Foxes and hedgehogs – which one are you?
Being a ‘generalist’ (or what some would call a ‘fox’), I have often been criticized for the fact that I pursue so many different careers, studies, topics and interests. If I’ve heard “focus, focus, focus” once, I’ve actually heard it dozens of times. The parable of the fox and the hedgehog describes the daily encounter between the fox and the hedgehog.
The cunning fox has many ideas on how to sneak attack the hedgehog. As the fox jumps at him, the hedgehog thinks, “Here we go again. Will he ever learn?” He, as usual, coils into a sphere of sharp spikes and the fox, seeing this defense, cancels his attack.
In 1953, Sir Isaiah Berlin wrote: “There is a line between the fragments of the Greek poet Archilochus which says: ‘The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one great thing.’ Scholars differ on the correct interpretation of these obscure words, which can mean nothing more than the fox, for all his cunning, is defeated by the hedgehog’s only defense: writers and thinkers, and, perhaps, human beings in general.
“Because there is a great gulf between those on the one hand (i.e. hedgehogs) who relate everything to a single central vision…and those (i.e. foxes) who lead lives, perform acts and harbor ideas that they are centrifugal. More than centripetal, their thought is dispersed or diffuse…”
Over the last few months I have been reading Good to Great by Jim Collins, in which he writes about the ‘Hedgehog Concept’: “A hedgehog concept is not a goal to be the best, a strategy to be the best, and the intention to to be the best, a plan to be the best. It’s an understanding of what you can be the best at. The distinction is absolutely crucial.”
Ralph Estling wrote: “There is a third category, which Berlin does not mention because, I suppose, it is very rare, which includes people like Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Thomas Jefferson, who combine fox and hedgehog in their nature. Home run hitters they’re strictly hedgehogs, while the little guys who regularly hit scratch singles all over the infield, get to first base on bunts, and have a habit of stealing second, are their foxes. Babe Ruth was their quintessential hedgehog Wee Willie Keeler, who ‘hit ’em where they ain’t,’ was your quintessential fox.
“A world run by experts would be a disaster. Unless the hedgehog is also a fox, the specialist is also a fairly fair generalist, the Earth is doomed if it is ruled by experts. And if we can’t have the combination of fox and hedgehog (and almost certainly we can’t, it’s too unlikely) and we should pick just one, who is the good generalist, the all-rounder.”
Douglas Adams wrote, “If someone thinks he’s a hedgehog, you presumably just give him a mirror and some hedgehog pictures and tell him to sort it out for himself.”
So what do you think? And which one are you?
