In contrast to foxes, hedgehogs view the world through ideologically tinted spectacles which let in no other light besides that which is on the same wavelength as their idea. They’re excellent at selective reporting of the facts. Moreover, because they focus on their idea in isolation, they ignore the critical interdependencies that make up complete systems. Hence, they will often press so hard for an idea that they mess up the workings of the system as a whole. They don’t see the trade-offs, and so they run into the law of unintended consequences where the world is worse off than if they had not intervened at all. This happens particularly with hedgehog-like development agencies who impose their own solutions on local communities rather than finding out what they want in the first place. Ignorance of cultural differences is often at the heart of costly development mistakes. A classic case of the aforementioned law in action was the establishment of irrigation schemes in the Sudan which immediately led to an increase in diseases associated with water-borne bugs. The way the colonial powers drew the boundaries in Africa is hard to beat. On a different front, everybody said that casinos in South Africa would create jobs. They’ve had precisely the opposite effect. Wherever they’ve been erected, they’ve drained the local economy of money as poor people – seduced by the dream of becoming instant millionaires – have frittered away their hard-earned, meagre incomes on the slot machines. Consequently, local businesses and shops have suffered and have had to lay off staff.
Nowhere can a hedgehog’s blinkered approach better be illustrated than in the environmental field. We all know that we cannot allow the environment to be destroyed – it must be preserved for future generations. Equally, we know that economic development is crucial for the improvement in life of the masses of poor people on this Earth. So, somewhere there has to be a compromise, as the phrase “sustainable development” implies. Neither deeply green hedgehogs who only press the environmental button nor dark blue hedgehogs only interested in economic growth have the answer. In fact, the best definition of sustainable development comes from a Norwegian fox, Gro Harlem Brundtland, who popularised the phrase in the first place. Not only was she Prime Minister of Norway, she also chaired the World Commission on Environment and Development which published the Brundtland Report in 1987 entitled Our Common Future. In it, sustainable development was defined as: “Development which meets the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability for future generations to meet their needs.” Beguilingly simple, but it says it all. Subsequently, more detailed definitions have been published, but they do not come close to this single pearl of wisdom. However, when all is said and done in the environmental debate, foxes acknowledge that extremists can advance the boundaries of knowledge through the Hegelian approach of thesis and antithesis leading to synthesis. Somebody has to push the edge of the envelope on either side to set new standards for the middle ground.
Tiger Woods, for a different reason, can also be nominated as a philosophical fox. He is a student of what the Japanese call Kaizen – a striving for continual improvement to the extreme point of testing something until it breaks and then analysing why it broke. The results are thereafter assimilated into future designs and applications. In a similar way and like the navigators of old, the scientific method demands that a scientist, after establishing a hypothesis, continually tests it to disprove or reject it. If the hypothesis survives the trauma of testing, it is embraced as probable fact. As Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous detective, Sherlock Holmes, once remarked to his faithful assistant Dr Watson: “How often have I said to you, that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?” What he was possibly suggesting is that eliminating what one can’t do provides a more revealing insight into what is possible. By approaching the cognitive process in the Sherlock Holmes way, we will not only be more accurately informed but also make more effective decisions. Often the best way of choosing your favourite person or thing is to start at the bottom and reject your obvious dislikes. Then you gradually work upwards until you’re comparing your top two preferences to make your final decision.
Cluedo, the popular detective game, illustrates Holmes’s point perfectly. The way to win the game and identify the murderer of the owner of Tudor Close is to eliminate all the other suspects. If Colonel Mustard didn’t do it with the candlestick in the conservatory, then it might have been Miss Scarlett with the dagger in the study – and so on. Another example is this well-known riddle: if you come to a crossroads and meet two locals, one of whom always tells the truth and the other one always tells lies, and you don’t know which is which, what question do you ask to ensure that you get to St Ives? The answer is: “What would the other fellow say if I asked him?” Whichever person you asked, you would know that the answer is false, discard it and take the opposite route. As Holmes would say: “It’s elementary, my dear Watson.” In the quiz show Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? it is as important to be adept at eliminating wrong answers as it is to have a feel for the right one, especially when you’re close to the million!
Foxy parents get their young children to do something by telling them not to do it. In a similar vein, Nelson Mandela once gave a very foxy definition of leadership:”A leader is like a shepherd. He stays behind the flock, letting the most nimble go on ahead, whereupon the others follow, not realising that all along they are being directed from behind.” So once again, are you a hedgehog or a fox? Or maybe a bit of both? If you’re the last, you’re lucky to be so special. In the business world, hedgefoxes play the crucial role of bridging the gap between hedgehogs to whom they easily relate and foxes for whom they act as corporate crusaders.
Tiger and the Titanic provide clues
As Tiger, the fox of the fairway, navigates the hallowed greens of the world’s greatest golf courses, the philosophy of Kaizen has equipped him to optimise on every bit of fortune and misfortune that comes his way. He is an obsessive student of both the game and his play. He continually reviews video footage of old tournaments – even those he has won – to criticise his play and to look for any information, no matter how trivial or apparently contradictory, that will allow him to make more accurate decisions when playing any course, under any conditions and against any other player.
The result: as he prepares for a tournament, he has a firm understanding of what lies inside and outside his control. For a start, he has a thorough knowledge of the rules of the game of golf and any recent revisions governing not only play but also the range of equipment that can be used. Obviously, he knows that he has no control whatsoever over the content of the rulebook: it controls him. No individual golfer, however awesome, has the power to change the rules. He can submit a proposal for a change if he thinks a particular rule is ridiculous; but until the relevant governing body in golf has considered it, he must abide by what’s laid down in the book. So what Tiger does control is his knowledge of the rules: what he doesn’t control is the content of the rules themselves.
The same applies to the layout of the course. Tiger can’t change that. But he can play practice rounds to get a feel for each hole; and he and his caddie can measure the yardages and decide on the optimum strategy to be adopted for each hole. Again, he has no control over the strengths and the weaknesses and the overall capabilities of the other players. However, he can make himself familiar with their style of play; and he knows that, on the last day of the tournament, if he is breathing down their necks going into the final stretch, many of them will wilt under pressure! The weather: that’s an important element during a tournament that is outside everybody’s control. Tiger may have a general idea of the kind of conditions that will probably prevail; but he certainly won’t know until the actual day, and sometimes only at the time of his actual shot, whether the wind is blowing or not and in what direction; whether it’s sunny or raining; and what the temperature is.
Broadly, in the lead-up to the tournament, he classifies everything into those things he can control: his swing, his selection