#5 The Hedgehog and the Fox: Personality Traits that predict (startup) success
There are all sorts of ways to categorize humans. Humans that are nice and bad, humans that are vegetarians and omnivores, humans that are religious or atheists. Left handed and right handed. Those that have Michael as the GOAT and those who have Lebron.
I remember when I was younger that the most common differentiation we would hear about would be the left brain vs right brain people. The behind that idea was that the left brain was better at things like language and rhythm, while the right brain was better at emotions and melody. The theory also suggested that the two halves are totally separated.
This total separation has been proven to be a myth, however it is clear that one side of the brain is more dominant in each person. If you’re mostly analytical and methodical in your thinking, the theory says that you’re left-brained. If you tend to be more creative or artistic, you’re probably right-brained.
Personally I think I am more left brained than most of the artists I know and more right brained than most of the orderly business oriented people i know. I took a test to verify my assumption. I was right.
You can check out yours here - the test takes 10 minutes max. You can leave a comment with your result.
I am not sure if I have reached a perfect harmony, at least not yet. However, a question that I (and i guess more people) wonder about is if their brain and personality are serving them well and supporting them towards their purpose and goals, whatever those may be. In order to do that, i would like to jump in another interesting way to categorize people: in Hedgehogs and Foxes.
Small background: The Hedgehog and the Fox: An Essay on Tolstoy's View of History is an essay that was written by a British philosopher, Isaiah Berlin and was published as a book back in 1953.
(This guy Isaiah Berlin has been mostly famous for his studies on liberty and more particularly on positive vs negative liberty).
Back to the Hedgehog and the fox.
Talking about his work, Berlin said, "I meant it as a kind of enjoyable intellectual game, but it was taken seriously. Every classification throws light on something".
This is the full paper for the brave ones who want to read the full story.
So, what is a fox and the hedgehog in the context of Berlin’s work?
“The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.” This ancient Greek aphorism describes the central thesis of Berlin’s essay. Although there have been many interpretations and assumptions, Berlin uses this point in order to suggest a fundamental distinction between human beings.
Those who are fascinated by the infinite variety of things (the foxes)
Those who relate everything to a central, all-embracing system (the hedgehogs)
Can you put a label to yourself? Are you a fox or a hedgehog? It’s not always easy to answer. Berlin’s essay also examines Tolstoy and concludes that the great Russian writer of “War and Peace” was a fox, but believed in being a hedgehog.
If you havent decided what you are, take this test and answer these very nicely crafted questions. My results are below.
So I am a closer to a hedgehog. Is this a good thing? Depends.
Personality Traits for (startup) success:
I read a brilliant article around the personality traits of startup founders. Researchers have identified that the personality traits of successful start-up founders, in particular, the core ‘big five’ traits (openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism) – significantly differ from that of the population at large and are typically heightened in entrepreneurs.
“Our study shows that there isn’t a single ‘founder-type’ personality. Instead, we find that six different personality types appear in the founders of successful start-ups displaying common personality traits, which we identify as fighters, operators, accomplishers, leaders, engineers and developers.”
Dr Fabian Braesemann
Another core part of running a company as a founder is about being prepared for the future, being ready for the unknown, being good at forecasting, at predicting things in an unpredictable world.
In this great book called: Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction, the writers Tetlock and Gardner conclude that:
Some people are much better at forecasting than others. Daah!
People can be trained to become better at predicting the future. (there is hope)
Foxes make better forecasters than hedgehogs.
Hedgehogs like me mostly make predictions based on their unshakeable belief in what they see as a few fundamental truths. Foxes, on the other side, try to make forecasts by drawing on diverse pieces of evidence and ideas. When new information becomes available a fox is likely to adjust the forecast based on that information, whereas the hedgehog will likely discount or not pay that much attention to the new data. For a fox, being wrong is an opportunity to learn new things.
But there is hope. You see, the research also focused on the importance of diversity. More specifically, they found start-ups with diverse and specific combinations of founder types – an adventurous’ leader’, an imaginative ‘engineer’, and an extroverted ‘developer’, for example – had significantly higher odds of success.
So why not a slightly right minded hedgehog as well?
I think that a company might benefit from both hedgehogs and foxes. In my team i am dealing with both kinds of folks and i feel that these two types of personalities are very complementary: They are able to support and complete the puzzle in a very wholesome and productive way.
How Can You Improve Your Own Prediction Skills?
According to Zweig, hedgehogs don’t need to give up. Being better at predicting is something that someone can learn and practice. How? Here is a starting guide and an article.
One of the nicest, funniest and absurd stories i have heard recently is the one about this guy, Daniel Gould, who was a professional gambler and spent all his savings on a bet around the Eurovision contest. You can read/listen to it here. This story explains with the best possible way the characteristics of excellent forecasters and how being a fox can help in this direction. It also shows how some hedgehog qualities can also help.
Exercise: Consider the key players in your team, family, environment. Are there enough foxes and hedgehogs? If the answer is yes, then you are in good company.
P.S. 1 - The implications of the research obviously goes beyond start-ups: it adds a new dimension to understanding the drivers of team performance and success in different settings, such as sports, research, policymaking, or entrepreneurship. It is the diversity of different personality combinations in a team that influences group dynamics and long-term success.
Till next time,