The writing of Archilochus, a 7th century B.C. Greek poet, survives only in fragments. Although Archilochus is noted for his influence on poetic meter and lyric verse, it is the rich implications of one of his fragments that have persisted most strongly, scrutinized for its meaning and applied to subjects from literary criticism to military strategy.
That fragment translates as, “The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.”
Modern Definitions
The first modern, extended contemplation of Archilochus’ fragment is found in a 1953 book-length essay by Isaiah Berlin, a highly respected Russian-British social and political theorist and Oxford professor.
In the essay, titled The Hedgehog and the Fox, Berlin used the concept to assess the work of Leo Tolstoy, and in the process defined the hedgehog-fox dichotomy in terms that continue to be used today.
Taken figuratively, Berlin wrote, hedgehog and fox “mark one of the deepest differences which divide writers and thinkers, and, it may be, human beings in general.”
Hedgehogs, Berlin wrote, “relate everything to a single central vision, one system less or more coherent or articulate, in terms of which they understand, think and feel—a single, universal, organizing principle in terms of which alone all that they are and say has significance.”
Foxes, Berlin continued, “pursue many ends, often unrelated and even contradictory, connected, if at all, only in some de facto way, for some psychological or physiological cause, related by no moral or aesthetic principle.”
By way of illustration, Berlin placed Dante in the first category and Shakespeare in the second. (For those of you interested in Tolstoy, Berlin concluded that War and Peace sought to be the product of a hedgehog but was interrupted repeatedly by the musings of a fox.)
In Business and Strategy
In the world of business, Jim Collins leaned heavily on the hedgehog-fox concept in his much-acclaimed and still-cited 2001 book Good to Great. Collins associated great companies with the hedgehog’s propensity to focus on doing a limited number of things very well, and less-successful companies with the fox’s tendency to be distracted by opportunities for diversification. In Collins’ construct, hedgehogs refine a core concept over time, this consistent purpose acting as a deterrent to complexity.
More recently, John Lewis Gaddis, Pulitzer Prize–winning author and Yale professor, an expert on the Cold War, incorporated the fox-hedgehog concept throughout his 2018 book On Grand Strategy.
Gaddis defines grand strategy in a way that will sound familiar to executives: “the alignment of potentially infinite aspirations with necessarily limited capabilities.” Unlike Berlin’s approach, Gaddis emphasizes the common ground of the hedgehog and fox, insisting that both characteristics are necessary to achieve goals, applied in different, complementary situations.
Comparing the hedgehog and fox to the “apparent opposites of planning and improvisation,” Gaddis uses sports to illustrate his point. While playing a game, Gaddis wrote, “you had a hedgehog-like plan, you modified it as needed in a fox-like manner, and you won or lost depending on whether it worked or didn’t. You’d find it hard to say, looking back, when you’d been which. Instead you held opposing ideas in your mind as you functioned.”
In Life
Moving forward to 2026, we find Jim Collins returning to the hedgehog concept in his recently released book What to Make of a Life. In his research for this book, Collins replaced the concept of an organization’s “enduring reason for being”—that is, its hedgehog—“with being in a personal hedgehog, being so fully in frame and full of fire that even success can’t stop you from desperately wanting to continue doing it for its own sake.”
In contrast to Gaddis, who emphasized the need to have a balance of hedgehogs and foxes, and in contrast to Berlin, who by naming Shakespeare as a fox certainly recognized the virtues of diverse interests and outputs, Collins leans toward hedgehogs for truly great things in both business and life.
In his new book, Collins develops this concept using examples such as Grace Hopper—a gadget-loving mathematics professor, who joined the naval reserves at age 36, was assigned to work on an early computer, and ended up “laying foundations for the software revolution”—and actor Michael J. Fox, who stepped back from acting in favor of his passion for family and, later found a calling as a Parkinson’s activist.
A Hedgehog Place
One point that Collins emphasizes in these case studies is that to be a hedgehog, you need to find a hedgehog place.
One example is Barbara McClintock, a geneticist who won the 1983 Nobel Prize for Medicine for discovering mobile genetic elements, showing that DNA could facilitate rapid evolution, and upending the existing concept that DNA was stable.
McClintock came to her “personal hedgehog” at the young age of 19, finding the study of genetics to be, in Collins’ words, “a perfect arena to deploy her brain as an organic decryption machine.” However, McClintock went through a years-long journey before finding the place that would allow her to pursue her passion to full advantage.
The need for a hedgehog-welcoming place was especially evident when she joined the faculty of the University of Missouri in 1936. There, she found herself, as a woman researcher, with limited opportunities, with minimal research support, “drained by lecture-style teaching,” and culturally mismatched. “She cared,” Collins writes, “more about doing her research and solving genetics puzzles than being socially accepted in the stuffy confines of the faculty lounge.”
It was only when McClintock accepted a full-time research position at the Carnegie-funded Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in Long Island, New York, in 1942, that she found “her intellectual home.” There, she produced her most groundbreaking work; in fact, she remained there the rest of her life, still conducting research at age 90. Her research was not always welcomed by the established scientific community—quite the opposite—but her position at Cold Spring Harbor gave her the time, facilities, financial support, and staff support to continue her work.
Final Thoughts
For the organizational leaders who form the core audience for this blog, I see several lessons worthy of attention, contemplation, and, in some cases, action.
One question for leaders is whether their organization is a “hedgehog place.” My sense is that many, if not most, organizations are more culturally accommodating to foxes than to hedgehogs—that is, to people who have diverse skills, can multitask, and can play multiple roles. Perhaps that is a natural outgrowth of today’s demands on business and particularly the pace of technology advancement. However, organization leaders would do well to consider whether they have carved out a space where hedgehogs at all levels have the support to focus on creative ways to nurture the organization’s core purpose.
This question is as apt for organizations as for the individuals who constitute organizations. Individuals need to look deeply at themselves, consider whether their tendencies lean toward the hedgehog, the fox, or a combination of the two, and ask themselves whether they are in a setting that allows them to make the most of those tendencies.
Organizations, further, should consider whether they need leaders who are hedgehogs or who are foxes at different stages in an organization’s life. Steve Jobs was surely a hedgehog, but Tim Cook was a fox; Apple has enormously benefited from both of those in exactly the right order.
Finally, organizational leaders need to determine the types of individuals their organization needs and in which roles. Are there enough hedgehogs in your organization? Are hedgehogs working in roles better suited to foxes? Are foxes deployed in a way that allows them to exercise their strengths at seeing multiple viewpoints and shifting strategies and tactics when needed? And does the organization have a way of connecting hedgehog wisdom and fox craftiness to ensure that allows the organization to both fortify its core purpose and adapt to changing circumstances?
In 2026, more than 2600 years after Archilochus captured his enduring dichotomy, the notion of a fox knowing many things and a hedgehog knowing one big thing continues to challenge our notions of success in business and in life.
Editor’s note: Author and educator Jim Collins will be providing a masterclass on life’s biggest questions—with insights from his new book, What to Make of a Life—at Kaufman Hall’s annual Healthcare Leadership Conference, October 22-23 in Chicago. For more information on HLC, email hlc@kaufmanhall.com.
For regular thoughts from Ken, follow The Ken Kaufman Blog on Substack.
