The People Bulletin

At the recent National Convention from the Institute of Fundraising, the Good to Great  (G2G) concept based on Jim Collins’ study of long-term results by US companies was one of the personal effectiveness seminars presented to a packed auditorium.

In a lively performance from Management Centre[1] duo, Bernard Ross and Chris Washington-Sare reminded delegates of John Kotter’s mandate that the central issue for organisational success is ‘never strategy, structure, culture or systems’ but rather about ‘changing the behaviour of people and organisations.’[2]

They went on to explain that the Hedgehog Concept is all about identifying and understanding what an organisation is really good at – and to keep doing it.

This theory stems from the story of the hedgehog and the fox. Each day, the fox would try different ways of stealing up on and catching the hedgehog. But the hedgehog did the only thing he knew how to do – curl up in a prickly ball. While the fox tried every different ruse to get past this, the hedgehog focused on just that one defensive response – the thing that he did best.

In his book, Jim Collins talks about the ‘three circles' which are:

1.         what you are deeply passionate about;
2.         what you can be the best in the world at; and
3.         what drives your economic engine. 

The presenters shared some examples from Collins’ book, such as Wells Fargo, for example, realised that it couldn’t compete with CitiBank on international banking. But that it could beat the competition at providing bank services to the West Coast of the United States – and ever since that change of direction the company has outperformed the market and its competitors. It was Chris Washington-Sare, who had formerly worked for Greenpeace, demonstrated that the campaigning organisation’s ‘hedgehog’ was what he called ‘media mind bombs’.  In 1971 a group of twelve American and Canadian activists chartered a boat and sailed straight into the nuclear test site in Amchitka Alaska. It has been performing similar stunts every since to dominate headlines and sustain awareness of its cause.

The application of the Hedgehog Concept can also be made to personal development and delegates left the session with the challenge of finding their ‘inner hedgehog’

If any readers of The People Bulletin wish to email us about how they found their inner hedgehogs, please send your emails to cdann@wilmington.co.uk

[1] www.managementcentre.co.uk/pages/bernard_ross.html 

[2] http://kotterinternational.com/booksandresources/books