How to be a Hedgehog...
Knowing that the next MLS gathering is less than 2 weeks away, and I need to write a review of this book and a character study to be "marked" before that, I figured that I need to crack on with getting through "Good To Great". The trouble is, that there's so much in there, I'll forget most of it unless I write stuff down as I read it.So this weekend could well be a bit of a "blogathon" as I plough through the Good to Great concepts and jot down my random thoughts along the way.
And here's the first one...
I have, so far, loved this book - especially the bits about getting a great team around you. The thing is, as I read more into the "Strategy" type section I'm starting to ask some tougher questions of the book.
For example, I'm half way through the chapter on the "hedgehog" concept, which seems to make good sense - the idea that you need to not think about what you "are" good at, or what you are already doing, but to think about what you have the "potential" to be the best in the world at. Now that does make sense, but some of the concepts seem to be written cleverly yet somehow mis-aligned.
Here's what I mean.
The book compares 2 companies, one that thrives in building pharmacy stores, and one that plummets by investing in the (growing) home video market amongst other things. Collins suggests that the reason one failed whereas the other thrived was that the first company had a simple, single focus, while the other spread itself thinly by investing anywhere that could lead to growth. Great so far, but he also mentions that as part of the pharmacy chain, Walgreens made investments into photo processing in all stores and other "risky" investments. So surely, the only difference is that one company invested in a product that didn't work, whereas the other invested in one that did? Nothing really to do with the hedgehog principle, but just taking a chance on investing in a product range that either does or doesn't work.
Again, maybe I'm missing something, but I am slightly concerned that the comparison companies mentioned throughout this book (especially in chapters 4 & 5) are just better or worse at seeing potential in investments.
Anyway, back to the book...
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