Hedgehog concept in Healthcare practice
Hedgehogs are small mammals with spines on them. According to Greek philosophy about hedgehogs and foxes Fox makes many strategies and try in multiple ways to attack the hedgehog but the hedgehog is good at only one thing. It always curls on itself to become a round ball with spikes all around and thus protects itself from the attack of foxes. Only one but effective strategy rather than multiple ineffective unfocussed strategies.
One of the differentiating features of the successful companies is they are good at hedgehog concepts as mentioned by Jim Collins. Identifying that single strategy which has to be implemented each and every time to be successful is the mantra. The strategy is different for different persons or organisations. Now let me elaborate about how to find that personalized secret sauce for success.
There are three elements of this concept:
- Passion for the work: How to identify the passion? It drives to get up every morning and feel energetic to do this work even on sundays or holidays. Will be willing to work without pay or recognition for the whole life. It also gives enthusiasm and gives a lot of happiness, joy and peace by doing this job repeatedly.
- What I am made for and can excel in it (Talent) - what are my strengths and I am genetically coded to be good at. Not only identifying what are my strengths and what I can become the best at but also identifying the things of my weaknesses and to avoid putting my energy and time into it.
- Whether this is driving my economic engine( Income): or in fact creating value to sustain my lifestyle and pursue my passion and acts as a fuel to accelerate my work.
To the center of these three circles is the intersection. Whichever company or the professionals understands and realizes these three elements either in their business or practice and work on these with consistency and discipline are likely to be successful. But it is said that only 3% of the people have this self realization about these elements and work accordingly. So what are your three elements of hedgehog in your life/ clinical practice? Just take a paper and write these three elements. The first step is to identify them and the second step is to implement and work at the intersection. See to it that there is a balance of all the three elements while implementing. This working and pursuing should be with intense discipline and consistency to succeed in our endeavours.
Let me give you an example of a hedgehog concept- One of the senior gastroenterologists even after doing thousands and thousands of ERCP procedures still has the passion to do it. ERCP is an endoscopic procedure which helps to do interventions in the biliary duct and pancreatic ducts. One of the rate limiting steps in effective ERCP ( Endoscopic Retrograde CholangioPancreatography) is selective cannulation of the intended duct. He always feels elated once he selectively negotiates the guidewire into the intended duct to cannulate. The passion is extreme. He had the talent ( genetically encoded) of having a good hand and he refined his skill over the period of time. He was determined to become the best in this art of ERCP and surely he is the best. This passion and talent acted as an economic engine to accelerate the process. He found his hedgehog strategy. He is quite consistent and disciplined in working at the intersection of the three elements. He as you guessed is
Dr Nageshwara Reddy . He is an inspiration not only for us but for the generations to come.
