The era of the fox?
Looking for inspiration for a project recently, I picked up that old stand-by “Good to Great” by Jim Collins. You may recall he talked of the Isaiah Berlin distinction between hedgehogs and foxes: the former know one big thing, the latter know many little things. Collins’ analysis of many companies concluded that the great businesses are run by hedgehogs with a single, unifying worldview.
Fast forward a couple of weeks and I found myself reading a review by an economist and fellow Scot, John Kay, titled “The world needs more foxes and fewer hedgehogs” and a NY times column with a similar theme. Turns out there’s a Berkeley professor, Philip Tetlock who studied thousands of predictions from 300 political “experts” over time and figured out these experts were not much better than a chimp at picking winners. More interestingly, he found that the worst performers were the ones he likened to Berlin’s hedgehogs. John Kay extrapolated:
“Mr Tetlock’s analysis is about political judgment but equally relevant to economic and commercial assessments. Foxes are better at prediction than hedgehogs because they derive information from many sources, adjust their views in line with events and see a range of perspectives on each situation. Hedgehogs have one clear view, seek evidence that confirms that view and have ready explanations for apparent failures of foresight.”
It’s certainly not hard to see the political shift from hedgehog to fox. And Jon Stewart was merciless with Jim Cramer recently for his hedgehoginess about the economy. As for the commercial world, it seems to me that this extrapolation can easily continue into brand and business strategy.
In previous posts here, Adrian has talked about some of the differences between classic vs modern companies and brands. I think the shift from hedgehog brands (think single-minded promise, consistent and unchanging viewpoint, reductionist, declarative) to fox brands (culturally adaptive, nuanced, complex, inquisitive) is very much part of that same strand of thinking.
If Jim Collins was to study the great companies of the next ten years rather than those from the latter part of the 20C., I bet he’d find this to be the era of the fox – and I wonder if he’d adjust his theory. If he’s a fox, I’d think he would.
Now I’m off to ponder the implications of Tetlock’s damning analysis of experts on businesses peddling marketing expertise.
Rob.
(First post. Hopefully the next one won’t take so long.)
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Tags: fox, hedgehog, isaiah berlin, jim collins, john kay, modern brands, richard tetlock
