If Tolstoy were an investment manager...
In meetings with colleagues, clients or suppliers you’ve probably never stopped to wonder – are they hedgehogs or foxes? That’s unless you've ever read Isaiah Berlin's tongue-in-cheek literary essay, “The Hedgehog and the Fox”. But this could make a big difference to the eventual outcome of discussions if you understand which kind of animal you’re dealing with. MBMG International's Paul Gambles writes.
Berlin was moved to write the essay by realising that, unlike most people, Leo Tolstoy didn’t fall into one of the two categories identified by ancient Greek poet Archilochus: “The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.”
This doesn't pre-suppose that wide-ranging knowledge is better than concentrated knowledge. After all, it may be that the fox, for all his agility, is defeated by the hedgehog’s simple solitary defence of rolling into a spiky ball. Hedgehogs see the world through a single defining idea. They include Plato, Dante, Hegel, Nietzsche and Proust. Foxes’ views are shaped by a wide variety of experiences. Foxes include Aristotle, Shakespeare, Goethe, Balzac and Joyce.
Tolstoy, however, was different. Superficially he didn't fit either group. Berlin believes Tolstoy had the skills of a fox but was constrained by his belief in the need to behave like a hedgehog.
