Today I want to steal something from the book "Good to Great" by Jim Collins. And this one is about what he calls the Hedgehog Concept or finding simplicity within the three circles. One of the things that the book talks about is that the companies that were able to come upon a concept that galvanized and that they continued to work around and make their decisions and discipline their thinking through as they made their transition from being good to great. And I've always been attracted to this particular concept because I've always felt as if this could apply to one's personal life,
So basically the concept is basically this: that these companies were able to obtain some deep understanding along three key dimensions, and it revolves around three questions. I'm gonna give you the business context, and then I'm gonna flip it to how it applies to your personal life and your second half success.
Question 1: What can you be the best in the world at? And for these companies it was deeper than just what their core competency was. It was more about what can they really be world class at.
Question 2: What drives their economic engine? What's the thing that truly makes money - that truly gives a return. That's number two. And they try to arrive at a particular formula or denominator that if all they had to manipulate was this one particular metric then that would be the thing that drove the revenue.
Question 3: What are they deeply passionate about? And the key thing here was not what is something that they could BECOME passionate about? It wasn't about trying to stimulate passion, but rather what are they already be deeply passionate about.
And so those were the three circles. And where those three circles intersected- that sweet spot- that would be the Hedgehog concept. That would be where they would plant their flag. And their activities, and their decisions would all revolve around the intersection of those three questions and whatever that thing was. That's what took these companies from good to great.
Now, what does that have to do with your second half success? In a number of areas of your life, if you break down your to specific areas (i.e. finance, health, marriage, etc). there's probably a hedgehog concept that works for each of those.
So here's an example of how this could work. If you wanna take this exercise and apply it to your life, let's start with marriage. What are you really, really good at right now? Maybe you are good at planning dates. Maybe you are good at giving gifts. Maybe you are good at giving compliments, something like that.
The second thing is what activity would give the greatest return in terms of your marriage? What could that thing be? And it may or may not be the same thing that you're already good at. Perhaps it's giving gifts. Perhaps it's going on outings and excursions. Perhaps it's giving compliments. Perhaps it's three hugs throughout the day. Whatever that might be, what would give the greatest return?
Then the third thing would be what are you deeply passionate about? What do you really enjoy doing? What lights you up?
So what are you really good at? What will give you the bigger return or the greatest return or a sizeable enough return? And what do you really like doing? What are you really passionate about? If you answer those three questions, when it comes to your marriage, the sweet spot of those three things, the answers to those three things and where they would be where you can plant your flag. That's where you can probably spend the the bulk of your time and receive the greatest amount of return for that area.
Now the answers to these questions wasn't something that these companies arrived at necessarily in a weekend on a retreat or some seminar. The companies took a lot of time to really come to a deep understanding of these three questions and where they intersect. Similarly, you probably won't arrive at these answers at the snap of a finger may not be likely.
Rather, it's something that you wanna ponder. It's a question that you will want to place before you in a number of places so that your subconscious can work on that answer in your non-waking hours. So don't rush to figure those out. But once you find that intersection, you can filter your decisions and actions through that lens and simplify and streamline your second half success.
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