There is an ancient Greek parable about the fox and the hedgehog, the understanding of which can give your business a competitive advantage.

There is an ancient Greek parable about the fox and the hedgehog, the understanding of which can give your business a competitive advantage.

The fox is a cunning creature, capable of concocting a million complex strategies to attack the hedgehog. Day after day, the fox circles around his hole, waiting for the moment to pounce.

The agile fox, it would seem, should emerge victorious.

The hedgehog, on the other hand, is clumsy. All day he runs back and forth through the forest, looking for something to eat.

The fox waits, silently hiding at the crossroads of paths. The hedgehog goes, suspecting nothing, right into the paws of the fox.

“Yeah,” the fox thinks, “so you got caught!”

She jumps out from behind cover and rushes towards the hedgehog. The little hedgehog, sensing danger, looks up and thinks: “Well, again, will she really never learn anything?” - and curls up into a ball with sharp needles sticking out in all directions.

The fox sees what protection the hedgehog has erected, and refuses to attack.

Back in the forest, she begins to develop a new way of attack. Every day the battle of the fox and the hedgehog is repeated, and, despite the cunning of the fox, the hedgehog always wins.

The English philosopher Isaiah Berlin, on the basis of this parable, divided all people into two groups: “foxes” and “hedgehogs”.

"Foxes" strive for several goals at the same time and see the world as complex. They are unfocused and trying to achieve everything at once. Their thinking is not united by one concept or vision.

"Hedgehogs" simplify the world, reducing all questions and problems to a simple, sometimes even primitive, "hedgehog" idea.

This rule of "hedgehogs" and "foxes" works in business too.

The concept of the hedgehog in the book Good to Great was outlined by business expert Jim Collins. He studied the experience of 10X successful companies that became great: achieved excellent business results and kept them. They clearly defined a strategy for themselves and consistently moved along it.

- From Quora

 

 

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