Management literature frequently notes the polarity between
big-picture people and detail people. While someone must pay
attention to details, the most effective leaders tend to be con-
sumed by one overriding concern. In 1953, Isaiah Berlin wrote a
famous essay, “The Hedgehog and the Fox,” which distinguished
between the monist and pluralist visions of the world. Taken from
the Greek poet Archilochus’s observation that “the fox knows
many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing,” the fox
epitomizes management that is constantly aware of a multiplicity
of options, contingencies, and competing interests, while the
hedgehog represents leaders who see the One most important
thing and constantly burrow in that direction.
This principle has been picked up more recently by Jim Collins
in Good to Great, which suggests that a leader who identifies one
unifying “hedgehog principle” and bases all decisions on that is
more likely to achieve “greatness” than a leader who does many
things.
The presidency of Jimmy Carter, for instance, has been criti-
cized for not distinguishing the One Thing from the multiplicity of
details. By contrast, in the 1992 presidential race, James Carville
clearly defined Bill Clinton’s campaign with the pithy phrase, “It’s
the economy, stupid.”
Identify the One Thing
Ronald Reagan was a big-picture leader. As political com-
mentator Richard Brookhiser put it, “The economist Milton Fried-
man daydreams about an income tax return so simple it could be
printed on a postcard. Reaganism could be jotted down on the
back of a business card.”
It was essentially “Defeat communism and cut taxes.” What
didn’t fit on the card, Brookhiser said, could safely be ignored.
Reagan speechwriter Patrick Buchanan remembers sitting in on
a cabinet-level debate over grain exports. While a heated argument
raged between Secretary of State George Shultz and Secretary of
Agriculture John Block, Reagan concentrated on a bowl of jellybeans,
picking out his favorite colors. Buchanan remembers thinking,
Lasering In on the Mission