Journal Entry 2, 9/23/2011

The idea behind the Hedgehog Concept is combine a three-pronged strategy to success: first, do what you can be the best at, relative to competition; second, do what you can be passionate about doing; third, do what drives your economic engine. This concept is introduced by Collins and his research team in Chapter 4 of his book, Good to Great, who effectively prove that this concept is a principle for one's actions to gain greater success than previously enjoyed; in the business world, that would be increased or even dominant profits. Collins cites companies that consciously or unconsciously utilized the Hedgehog Concept, as it is called, proving instances of success in its application.

This idea, or combination of ideas really, intrigued me, so I decided to use it in application to my classes. I have determined which classes I can be the best at, namely my venture capitalist internship with KickStart, and my 241 Business Law class. I have a few unique core competencies that are not shared by my colleagues: Excel/VBA mastery, Harvard and Bloomberg Certifications, finance internships with JNJ and GFA, plus my polished skills in oral presentation; I should dominate and earn an A, relative to my peer competition. I also love the material I am learning, so it's easy to be passionate and look forward to learning more each period, and the material has potential application to my future career, as I see myself as either a VC or an attorney one day. As a consequence, I have decided to dedicate the majority of my effort and focus in these two classes this semester.  The other classes are so organized, including strategy, essentially applying the Hedgehog Concept in doing a cost/benefit analysis of my position relative to peer competition, since we are on a grading curve in the Marriott School.

I am excited to see if the application of the Hedgehog Concept can extend beyond the business world in my experimental test on my classes this semester.

Journal Entry 1, 9/16/2011

"There is nothing wrong with pursing a vision of greatness", says Jim Collins in his book, Good to Great, location 1319/6341, IPad e-book.However, in the same paragraph, he states that "the good-to-great companies continually refined the path to greatness with the brutal facts of reality".The context of this quote references what many companies seek to achieve or establish early on: their vision. Vision is a vital element that contributes to the strategy; but as Collins points out, it's not the strategy itself. Vision with data-driven strategy is key. I see this in my profession as a salesman. 

Too often, I see colleagues and managers getting riled up in the "hoorah" of hype, but believe that the vision itself is the strategy; that somehow, without a logical checklist, we can will our way to amazing sales. Case in Point: This past summer, I was one of the top salesman for Vivint in the Oklahoma City office; furthermore, I was part of a company-wide competition, in which the top five-veteran salesmen competed against one another, from office to office. Thus the top five of Oklahoma City, my office, competed against the top five salesmen of St. Louis, for example. 

Our team was doing great; we absolutely steam-rolled our way through the competition; as teams eliminated teams, the point in the competition is reached when steam-rolling changes to winning by a nose, as only the very elite are left. My team was matched up against Nashville; we were behind. My manager and friend, Scott Brown, proposed a city, 2 hours away, to target for our team. The idea was that if we could individually have outstanding performances for the next two-days, we could make-up the lag and achieve victory over Nashville. I ran the data on the city he proposed, Altus, Oklahoma. I found disturbing evidence: (1) less crime than Provo, UT, which for alarm/home automation sales, that's a big problem; (2) military town, and military recently suffered significant pay and benefit reductions; (3) competing company had been there two months earlier, harder to find interested prospects; (4) median income was fairly low. I presented these facts to the team, and suggested we find a new target location. The response was mainly negative, blaming me for bringing the team down for presenting the facts. I was shocked! I merely presented data to enhance our decision-making prowess, how would this bring the team down. The fact was the team didn't want to go against Scott, for fear of offending the manager who proposed the strategy, and also they wanted to ignore the reality of current events and demographics on Altus. So to Altus we went.

The result was disaster, as the data indicated it would be. Many people, including a heavy portion of non-military, stated that they were not spending money in light of pay cuts for the military. The military for obvious reasons, the locals because the military made-up the majority spending on their small business. Furthermore, those who decided to purchase were already customers of our competition. Others said that they had lived for decades without any incidents of crime and believed our services unnecessary. 

Reflecting back on this event, while reading Good to Great, has made me a believer in what Collins teaches, or rather what he found in his research. Vision is not strategy, and strategy is not vision; you must have both elements in place to be great, and to ignore either element will result poorly in your favor.