![]() Those who built the good-to-great companies were, to one degree or another, hedgehogs. Don says it gave the child, who had been ostracized in his community, a real chance in life. 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. The patient was a child from Mexico with a cleft lip and palate, and the surgery was simple. ![]() ![]() One day, Don got his chance when a colleague asked him if he could help with a surgery. In his words, he wanted to "do a big thing, and help a lot of people." This week, we have the story of a hedgehog by the name of Don Laub: a young surgeon who was eager to make his mark. In most MBA programs, they'd probably be viewed as better leadership material," Tetlock says. "The hedgehogs are more the big idea people, more decisive. They reduce every problem to one organizing principle. Hedgehogs, on the other hand, focus on the big picture. They are comfortable with nuance, they can live with contradictions. There are many different interpretations of this parable, but psychologist Phil Tetlock argues it's a way of understanding two cognitive styles: Foxes have different strategies for different problems. ![]() The Greek poet Archilochus wrote, "the fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing." ![]() "The hedgehogs are more the big idea people, more decisive," while the foxes are more accepting of nuance, more open to using different approaches with different problems. Psychologist Phil Tetlock thinks the parable of the fox and the hedgehog represents two different cognitive styles. ![]()
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