Defining Our Hedgehog

We had a fantastic Board meeting last night. It was a pretty full agenda as you can imagine based on all the things going on these days at St. Paul's. I always leave those meetings engaged, encouraged, and energized. It is a great team!

As a Board we operate under a model called Policy Governance. This means the Board governs through policy. These policies are developed in four different areas: ENDS, MEANS, EXECUTIVE, and BOARD.

Ends Policies looks at organizational purpose. Big picture stuff. What are we going to be all about?

For the past 8-10 months we have been talking about what our "Hedgehog Concept" is here at St. Paul's. The Hedgehog Concept is an idea developed (or perhaps discovered) by Jim Collins and articulated in his research-based book "Good to Great" and his later monograph "Good to Great and the Social Sectors".

Here is a summary of the Hedgehog Concept, explained on Collin's website: In his famous essay “The Hedgehog and the Fox,” Isaiah Berlin divided the world into hedgehogs and foxes, based upon an ancient Greek parable: “The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.”

     What does all this talk about hedgehogs and foxes 
     have to do with good to great? Everything.

     Those who built the good-to-great companies were, 
     to one degree or another, hedgehogs. They used           
     their hedgehog nature to drive toward what we came 
     to call a Hedgehog Concept for their companies. 
     Those who led the comparison companies tended to 
     be foxes, never gaining the clarifying advantage of 
     a Hedgehog Concept, being instead scattered, 
     diffused, and inconsistent.

I think this is a pretty compelling idea and our leaders at St. Paul's have been really wrestling with this for months. We spent a full Membership Meeting wrestling with it last Spring, a Board/LST Retreat wrestling with it this summer, and have kept at it these last few months. Collins suggests that you discover your Hedgehog Concept as an organization by answering three key questions that interconnect:

While for businesses, the third circle is about "economic engine", for churches and other social sector organizations, it is a broader resource question.

Well after 8 months of prayer, discussion, discernment, and wordsmithing, we have discovered our Hedgehog an the Board as approved it as part of our ENDS POLICIES -- that is, what we are all about!

1. WHAT ARE WE DEEPLY PASSIONATE ABOUT?
   We are deeply passionate about lost people encountering God and becoming part of a local prevailing church.

2. WHAT CAN WE BE THE BEST IN THE WORLD AT?
   We can be the best in the world at leading people through a process from being far from God to becoming fully-devoted followers of Jesus Christ, in Northeast CT.

3. WHAT DRIVES OUR RESOURCE ENGINE?
   Our most important resource are Participating Members who are fully-devoted followers of Jesus Christ.

I know some people glaze over when we start talking about this stuff, but I find it absolutely compelling and powerful! I also think this is something that we discovered, not invented. I also think it has been core to our DNA from Day #1.

Sometimes people falsely think that the vision has changed or evolved at St. Paul's over our first four years. I can honestly say that while just about everything else has changed, our vision has remained CRYSTAL CLEAR. This Hedgehog Concept helps us articulate it more clearly and will inform our decision calculus in just about everything moving forward.

By the way, you will also notice that the Hedgehog nicely aligns with our mission: ENCOUNTERING God TOGETHER and BECOMING fully devoted to following Him.

• Question #1 is about helping people ENCOUNTER.

• Question #2 is about helping people BECOME.

• Question #3 speaks to the importance of TOGETHER (as does the "prevailing local church" language in #1.)

I'd love to hear your thoughts...