Obliquity: Why Our Goals Are Best Achieved Indirectly

Written by John Kay

Narrated by Erik Synnestvedt

A leading economist charts the indirect road to happiness and wealth.

Using dozens of practical examples from the worlds of business, politics, science, sports, literature, even parenting, esteemed economist John Kay proves a notion that feels at once paradoxical and deeply commonsensical: The best way to achieve any complex or broadly defined goal-from happiness to wealth to profit to preventing forest fires-is the indirect way. As Kay points out, we rarely know enough about the intricacies of important problems to tackle them head-on. And our unpredictable interactions with other people and the world at large mean that the path to our goals-and sometimes the goals themselves-will inevitably change. We can learn about our objectives and how to achieve them only through a gradual process of risk taking and discovery-what Kay calls obliquity.

Kay traces this pathway to satisfaction as it manifests itself in nearly every aspect of life. The wealthiest people-from Andrew Carnegie to Bill Gates-achieved their riches through a passion for their work, not because they set materialistic goals. Research has shown that companies whose goal (as declared in mission statements) is excellent products or service are more profitable than companies whose stated goal is increasing profits. In the personal realm, a large body of evidence shows that parenthood is on a daily basis far more frustrating than happy- making. Yet parents are statistically happier than nonparents. Though their short-term pleasure is often thwarted by the demands of childrearing, the subtle-oblique-rewards of parenthood ultimately make them happier.

Once he establishes the ubiquity of obliquity, Kay offers a wealth of practical guidance for avoiding the traps laid by the direct approach to complex problems. Directness blinds us to new information that contradicts our presumptions, fools us into confusing logic with truth, cuts us off from our intuition (which is the subconscious expression of our experience), shunts us away from alternative solutions that may be better than the one we're set on, and more. Kay also shows us how to acknowledge our limitations, redefine our goals to fit our skills, open our minds to new data and solutions, and otherwise live life with obliquity.

This bracing manifesto will convince listeners-or confirm their conviction-that the best route to satisfaction and success does not run through the bottom line.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ascent Audio
• Release date: Jun 13, 2011
• ISBN: 9781596598362

John Kay

John Kay is a visiting professor at the London School of Economics, and a Fellow of St John's College, Oxford. He is a director of several public companies and contributes a weekly column to the Financial Times. He chaired the UK government review of Equity Markets which reported in 2012 recommending substantial reforms. He is the author of many books, including the best-selling Obliquity (2010).

Reviews for Obliquity

[steve55_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

We live in a world where increasingly we believe that technology will answer our problems, and even our prayers. With sufficient effort, money and computing power, we can find the solution to any problem, and where we don’t it’s simply that we applied Insufficient effort, money and computing power and must try harder next time. The result is an unstoppable flow of instant solutions each attempting to address the problems created by its predecessor.In this well-written and thoughtful book John Kay sets out why, in the real world, direct solutions are seldom the ones that work and how real change is approached not directly, but obliquely.The book is divided into three sections. In the first Kay cites instances of oblique decision making in all aspects of our everyday lives. Section two explains why this is the case and how direct approaches are simply not possible. In section three he sets out guidance on how obliquity can be applied effectively.This book is not against the application of scientific methods, nor an advocate for decision making based on intuition. Rather it recognises the true nature of the interconnected world and the impossibility of calculating the consequences of our actions in advance of those actions being made. It offers a well-reasoned argument for an alternative that will feel familiar to us in our everyday lives, but is rare in decision making elsewhere.The following paragraphs from the book illustrate the approach:-“In business, in politics and in our personal lives we do not solve problems directly. The objectives we manage are multiple, incommensurable and partly incompatible. The consequences of what we do depend on responses, both natural and human, that we cannot predict. The systems we try to manage are too complex for us to fully understand. We never have the information about the problem, or the future we face, that we might wish for.”“But the idea that moral algebra is really the right way to make decisions, even if we eventually fail to use it, is deeply ingrained. So we tell ourselves that we are really using moral algebra when our real decision making process is oblique – we play Franklin’s Gambit. Franklin’s Gambit is perhaps the most common fault in decision making. – and particularly in public decision making – today. There is an appearance of describing objectives, evaluating options, reviewing evidence. But it is a sham. The objectives are dictated by the conclusions, the options presented so as to make the favoured course look attractive, the data selected to favour the desired result. Real alternatives are not assessed rigorously: policy-based evidence supplants evidence-based policy.”This is a thought provoking book that I recommend to anyone trying to make sense of how decision making works or more often doesn’t work.

[nandadevi_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

As others have said, this book falls somewhere short of what it might have been. The simple core concept, how sometimes getting to the destination is (or appears to be) best achieved by roundabout rather than (apparently) direct methods is interesting, and more importantly rings true from our own experience and observations. But rather than tackling or unravelling the question of why this might be so, John Kay spends most of the book looking for examples of this and fails most dramatically when trying to apply the theory to the history of corporate America. While stating that the attitude of a Corporate CEO is immaterial to the success or failure of an organisation (page 117), he tries repeatedly (pages 19-28) to convince the reader that 'Vision Statements' of various Corporations are reliable indicators of whether a Corporation is focussed on profit seeking or some more 'oblique' goal. He fails to see that 'Vision Statements' are largely intended to inform (or deceive in some cases) people outside the Corporation, and even where they are a best attempt to define the real 'soul' of a Corporation, it is usually the case that various parts of a Corporation are being pulled in different directions, and that Corporate aims change over time. I rather suspect the author or the editor was looking to position this book 'front and centre' in the Corporate 'must read' list.Unfortunately the concept of obliqueness doesn't lend itself readily to commoditization. Certainly not in the sense of a magic bullet or 'killer payoff'. That is not to say that there is no point at all to obliqueness, that its existence has no purpose except to underscore the pointlessness of striving or seeking anything - as in the Zen and Taoist saying, "Those that seek the way will not find the way, do not seek the way and you will find it." A less hurried study of the subject might have brought (or brought more to the centre) the issues of how our definition of goals and intentions are hedged about by questions of opportunity and competence, and how our understanding of what is 'direct' and what is 'oblique' is in many ways a very subjective thing. Kay gets close when he refers to the theory of 'Muddling Through', but he seems to only bring that forward to bolster his own 'product', which is - it seems to me - no product at all. And - at least in the manner he presents it - 'Muddling Through' is (like 'Obliquity') little more than an interesting idea which hasn't yet found anyone to back it up with some solid theorizing. I long to hear someone talk about the angles that this throws up, issues of amortizing risk, developing ownership, overcoming resistance, how flexibility can be a virtue and a impediment to achieving 'ends', and how pressure to succeed can both drive, and inhibit, success.In the sense that it made me think about such things, and even regret that this book didn't address them, this book was a worthwhile read. I appreciate (my fellow LibraryThing member) Parthurbook's out-reference to Handy and Gladwell, and will follow up reading them. As for this book, I suspect its success is partly down to the marketing which suggests there is a 'killer payoff' inside, but apart from that I think people recognize that there's something in the concept. Unfortunately this book seems to be no more than the sign pointing the way. Perhaps some bright young thing will kick this further down the road some day. Recommended, with all of the usual cautions.

[ten_floors_up · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

With apologies to a previous reviewer, a book about the virtues of the oblique approach to achieving goals would quite possibly contradict itself if it had a "killer payoff", though I think I know what they mean. An interesting book, and admirably direct when it comes to sources and indexing, perhaps unlike some books with a more proselytizing (and commercial) bent. That said, no one writes a book without the aim of selling a few copies.

[parthurbook · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Kay is a terrific writer and a man with enough experience of life to know that theory is always superceded by reality. So this should have been - and is very nearly - as good as the best Handy or Gladwell. And yet it just misses a beat, because having brilliantly established and illustrated its premise, it doesn't really go anywhere, nor have a 'killer pay-off'. Which is a great shame, because there's a lot in here to which many of our leaders - political and corporate - should pay great attention. A very good book; not quite a great one.