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Jim Collins

Leadership

The Hedgehog Concept

by IPowerIdeas August 2, 2023

The Hedgehog Concept is developed in the book Good to Great.

A simple, crystalline concept that flows from deep understanding about the intersection of three circles:

1) what you are deeply passionate about,

2) what you can be the best in the world at, and

3) what best drives your economic or resource engine.

Transformations from good to great come about by a series of good decisions made consistently with a Hedgehog Concept, supremely well executed, accumulating one upon another, over a long period of time.

Excerpts from the book, Good to Great

Are you a hedgehog or a fox? In his famous essay “The Hedgehog and the Fox,” Isaiah Berlin divided the world into hedgehogs and foxes, based upon an ancient Greek parable: “The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.”

Those who built the good-to-great companies were, to one degree or another, hedgehogs. They used their hedgehog nature to drive toward what we came to call a Hedgehog Concept for their companies. Those who led the comparison companies tended to be foxes, never gaining the clarifying advantage of a Hedgehog Concept, being instead scattered, diffused, and inconsistent.

For the comparison companies, the exact same world that had become so simple and clear to the good-to-great companies remained complex and shrouded in mist. Why? For two reasons.

First, the comparison companies never asked the right questions, the questions prompted by the three circles.

Second, they set their goals and strategies more from bravado than from understanding.

A Hedgehog Concept is not a goal to be the best, a strategy to be the best, an intention to be the best, a plan to be the best. It is an understanding of what you can be the best at. The distinction is absolutely crucial.

Every company would like to be the best at something, but few actually understand—with piercing insight and egoless clarity—what they actually have the potential to be the best at and, just as important, what they cannot be the best at. And it is this distinction that stands as one of the primary contrasts between the good-to-great companies and the comparison companies.

To go from good to great requires transcending the curse of competence. It requires the discipline to say, “Just because we are good at it – just because we’re making money and generating growth – doesn’t necessarily mean we can become the best at it.” The good-to-great companies understood that doing what you are good at will only make you good; focusing solely on what you can potentially do better than any other organization is the only path to greatness.

As you search for your own concept, keep in mind that when the good-to-great companies finally grasped their Hedgehog Concept, it had none of the tiresome, irritating blasts of mindless bravado typical of the comparison companies. “Yep, we could be the best at that” was stated as the recognition of a fact, no more startling than observing that the sky is blue or the grass is green. When you get your Hedgehog Concept right, it has the quiet ping of truth, like a single, clear, perfectly struck note hanging in the air in the hushed silence of a full auditorium at the end of a quiet movement of a Mozart piano concerto. There is no need to say much of anything; the quiet truth speaks for itself.

I Power Seeds

Here are our takeaways and thoughts - pause and reflect, then nourish and grow!

This is a valuable and classic leadership book with incredible insights and concepts on how to focus on being great.

So go be great!

Enjoy.

Original Article

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Good to Great

by IPowerIdeas July 28, 2023

“Good-to-great companies became like Dave Scott. They rinsed their cottage cheese.”

Jim Collins

I Power Seed:
To keep with the theme of the I Power Ideas site, this will not be an in-depth review but rather selected highlights to pique your interest in the book, read it, and understand the concepts in more detail.

A list of “not to do’s” was more important than a list of “to do’s”.

Good is the enemy of great. People settle when they get good.

Good is not circumstance. Just does not just happen. Has to be consciously made.

Ferociously results driven.

CEOs are humble and gracious and are servant but not weak.

Example of Rubbermaid that went to great but once CEO left they went downhill.

Motivating employees is mostly a waste of time. If you have the right people on the bus, they will be self-motivating. So the real goal is to not de-motivate them.

Want to go from good to great, get the best people on the bus.

Executive compensation had absolutely no impact on company performance. None at all.

Don’t need good employees, need great. Good employees are not your best asset, great employees are.

Great employees do not need any management. They need to be taught and led.

3 circles.

Might be competent but not going to be great at it. Such as might get good math scores on SAT but does not mean you would be a great mathematician.

Hedgehog concept, keep it simple by having a laser focus on a simple concept and ignore everything around it. Walgreens having a cluster concept, 9 stores within a mile of san Francisco. Hedgehog concept was increase revenue per customer per visit.

Example of wife winning iron man.

Technology does not take companies good to great. Look at internet companies that have gone out of business. Walgreens kept to hedgehog concept and surpassed them.

Vietnam we had tons of technology and still lost. North Vietnamese kept to hedgehog concept.

Failures stem from management and leadership failures. Where they are weak. Where is VisiCalc, innovated spreadsheet? Did apple create the pda, no palm pilot did. Did Boeing create the passenger jet, no piper did. Look up rest of them.

5,000 lb. fly wheel. How hard to get it going? Once it goes it moves. Physics, mlm once in motion… asked which turn was pivotal? None, it was an accumulation of all of them.

Key to hedgehog is understanding on how to be the best. Cannot be goal. Have to fully understand what we do and how to be best at it.

Buy the Book

I Power Seeds

Here are our takeaways and thoughts - pause and reflect, then nourish and grow!

A few notes about the book:

This is a valuable and classic leadership book with incredible insights and concepts and how to focus on being great.

So go be great!

Enjoy.

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Leadership

Employees Don’t Quit Their Job; They Quit Their Boss!

by IPowerIdeas May 1, 2018

Do you develop your employees or are you more focused on developing yourself? Do you consider yourself a humble and empathetic leader? Are you energetic or have integrity? Some great questions right?

The post below will provide some nuggets or seeds (I Power Seeds) to encourage you to stop and reflect and hopefully provide some knowledge to help you become a better leader.

A key element of an effective and successful manager is developing your employees so they grow, thrive, and stay engaged.

I really enjoyed this article and why I am posting it. The insights in the article can enhance the what managers and leaders do for their employees. The first part is about developing employees and the second part is directed towards traits and habits exhibited by effective and caring leaders.

I am a firm believer in developing employees and the ROI is very clear and apparent and the time and effort put into their overall development as they are happier and their quality and productivity is quite evident. For example, in my current role I spend an average of $1,000 per year per employee on development such as seminars, workshops, conferences, and training and professional development.

The other component are the traits and habits the author highlights below, and when you pause and reflect on them and compare them to what you experiences as an employee or as a manager, it will be clear they are accurate and true.

I have utilized these traits and habits in staff development meetings where I provide insight and fun exercises to help employees recognize them as well as help increase their skills and knowledge as they grow and develop their management and/or leadership skills. It takes a lot of effort and time from you to develop the topics and then present them to your team. I will be posting some PowerPoint slides as seeds (I Power Seeds) to give you some ideas.

Here are a couple other related posts that will provide additional insight into employees development and engagement.

The Ideal Team Player (Humble, Hungry, Smart)

Leadership Development – Humility as Leadership

“Leadership is not about being in charge. Leadership is about taking care of those in your charge.”

Simon Sinek

Employees Don’t Quit Their Job; They Quit Their Boss!
Brigette Hyacinth

Employees might join companies, but they leave managers. Too many managers view their position as one of entitlement rather than one of responsibility. In days past, managers would focus on developing their employees. Today they are more focused on self-promotion and securing their position. A managers’ job is to facilitate a good working environment for his/her employees. The focus should be to help everyone around you succeed. Managers define culture, and culture under-girds the lasting health, success and sustainability of an organization.

The biggest danger of leadership: Arrogance

According to research from the University of Washington Foster School of Business, humble people are more likely to be make the most effective leaders. It turns out, humility offers a competitive advantage.

So why has arrogant or narcissistic leaders become the norm:

It has been historically perceived that humility is a sign of weakness and an antithesis to leadership. There is still an expectation that successful leaders are more arrogant than humble. Narcissism is mistaken for self-confidence and toxic leaders seem to be in control of everything. They are able to provide short-term results but the truth is they leave a trail of destruction in their path. Organizations pay heavily for such managers with low engagement, high turnover and reduced productivity. Arrogant leaders have a shelf-life within their organizations. They may “rule the day” but eventually people tire of them and their tactics, which lessens overall commitment from the team. Intimidation and threats of punishment can only work for so long.

“The x- factor of great leadership is not personality, it’s humility” – Jim Collins

The Power of Humility in the Workplace

Leading with humility means focusing on others and practicing servant leadership. Humble leaders:

1. They put people first.
Their focus is on serving others. They do not get consumed by seeking out more power. Instead, they seek more ways to help others.

2. They admit their mistakes.
All leaders make mistakes. Humble leaders own up to them. They don’t play the blame game when things go wrong. Instead they hold themselves accountable. Vulnerability builds trust.

3. They share information and delegate.
Humble leaders are aware of their strengths and weaknesses. They realize that they cannot do everything. They delegate because the work is more important than their ego.

4. They listen.
They are approachable to employees and this allows them to create an environment of open communication and effective feedback.

5. They do not hesitate to give credit where credit is due.
They appreciate the contributions of others. They are quick to recognize and reward the efforts of team members.

6. They are empathetic to those in their charge.
They genuinely care about employees and employees can feel this sincerity. Empathy allows them to build healthy relationships and bond with team members.

7. They are authentic.
They are the same person in every situation. This makes them trustworthy. Authenticity goes hand in hand with integrity. They are individuals of integrity.

“No matter how educated, talented, rich or cool you believe you are, how you treat people tells all. Integrity is everything.”

Humility doesn’t mean that leaders can’t make tough decisions. A humble leader should not be mistaken for a weak one. It takes strength, courage, and wisdom to practice humility. I have learned that the best leaders are selfless and more concerned with the well-being of their team than with personal titles or status symbols. Easily offended leaders with inflated egos don’t build strong teams. You cannot be an effective leader if you feel that you are better than your subordinates. No one likes dealing with egomaniacs. Arrogance is a deterrent, it destroys relationships and lowers employee morale whereas genuine humility has a way of winning others over.

Good leaders empower. Bad ones micromanage. It is dreadful to work under a manager who is more worried about pushing their weight around than building relationships. The role of any leader within a corporate framework is to build up the team and to encourage growth. If we want employees to feel commitment to the organization, we need to show we respect and value them. This takes humility. For loyalty, there has to be a relationship that develops between employee and employer and this develops over time through trust that gets built and sustained. Once people trust you, they will follow your lead. You won’t need to flaunt your title to get them to do the best possible job.

People might tolerate a boring job or long commute, but they are more prone to leave if their boss treats them poorly. Humble leaders get the best from people. They have more influence, they retain top talent, and they earn more respect and loyalty than those who rely upon ego and power. Want to be a good boss? Start by taking a slice or two of humble pie!

Please leave comments or feedback.

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Books Featured

The Ideal Team Player

by IPowerIdeas April 2, 2018

This is another fantastic book by Patrick Lencioni. If you have not guessed it yet, I truly enjoy his books and after reading each book I realize I have learned a lot as well as been inspired to continue my research and journey to be a better manager and leader.

In this book, The Ideal Team Player, he focusses on the individual. Whereas his book, 5 Dysfunctions of a Team, focusses on teamwork. Here is a link to my post on The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team.

To summarize:

5 behavioral manifestations of Teamwork:
• Trust
• Conflict (healthy)
• Commitment
• Accountability
• Results

If you want increase your knowledge and your set of tools, you need to read this book.

Think of a single sports player who thinks s/he is better than the rest of the team and this player thinks they are what makes the team win and how that thinking and attitude affects the rest of the team. Would you want to be part of that team? How hard would it be to manage that player? Or how harder would it be to lead the team? And the list of questions goes on.

Here is an older, but a good example of a well-known and popular player, Scottie Pippen, that highlights this issue:

The backdrop to the story:
• It is the 1994 Championship game between Kicks and the Bulls.
• Both teams had a team with a lot of big-named players.
• Score was 102-102.
• There was only 1.8 seconds left!
• Coach pulls team aside to the bench and calls a play designed for someone else than the “most popular player” – in this case that would be Scottie Pippen
• Everyone on the team, but one person, was excited and all in for the newly designed and chosen play.
• One player uttered negative words under his breath so only his teammates could hear
• They encouraged him to get on board with the new play, he refused
• The rest of the players were united as a TEAM
• They had faith in their coach and his decision as the coach (trusting he knew more than the players at that moment)
• This decision could have lost the championship game for them – a single play.

What do you think happened?!

5 Dysfunctions of a Team focuses on how a group of people must interact in order to become a cohesive team. This book focusses on an individual team member and the virtues that make him or her more likely to overcome the dysfunctions that derails teams.

The Ideal Team Player is all about the makeup of individual team members while The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team are about the dynamics of teams getting things done.

When team members improve their abilities to be Humble, Hungry, and Smart, they’ll be able to make more progress in overcoming the 5 dysfunctions on a regular basis.

Book Summary:

Bob is in construction management and has to figure out how to keep a company running when the owner/CEO goes out on medical leave and they have two significant projects coming up and they need to hire a lot more people and they want to hire the best employees (at all levels) to ensure the outcomes or results of both projects are successful.

The three executives in the fable ultimately come up with three traits they feel their team members need in order to be successful within their company and company culture: “Humble”, “Hungry”, and “Smart”.

These three traits they felt were critical and were to build off the “team work” concept they had learned about a year prior but let the commitment to those changes and practices lapse over time and they needed to go back and build on the foundation of teamwork they had learned and now focus more on the traits of the individuals that were going to make up their team.

Here are just some of the highlights – what I call “I Power Seeds” – to get you interested and thinking.

When you keep toxic managers or leaders around, non-toxic and great employees leave. Many times we as managers keep toxic employees on our team as it can be hard to remove them, but we also lose great employees because they do not want to be part of a team or work for someone who is toxic.

The executives in the book’s fable use a term “_ack_sses” and they realize that not only do they lose good employees, but these toxic managers hire more of the same kind which continues to proliferate the traits and practices they did not want within their company (nor should you). This exacerbates the poor behaviors which makes it continually harder for changes to be made as the number of toxic employees will increase.

I give you one example of my own. When I put together a hiring panel, I always make sure those members of the panel are thinking and looking for the same things I am in the candidates, which is that they are Hungry, Humble and Smart. I also ensure and ask if these panel members can envision themselves working with this person every day. This practice has significantly changed who we hire and how my team has been changing/improving over time.

The most unhappy people are the ones who don’t fit the culture, the ones who don’t belong – they are miserable as they know they don’t belong.

Bob put on a white board those employees with bad behaviors and wrote down adjectives about each one to find common denominators between them.

I would add to this exercise and look at the employees over time and ask questions such as, “Were they always like that? Did the continued and negative culture change their attitude?” I think looking at it over time provides a 3D look and recognizing this could potentially keep good team members. They will only stay if the culture was changed to a positive and cohesive one, which included – Trust, (healthy) Conflict, Commitment, Accountability, Results.

The management team came up with the denominators:
• Ego (Humble) – being unpretentious
• Hard work (Hungry)
• People (Smart) – how to act, what to say, what not to say

They used a Venn Diagram and put the names of their current staff closest to the traits they felt they had or did not have (Humble, Hungry, Smart). Here is an example of a Venn Diagram, where the very center is the “ideal team player”.

What Humble, Hungry, and Smart brings is results – which is the top of The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team pyramid (inattention to results).

Great team players are Humble, Hungry, and Smart.

The executive team help an interview with each person about humble, hungry, and smart and asked them to self-assess themselves. I think this was a great idea – gave each person a little insight into themselves. How many times do we not see something until we look at it from another direction or a different perspective and you end up having an “ah-ha” moment? Great stuff!

Humble, Hungry, Smart – it is not theoretical or touchy-feely.

Patrick Lencioni calls Humble, Hungry, Smart as “3 Virtues” and humility being the most important. Humility also meaning deflated sense of self-worth – when you don’t speak up even though you have great ideas.

Take quote from P157, first paragraph:
“In the context of teamwork, humility is largely what it seems to be. Great team players lack excessive ego or concerns about status. They are quick to point out the contributions of others and slow to seek attention for their own. They share credit, emphasize team over self, and define success collectively rather than individually. It is no great surprise, them, that humility is the single greatest and most indispensable attribute of being a team player.”

Be careful not to pigeonhole people, but better understand what constitutes an ideal team player so we can recognize and develop them on our teams.

I share a personal story that when I was interviewing for a VP position at a large company I had gone through the barrage of interview panels and one-on-ones with key stakeholders like the CEO and CFO. But they also recognized the Humble, Hungry, Smart model and wanted to ensure I had these virtues. So one of the key members of the IT department “casually” asked me if I wanted to meet for lunch. Of course I accepted and we had a really good conversation, but was clear he was trying to get me to let my guard down and show my true self and did I truly possess the virtues of Humble, Hungry, Smart and would I fit into their company culture. Which I did, and out of 600 applicants, 300 having IT experience, I got the job.

Here are some interview questions I took from the book. There are many others really good ones.

One note he brought to light, which I have done, is within the interview questions, ask the same question in a different manner later on. This will help you validate what they have said for important or key areas that are important to you and your department or company culture. Such as:
• How would your colleagues describe your worth ethic?
• How would your manager describe your relationship with your colleagues?

What are your most important accomplishments of your career?

What was the biggest embarrassment or biggest failure and how did you handle it?

What is your greatest weakness or what would you change about yourself or better yet what would your friends say you need to work on?

Tell me about someone who is better than you in an area that really matters to you?

What is the hardest project you worked on?

What do you like to do outside of work?

How would you describe your personality?

What kind of people annoy you the most and how do you work with them?

Would your former colleagues describe you as empathetic? Give an example where you demonstrated empathy to a teammate (how others feel)

Interviewers need to ask themselves, “could I work with this person every day?”

Let your reference checks reveal to you if the person would thrive in your culture.

Key is: the process is aimed at improved vs. punishment.

Have a 360 feedback program.

Many people do not seem to realize how their words and actions impact others.

Book recommended within “The Ideal Team Player” – “Good to Great” by Jim Collins

Resources
https://www.tablegroup.com/books/ideal-team-player

Book Summary from Amazon
In his classic book, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Patrick Lencioni laid out a groundbreaking approach for tackling the perilous group behaviors that destroy teamwork. Here he turns his focus to the individual, revealing the three indispensable virtues of an ideal team player.

In The Ideal Team Player, Lencioni tells the story of Jeff Shanley, a leader desperate to save his uncle’s company by restoring its cultural commitment to teamwork. Jeff must crack the code on the virtues that real team players possess, and then build a culture of hiring and development around those virtues.

Beyond the fable, Lencioni presents a practical framework and actionable tools for identifying, hiring, and developing ideal team players. Whether you’re a leader trying to create a culture around teamwork, a staffing professional looking to hire real team players, or a team player wanting to improve yourself, this book will prove to be as useful as it is compelling.

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