by Jim Collins in his book, Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap...and Others Don't. Based on a Greek fable, it's about the importance of having a clear vision, a single big idea about your life.
I was curious. I tracked the story down to Jim Collins' book, where he asks:
'Are you a hedgehog or a fox?'
He continues:
In his famous essay 'The Hedgehog and the Fox,' the philosopher Isaiah Berlin divided the world into hedgehogs and foxes.
"The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing."' The fox is a cunning creature, able to devise a myriad of complex strategies for sneak attacks upon the hedgehog. Day in and day out, the fox circles around the hedgehog's den, waiting for the perfect moment to pounce. Fast, sleek, beautiful, fleet of foot, and crafty-the fox looks like the sure winner.
The hedgehog, on the other hand, is a dowdier creature, looking like a genetic mix-up between a porcupine and a small armadillo. He waddles along, going about his simple day, searching for lunch and taking care of his home.
The fox waits in cunning silence at the juncture in the trail. The hedgehog, minding his own business, wanders right into the path of the fox. "Aha, I've got you now!" thinks the fox. He leaps out, bounding across the ground, lightning fast. The little hedgehog, sensing danger, looks up and thinks, "Here we go again. Will he ever learn?" Rolling up into a perfect little ball, the hedgehog becomes a sphere of sharp spikes, pointing outward in all directions. The fox, bounding toward his prey, sees the hedgehog defense and calls off the attack. Retreating back to the forest, the fox begins to calculate a new line of attack. Each day, some version of this battle between the hedgehog and the fox takes place, and despite the greater cunning of the fox, the hedgehog always wins.
Berlin extrapolated from this little parable to divide people into two basic groups: foxes and hedgehogs. Foxes pursue many ends at the same time and see the world in all its complexity. They are "scattered or diffused, moving on many levels," says Berlin, never integrating their thinking into one overall concept or unifying vision. Hedgehogs, on the other hand, simplify a complex world into a single organizing idea, a basic principle or concept that unifies and guides everything. It doesn't matter how complex the world, a hedgehog reduces all challenges and dilemmas to simple-indeed almost simplistic-hedgehog ideas. For a hedgehog, anything that does not somehow relate to the hedgehog idea holds no relevance.
The point of all this is that a simple clear guiding principle or strategy is essential, beating a scattergun approach every time.
BUT, surely you can take this too far. Yes, I think vision is vital. Yes, I think having a guiding principle in life is vital. But so is having a range of options, possibilities, ideas and approaches. Nothing worse than being fixed on one solution or possibility, with nowhere to move if things change, or someone with a better vision comes along.
Where does that leave our story? Is a hedgehog always better than a fox? What do you think?
(A fox with a vision...now that would be interesting.)
Nice piece - thanks. I discovered - and cherish - a book called "Refuse to Choose". It was lying on a sale table at Manly ferry wharf. The author writes about people who should definitely NOT be encouraged to have a single purpose, a single vision, a single life work etc. Rather, they are designed to have many things on the go simultaneously. She offers many useful hints about how to organise your work space if your brain and being is this way inclined and argues that it is the general attitude and response to this way of being that creates stuckness, not the way of being. So, something like a fox approach with the persistence and finishing power of the hedgehog....
Love the title of that book, Svea! And I think that a fedgehog (or a hedgefox, maybe...?) would be very cool indeed. Thanks for the comment...
Interesting read - thanks : ) I am always interested to read and/or hear of the many parables and examples that motivational and other kinds of speakers use to illustrate their overall point. Personally, I think that as with anything in life its best to avoid generalising and taking the view that there is only one 'correct' way to succeed, achieve, or to simply live your life. The many people in my life daily demonstrate to me that there is no one central 'correct' way of living life... each path is so individual. To presume that all 'foxes' are the same, and/or all 'hedgehogs' is a bit short sighted.... No one way of doing something is better than the other, its simply that the author of the parable placed more value upon the 'hedgehog' way of doing things, and in so doing had to de-value the 'fox' way of doing things. And besides, what a boring world it would be without the diversity of both 'fox' and 'hedgehog' people : )
Hi Joanna, I make my living by helping people focus,but how boring would our business lives be working solely as an hedgehog (echidna)? Maybe this is another case of walking your path not by heading straight up the middle, but bouncing off the boundaries on either side.Or, maybe it's not a road but more like a funnel,and we use our creativity to swirl and bounce and find the best path to our focus point. Let's face it,the fox has more fun.
Thanks Mietta and Alan for these good comments (and yes, echidna indeed!). As someone who works with creative thinking, I agree with both of you.
And to be honest, I am very happy as a human, full of the contradictions, strengths and foibles that that brings!
What an interesting take on a well worn business topic. My guess is that they both have their good points when it comes to surviving and succeeding in business - I will run with your hedgefox!!
Hi Joanna
Interesting theory, but fatally flawed in my opinion. If achieving results is what it's about, then the fox (in real life) wins every time. He strategises to the nth degree his prey in the henhouse, attacking under cover of darkness and seems to succeed in his objective every time!
On the other hand, all the hedgehog does is look for food and stay in the same place, protecting his patch....what entrepreneurial skills does the hedgehog have, what does he venture?
Nothing! He merely uses his spikes to ward off predators....more genetics than genius!
The hedgehog reminds me of all those dreary public servant types who stay in the same job their whole lives, contribute minimally to society, invent nothing,risk nothing,create nothing, (except perhaps 2.5 children and grandchildren) and end up with their generous pension playing bowls!
So I think comparing these two creatures and their behaviour doesn't wash....although the fedgehog sounds good..
Michelle and Marianne, great comments. I agree that the fox has the skills to survive in our modern world, not the hedgehog...the more I htink about the original Greek fable, the less I agree with it!
The problem with Jim Collins' approach to Isaiah Berlin's work is that he confuses intent with content. The underlying thesis behind Berlins story is a discussion of the tension between dogmatism and flexibility, not "a big idea" vs. a shotgun approach.
Hedgehogs have one idea, and they are <a href="http://peter.evans-greenwood.com/2009/08/17/from-doctrine-to-dogma/">dogmatic in it's application</a>. Hedgehogs see the world through the lens of this big idea, forcing what they see fit inside their belief system, otherwise rejecting it. Foxes, on the other hand, admit that they live in a complex, changing and nuanced world, and are constantly updating their beliefs and actions in response to the environment changing around them.
Or put another way, rolling into a spiky ball works a treat when you're threatened by a fox. But the fox will soon adapt and head off to the hen house. What happens to the hedgehog though, when someone has paved the forest the fox becomes a truck. Odds are that it'll be roadkill.
Good to Great is a funny book; some of the companies it described as great went bust not long after its publication: Circuit City, Fanne Mae (we can all spell "subprime mortgage" these days), … I think Enron might even have been in there.
Peter, thanks for that info, it gave me another layer into the story - and indeed, some of the companies in the book could definitely relate to roadkill these days :)