Good to Great | Practical Theology

Reviewed by Thomas Scarborough

As part of a postgraduate degree at Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, I recently participated in seminars on "Understanding Organizational Dynamics".

I found a general ambivalence among postgraduate students with regard to applying business methods and insights to the Church. The observations which follow -- all based on the Fuller prescribed book "Good to Great" by Jim Collins -- are an attempt to identify what it is that unsettled me personally -- and the hope is that this might serve as a stimulus to others who are considering such issues.

The Fuller assignment was to apply Jim Collins' so-called "hedgehog concept" to the Church (a hedgehog is a humble creature which has just one winning trick -- it rolls itself into a prickly ball). Thus the challenge is to identify one's Church's "hedgehog concept", and to maximize this strength.

While I took up the challenge and identified a hedgehog concept in our Church, I followed this up with an attempt to articulate reservations regarding the concept -- which follow (page numbers are in brackets). To put it in a nutshell, the "hedgehog concept" appeared to represent a serious oversimplification to me -- the promised "quick fix" that sells two million books, yet really does not stand up to scrutiny. Spiritual reservations appear towards the end of this article.

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1. Jim Collins considers that Sigmund Freud, Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, Albert Einstein, and Adam Smith all "took a complex world and simplified it" (:91). They reduced the world to "simple, simple, simple ideas" (:95). Yet Collins would appear to deconstruct his own argument. A simple idea, he writes, should not be "any random simple idea" (:95). That is, certain prerequisites determine the choice of which simple idea is selected. Presumably Albert Einstein or Karl Marx gave their simple ideas more than a little thought.

Further, Collins notes that the choice of simple idea (the "hedgehog concept") needs to be based on "deep understanding along three key dimensions" (:95). Space does not permit the description of these dimensions here -- however, they are vast in scope, and a "deep understanding" implies an extraordinary aptitude.

Collins states: "The real driver [of success] . . . is the ability to understand" (:105). It is "insight" that determines intelligent decision-making (:106). One will "eventually gain the depth of understanding required for a Hedgehog Concept" (:115). That is, an extraordinary understanding, and abundant time, are the prerequisites for selecting a hedgehog concept. While Collins presents the development of a hedgehog concept as a mere "turning point", the matter is surely far more subtle and complex.

2. Collins states that one's arrival at the hedgehog concept is "an inherently iterative pro­cess" (:114). It need hardly be stated, however, that every iterative process is an exceed­ingly complex dynamic. According to standard linguistics, iterative processes span entire cultures, and incorporate their entire histories.

Not only this, but, according to Collins, the process required to reach a hedgehog concept needs to incorporate "a range of per­spec­tives" (:115). Such perspectives, at the high level of business he describes, will be exceedingly complex -- as complex, at least, as the combined complexity of the persons who represent those per­spectives. That is, the dynamic of the iterative process is surely beyond all des­cription.

In fact, Collins describes this process as being "devilishly difficult" (:114), then devotes hardly half a page to it, suggesting that one should merely jump in, then "just keep going . . ." (:115). Thus he merely skims over the surface of what, in his own words, would seem to be a virtually unfathomable process.

3. Collins considers that one needs to be "deeply passionate" about the hedgehog concept (:96). This again implies a world of context and culture, if not depth psychology. Yet this passion he wishes to reduce to a mere "concept" (:90) which may apparently be universally communi­cated and implemented by his readers.

4. Jim Collins notes that one needs to have the ability to "translate that intersection" between three major areas of expertise -- space again does not permit the description of these complex areas here -- in order to arrive at "a simple, crystalline concept" (:96).

To support his notion of the simplicity of it all, he quotes CEO Carl Reichardt, who states that his company's success is not "space science stuff" (:97). However, Collins apparently overlooks the fact that Reichardt is one of the most supremely competent CEOs in the USA, who in his Collins' own words has a "genius" for simplicity (:98). This raises the critical question as to whether such genius would be transferable. Companies such as Reichardt's "attained profound insights" (:104), and identified denomi­na­tors that "can be quite subtle" (:105). One wonders just how this should be widely translatable to the hedgehog concept.

5. The articulation of simple concepts is known, in fact, to be an exceedingly complex art. In order to do this, one needs to encapsulate broad realities in a few words. The more "open" the system to which language is applied -- and organisational dynamics may be regarded as wide open -- the broader the realities which such lan­guage needs to encompass.

A hedgehog concept needs to do precisely the same. It needs to show how such a concept relates to everything that is of relevance to success. It is not as "simple, simple, simple" (:95) a matter as Collins portrays it, or as it might seem at first sight. In fact, the word "simple" should be ruled out of scope. It is surely a deception.

6. According to Jim Collins, companies which employed the hedgehog concept rou­tinely tended to avoid received thinking. He shows that received thinking, generally speaking, is not a key to success (:105). Further, the "economic denominator" which led to success in any given organisation would appear, more often than not, to be counter-intuitive (:106).

However, such counter-intuitive behaviour on the part of companies requires in­sight which exceeds that of estab­lished or received wisdom, and this is rare. It is particularly rare where it leads to success.

7. Collins is of the opinion that a company should "keep applying the fundamental principles that made you great" (:108). However, this surely is questionable, in view of all things being continually in flux. What made you great yesterday need not be what makes you great today.

His own text would seem to question this idea. He notes that every company which he submits as an example of the hedgehog concept made a "shift from" other pri­orities (:106). One would surely assume that they might need to do the same again. In fact all the companies surveyed by Collins currently found themselves in the midst of their current "paradigm" -- therefore his argument would seem to border on fallacy. He relegates "recent difficulties" in the companies surveyed to an epilogue (:213), and this is unsatisfactory. In short, it would appear that the "great" companies which he analyses in his book already contained the seeds of distress.

8. Collins frequently assumes character flaws -- if not worldviews that span generations of his­tory and a multitude of relationships -- as the reasons why CEOs fail to arrive suc­cessfully at the most opportune hedgehog concept. He considers that one re­quires, as pre­re­quisites for success, "egoless clarity" (:98), the avoidance of "bravado" (:111) and of "egoistic need" (:115).

It need hardly be pointed out that these are exceedingly complex moral realities, which few if any psychologists may consider either to have grasped or to have chan­neled with confidence. There are psychological, social, environmental, and spiritual factors that run much wider and deeper than mere organizational dynamics.

I myself frequently counsel persons in business, and such personal factors for success as those advanced by Collins would seem by no means to be givens. Nor are humans machines, who can overcome backstabbing, burnout, unbalanced books, company fraud, disillusionment, or adultery -- to name but a few possibilities -- to mount a convincing comeback. Yet Collins gives such factors scant mention in the book.

9. The hedgehog concept divides "the world into hedgehogs and foxes . . . two basic groups" (:90, 91). This would seem to represent both reductionism and polarisation at their best -- or worst. It would further seem typical of simplistic, rationalistic Western thinking. It is modernism, pure.

Such thinking would seem to represent a prime example of Jacques Derrida's so-called "Centre". This has been considered highly suspect in postmodern philosophy, for the reason that it both oversimplifies and leads to repression, marginsalisation, and ex­clusion. "People with experience," said Søren Kierkegaard -- before he lampooned the notion of Centres in Either/Or -- "maintain that proceeding from a basic principle is supposed to be very reas­onable."

10. Collins apparently gives little if any consideration as to how one would guarantee that the hedge­hog concept does not represent psychological closure on the part of the "research team" (:94). How should one ascertain whether they are not all like-minded Collins acolytes, who share the same rationalistic bent, drawn from the same idiosyncratic, mod­ernist culture?

An obvious example of this is the unity of simplistic thinking already described. Not least, the book shows that much of the framework for Collins' analysis was reached through "bantering" and "jump[ing] into the fray" (:95). The book could be based, that is, on intuitive insights within a homogeneous culture.

11. With regard to the Church in particular, the hedgehog concept is intended to enable one to "focus on what you can pot­en­tially do better" (:100). However, this idea is entirely anthropocentric -- namely "what you can . . . do" -- and thus arguably has nothing in common with the Church.

In the "majority Church" of the Global South, of which I am a part, one would usually consider the Church to be the result of the activity of God. The Church, therefore, is about what God is good at, not what the leader or the organisation are good at. This point would surely cast doubt on Collins' entire methodology when viewed in the context of the Church of Christ.

12. One wonders what the final purpose of employing the hedgehog concept is. In Chapter 5, "The Hedgehog Concept" (:90), Collins uses "Cumulative Stock Returns" (:93) and "Cumulative Value (:113) to gauge the success of the hedgehog concept. On six other occasions in the book, he uses "Cumulative Stock Returns" as the criterion, and on eight other oc­casions, "Cumulative Value".

There is no doubt that the bottom line for Jim Collins is "sustained, profitable growth" (:111). One wonders how this should be applied to the Church, which frequently would disavow such a correlation with "mammon", and frequently works with "social capital" rather than money. How should such an economic principle be translated to a spiritual or biblical one, if at all? This remains unaddressed.

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In short, the book would seem to represent modernism and rationalism at its zenith. It would seem to represent simplistic thinking in the extreme -- and a "simple, simple, simple" concept for all.

However, as in business, any "good to great" performance of the Church would represent a vast, inter­connected web of influences -- far more vast and subtle than one could ever begin to conceive. So, too, would the decline of Churches represent an impenetrable tangle of influences. The "hedgehog concept" is related to an infinity of influences and insights.

I do not question the fact that a hedgehog concept may accurately say something about an organisation's reasons for success -- however, I would question the (apparently) untested notion that this concept can both be identified and applied if one merely has the will to do so.

Finally, I would question whether the hedgehog concept adequately takes into account the role of a living, sovereign God in His Church. In fact, if the idea is pursued consistently, the hedgehog concept would seem to exclude God, since it assumes a cause-and-effect dynamic in a closed system. Or perhaps it is the very ex­clusion of God that would engender a hedgehog concept.

CITATION OF REFERENCE.

Collins, Jim. Good to Great. New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., 2001.