Free Write: Good to Great

The book Good to Great by Jim Collins discusses many topics that are taught throughout our HTM curriculum. My favorite topic is the use of a Hedgehog Concept. In HTM, we have used the hedgehog concept when discussing leadership and developing a restaurant concept.

The hedgehog concept is based around 3 principles: what can you be the best at, what are you most passionate about, and what drives your economic engine? To be considered great, these 3 principles must be in sync. You cannot be great and have any one of these principles missing in a business.

We use this concept in our restaurant marketing class; a class that entails developing a restaurant concept from the ground up. One of the first lessons we learn is about the hedgehog concept. Why? Because if one cannot develop a hedgehog concept (aka understanding how and why you are in business), then one should not be getting into that business. Although a very beneficial concept to learn, I still to this day struggle in figuring out what is the economic drive. While this can be a simple answer, it tends to be very difficult to put to words. Obviously opening a business means you are there to make money, but there needs to be more behind what drives you other than a quick buck in my opinion. I think Jim Collins would have to agree with me as well. A great example of a company that follows this model is Apple. As a company, Apple has a foundation of workers who are passionate for the technology industry, create some of the best apps, computers, and phones (to name a few) in the game, and have figured out the way to great enough value perception across their company that allows them to be very profitable.