HEDGEHOG IS NOT IN THE FOG AFTER ALL
One says “hedgehog”, one thinks “fog”. See how an old cartoon can ruin a life of an animal?! How this toddling around thorny animal is connected with success, this can be read about below.
I grew up in the 1980s with a legendary Soviet cartoon called “Hedgehog in the fog” where in fairly desperate colours is reflected a little hedgehog’s adventerous and foggy journey to see a little bear. So that they could drink tea and admire the starts together! And later, very much inspired by this very cartoon, was born a phrase “oh well, what to expect from them – they are like a hedgehog in the fog”, which referred to someone who has their head in the clouds; who is lost; and in some context also not "the sharpest pencil in the box". How huge was my surprise when now, three decades later, it has appeared that actually this little hedgehog is not foggy nor in the fog at all. Vice versa – this little thorny creature is actually a muse for the success concept.
Once upon a time there was a fox and a hedgehog...
Philosopher Isaiah Berlin’s well-known essay “The Hedgehog and the Fox” is based on the ancient Greek poet-troubadour Archilochus’ fable according to which “the Fox knows a lot of things, whilst the Hedgehog knows one important thing”. What's that got to do with success, right? Just a bit of patience, please – I will get to the bottom of it shortly. To cut a long story short, the story goes as follows: the Fox, as you know, is a sly animal that is capable of conspiring all sorts of complicated strategies as well as amongst the others also how to best attack the Hedgehog. Day in and day out, he keeps spinning around the Hedgehog’s burrow in order to find the best moment for the attack. Being fast and sly, there should be no reason whatsoever for the Fox not to succeed in its venture! Hedgehog, on the other hand, is a more chaotic creature who lives a simple life by plodding along and doing its little daily things, such as finding a bite for lunch and looking after its home.
On yet another day, the Fox is skulking the Hedgehog in complete silence at the path’s crossroad, and the Hedgehog, whilst doing its daily duties, ends up in the Fox’s path. “I have got you now!” thinks the Fox victoriously. He makes a jump and launches a quick attack manoeuvre. The little Hedgehog, sensing danger, looks up and thinks: “Ah again the same thing. Does he ever learn?”. He pulls himself in a small thorny ball, and is ready for the Fox. Seeing the Hedgehog’s defence tactics, the Fox backs off, runs back to the forest, and starts conspiring for a new attack plan. And the same thing happens every single day from which the Hedgehog, despite the Fox’s slyness, always exits as a winner.
In his writing, Berlin divides people into two groups: Foxes and Hedgehogs. A Fox-type of person is someone who does several things at the same time and sees the world in its full complexity, whilst not being capable of creating one general concept or vision in his thoughts. A Hedgehog-type of person, however, is someone who can simplify the complexity of the world into one easily understandable concept that units and leads everything. No matter how complex the world is, he can put all issues and dilemmas into one hedgehog-like simple idea. Freud and sub-conscious, Darwin and natural selection, Einstein and the theory of relativity – all these great men were Hedgehogs since they took the complex world and made it simple, understandable, and tangible for everyone.
The 3-circle Hedgehog concept
The creator of the Hedgehog Model as the concept for success is Jim Collins, an American leadership lecturer who has already dedicated a quarter of a century of his life to conduct a research on why some organizations are successful whilst the others never get better than a “schoolboy’s good average”. But in the modern society GOOD is no longer good enough since now the only way to be successful is to be outstanding, and even a little bit more – this as an organization and as an individual.
The formula of greatness that lies in the Hedgehog concept is actually simple, and is based on the understanding of the crossing points of the three circles (all explained below). Also, you can be the best at something that you are not involved in on daily basis. The goal of the Hedgehog Concept is to have an understanding of what you can really be the best at. In addition, it is important to realise that even when something has been your main field of activity for a x-period of time, then it does not necessarily mean that you are the best one at it. And when you are not the best in your main field of activity, then it also cannot be the basis of your Hedgehog Concept. This concept is not about a specific competence, but more about potential. True, you can be good at something, as an individuaal generate income from it, and as an organization ensure it produces revenue, and even economic growth, but the real greatness is born out of focusing on one’s potential – this very thing that realistically allows you to be better than others, whilst coming out of one’s comfort zone, and making this VERY SOMETHING work for you. In order to identify your own x-factor, a variety of tools can be used, eg SWOT analysis or competence wheel.
When researching the most successful companies, it was identified that all of them applied one specific denominator: profit per x. This research has shown that a company does not have to be in an super innovative field of business in order to become and be great – it is just important to find one’s own economic denominator. In other words: if you could choose only one profit factor per x that you would like to systematically increase in time, then which x would have the biggest as well as most sustainable impact on your economic engine? This is exactly where the dog is buried!
Thereafter, have a look at your organization’s mission and vision: what are its core values and how do your people apply them in their daily (professional) life? Successful organisations, but also individuals, concentrate on the things and activities that they are truly passionate about. The idea is not to create passion towards something, but to find this SOMETHING that really makes the passion burn inside you.
Once all the three circles of the model have been analysed, it must be reviewed where they are overlapping each other. Your Hedgehog Concept is nesting exactly in their crossing point – this is your organization’s central vision that actually takes the created strategy forward. This is the box of greatness!
Collins finds that organizations (and I believe that the same applies also for individuals) are more likely to succeed when they focus on just one thing and contribute towards it with all they have.
Simply hedgehog-like!
When thinking about the hedgehog-like view of the world and how it deals with it, then maybe the saying “magic lies in simplicity” is even more relevant than one could initially think? Isn’t it fairly usual to ignore simple solutions just because they are too simple, and to invent overly complicated alternatives with all sorts of bells and whistles instead? Even Kalevipoeg (a giant hero from the Estonian national epic) knew that hedgehog was no regular silly sausage when he got valuable advice from it. Hedgehog can see what really matters - and isn’t that the whole point? Although I am very supportive of natural balance, then I still have a little wish: let there be more Hedgehogs in this world.
***********************************************************************************
And here are the three circles of the Hedgehog Concept:
What you can be the best in the world at?
Equally important is to realise what you cannot be the world’s best at! This is something that goes far beyond some core competence since although you possess it, then this does not mean that you are necessarily the world’s best at it. Unfortunately!
What drives your economic engine?
This means looking at ways how to most effectively as well as efficiently generate sustainable economic status whilst also making a profit. For instance, in the 1970s Walgreens in the USA had a vision to become the best-located, and therefore also the most accessible drugstore in the whole world. The company believed that this vision was achievable and their objective was to make it happen. In order to measure their success against the established strategy, the company changed its focus from profit per shop to profit per customer, since this complied better with their general vision. Also, in order for their drugstores to be accessible, the company opened a lot of new shops which meant that more customers could visit them, and which again increased their profit within the whole organization. If they had carried on focusing on the previously applied concept of profit per shop, then this would have meant closing down a number of stores, and such an approach would have been less successful since it did not match with Walgreens’ strategic vision to be the most accessible drugstore.
What are you deeply passionate about?
What is this very thing that makes you wake up every morning with a broad smile on your face, and motivates you to also put in the late hours? What are your organization’s people enthustiastic about? What inspires them most about the company’s goal? What values are you looking for when recruiting a new team member?
Article published in Estonian under the title of "Siil EI OLEGI udus" in a leadership magazine Director (October 2016).
I grew up in the 1980s with a legendary Soviet cartoon called “Hedgehog in the fog” where in fairly desperate colours is reflected a little hedgehog’s adventerous and foggy journey to see a little bear. So that they could drink tea and admire the starts together! And later, very much inspired by this very cartoon, was born a phrase “oh well, what to expect from them – they are like a hedgehog in the fog”, which referred to someone who has their head in the clouds; who is lost; and in some context also not "the sharpest pencil in the box". How huge was my surprise when now, three decades later, it has appeared that actually this little hedgehog is not foggy nor in the fog at all. Vice versa – this little thorny creature is actually a muse for the success concept.
Once upon a time there was a fox and a hedgehog...
Philosopher Isaiah Berlin’s well-known essay “The Hedgehog and the Fox” is based on the ancient Greek poet-troubadour Archilochus’ fable according to which “the Fox knows a lot of things, whilst the Hedgehog knows one important thing”. What's that got to do with success, right? Just a bit of patience, please – I will get to the bottom of it shortly. To cut a long story short, the story goes as follows: the Fox, as you know, is a sly animal that is capable of conspiring all sorts of complicated strategies as well as amongst the others also how to best attack the Hedgehog. Day in and day out, he keeps spinning around the Hedgehog’s burrow in order to find the best moment for the attack. Being fast and sly, there should be no reason whatsoever for the Fox not to succeed in its venture! Hedgehog, on the other hand, is a more chaotic creature who lives a simple life by plodding along and doing its little daily things, such as finding a bite for lunch and looking after its home.
On yet another day, the Fox is skulking the Hedgehog in complete silence at the path’s crossroad, and the Hedgehog, whilst doing its daily duties, ends up in the Fox’s path. “I have got you now!” thinks the Fox victoriously. He makes a jump and launches a quick attack manoeuvre. The little Hedgehog, sensing danger, looks up and thinks: “Ah again the same thing. Does he ever learn?”. He pulls himself in a small thorny ball, and is ready for the Fox. Seeing the Hedgehog’s defence tactics, the Fox backs off, runs back to the forest, and starts conspiring for a new attack plan. And the same thing happens every single day from which the Hedgehog, despite the Fox’s slyness, always exits as a winner.
In his writing, Berlin divides people into two groups: Foxes and Hedgehogs. A Fox-type of person is someone who does several things at the same time and sees the world in its full complexity, whilst not being capable of creating one general concept or vision in his thoughts. A Hedgehog-type of person, however, is someone who can simplify the complexity of the world into one easily understandable concept that units and leads everything. No matter how complex the world is, he can put all issues and dilemmas into one hedgehog-like simple idea. Freud and sub-conscious, Darwin and natural selection, Einstein and the theory of relativity – all these great men were Hedgehogs since they took the complex world and made it simple, understandable, and tangible for everyone.
The 3-circle Hedgehog concept
The creator of the Hedgehog Model as the concept for success is Jim Collins, an American leadership lecturer who has already dedicated a quarter of a century of his life to conduct a research on why some organizations are successful whilst the others never get better than a “schoolboy’s good average”. But in the modern society GOOD is no longer good enough since now the only way to be successful is to be outstanding, and even a little bit more – this as an organization and as an individual.
The formula of greatness that lies in the Hedgehog concept is actually simple, and is based on the understanding of the crossing points of the three circles (all explained below). Also, you can be the best at something that you are not involved in on daily basis. The goal of the Hedgehog Concept is to have an understanding of what you can really be the best at. In addition, it is important to realise that even when something has been your main field of activity for a x-period of time, then it does not necessarily mean that you are the best one at it. And when you are not the best in your main field of activity, then it also cannot be the basis of your Hedgehog Concept. This concept is not about a specific competence, but more about potential. True, you can be good at something, as an individuaal generate income from it, and as an organization ensure it produces revenue, and even economic growth, but the real greatness is born out of focusing on one’s potential – this very thing that realistically allows you to be better than others, whilst coming out of one’s comfort zone, and making this VERY SOMETHING work for you. In order to identify your own x-factor, a variety of tools can be used, eg SWOT analysis or competence wheel.
When researching the most successful companies, it was identified that all of them applied one specific denominator: profit per x. This research has shown that a company does not have to be in an super innovative field of business in order to become and be great – it is just important to find one’s own economic denominator. In other words: if you could choose only one profit factor per x that you would like to systematically increase in time, then which x would have the biggest as well as most sustainable impact on your economic engine? This is exactly where the dog is buried!
Thereafter, have a look at your organization’s mission and vision: what are its core values and how do your people apply them in their daily (professional) life? Successful organisations, but also individuals, concentrate on the things and activities that they are truly passionate about. The idea is not to create passion towards something, but to find this SOMETHING that really makes the passion burn inside you.
Once all the three circles of the model have been analysed, it must be reviewed where they are overlapping each other. Your Hedgehog Concept is nesting exactly in their crossing point – this is your organization’s central vision that actually takes the created strategy forward. This is the box of greatness!
Collins finds that organizations (and I believe that the same applies also for individuals) are more likely to succeed when they focus on just one thing and contribute towards it with all they have.
Simply hedgehog-like!
When thinking about the hedgehog-like view of the world and how it deals with it, then maybe the saying “magic lies in simplicity” is even more relevant than one could initially think? Isn’t it fairly usual to ignore simple solutions just because they are too simple, and to invent overly complicated alternatives with all sorts of bells and whistles instead? Even Kalevipoeg (a giant hero from the Estonian national epic) knew that hedgehog was no regular silly sausage when he got valuable advice from it. Hedgehog can see what really matters - and isn’t that the whole point? Although I am very supportive of natural balance, then I still have a little wish: let there be more Hedgehogs in this world.
***********************************************************************************
And here are the three circles of the Hedgehog Concept:
What you can be the best in the world at?
Equally important is to realise what you cannot be the world’s best at! This is something that goes far beyond some core competence since although you possess it, then this does not mean that you are necessarily the world’s best at it. Unfortunately!
What drives your economic engine?
This means looking at ways how to most effectively as well as efficiently generate sustainable economic status whilst also making a profit. For instance, in the 1970s Walgreens in the USA had a vision to become the best-located, and therefore also the most accessible drugstore in the whole world. The company believed that this vision was achievable and their objective was to make it happen. In order to measure their success against the established strategy, the company changed its focus from profit per shop to profit per customer, since this complied better with their general vision. Also, in order for their drugstores to be accessible, the company opened a lot of new shops which meant that more customers could visit them, and which again increased their profit within the whole organization. If they had carried on focusing on the previously applied concept of profit per shop, then this would have meant closing down a number of stores, and such an approach would have been less successful since it did not match with Walgreens’ strategic vision to be the most accessible drugstore.
What are you deeply passionate about?
What is this very thing that makes you wake up every morning with a broad smile on your face, and motivates you to also put in the late hours? What are your organization’s people enthustiastic about? What inspires them most about the company’s goal? What values are you looking for when recruiting a new team member?
Article published in Estonian under the title of "Siil EI OLEGI udus" in a leadership magazine Director (October 2016).