Hedgehog or Fox?

When I was a junior in college I worked as a waiter for extra money. During the Christmas season I did a catering event for the owner of CiCi’s Pizza. After the event was finished my brother and I asked if he would talk to us about how he became successful. What he said during the next 30 minutes changed the way I approached my profession.

He sat my brother and I down and said the first rule is to keep it simple. Find out what you are good at and become the best at it. He told us his goal was to make the best pizza for the best value. Everything he did centered on the pizza, even the desserts looked like a pizza. He told us that so many companies lose focus on what they are good at. Pizza joints start making hamburgers or Chinese restaurants do BBQ…they lose focus.

In the book Good to Great­, Jim Collins calls this the “Hedgehog Concept”. Check out this link to read the story about the fox and hedgehog it is very insightful http://www.jimcollins.com/lab/hedgehog/#

The Hedgehog Concept is a simple, crystalline concept that flows from deep understanding about the intersection of the following three circles

1. What can you be the best at in the World
2. What drives your economic engine
3. What are you deeply passionate about

If you can answer these three questions and stick to your answers you will be successful coach. And more than that you will possess a program that breeds success.

Fortune 500 or Dollar General

Today I was having lunch with a very good friend of mine. He’s an absolute genius at sales/marketing and he’s currently the Vice President of Sales/Marketing for Politic2.0. We were comparing the speed of change and innovation in business vs. that of the strength and conditioning world. It was an intriguing conversation and here are a few of the key points.

· Without innovation in business you will soon find yourself obsolete and out of a job…thus if you want to eat you must be on the cutting edge. S&C Coaches get waaaay to comfortable and see there job as a way to collect a check instead of a way to be on the cutting edge. We don’t put ourselves out there enough…we are often waiting on other coaches to do it before we will. This conservative nature might be your ticket out of the game.

· Great ideas only become successful if the timing and market is right.

· Innovation in S&C is built around developing four basic qualities: Strength, Power, Speed, Work Capacity/Hypertrophy. As coaches we often see these parameters as road blocks, instead of launching pads. We already have the fundamental concept in place we just have to expand it.

· In business if you can’t communicate you are dead in the water…how many S8C coaches have you met that wouldn’t make it at a social affair b/c they are too busy shaving their head or watching NASCAR. We need to be well-rounded people…read books, watch CNN and know what is going on the global community. If we can’t connect with the rapidly changing culture that we live in, it won’t matter if you are the Einstein of the S&C world.

It’s just a thought…but we might be better off running our S&C programs like a Fortune 500 company instead of the local dollar store…a lot of nice trinkets but not one solid product.