#4. Obliquity

The concept of “obliquity” (the state or condition of being oblique) was first proposed by another famous Scottish medical figure in the form of Nobel Prize winner Sir James Black, who defined it as follows:

“In business as in science, it seems that you are often most successful in achieving something when you are trying to do something else. I think of it as the principle of ‘obliquity’.”

Obliquity has been further developed by Scottish economist John Kay, who argues that often the best way of achieving our goals, especially those which are particularly complex, is to do so indirectly.

“Strange as it may seem, overcoming geographic obstacles, winning decisive battles or meeting global business targets are the type of goals often best achieved when pursued indirectly. This is the idea of obliquity. Oblique approaches are most effective in difficult terrain, or where outcomes depend on interactions with other people,” wrote Kay in 2004

The paradox presented by Kay is that if you want to go in one direction, the best route might often be to go in another. The irony of his work is that the managerialist aspirations of those of us involved in public service delivery and business lead us to mirror what we think to be the effectiveness of the rationalist approach.

We set outcomes, we attempt to control parameters, we measure and evaluate, but above all we get locked into doing things the way we have done them in the past and expect different outcomes just because we have planned them better. It was Einstein who described this as insanity, ie, “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”.

Yet what we tend to miss is that the world we inhabit is complex and imperfectly understood. Any analysis of our plans would support such a conclusion, given the extent of our certainty that we can succeed where others have failed.

So what has all this got to do with our own complex business of leadership? Well, from a personal perspective, the concept of “obliquity” strikes a chord in my intuitive understanding of how the world works.

For leadership is an iterative process that benefits from an open-minded and adaptive approach that values problem-solving and creativity. As soon as we begin to believe that we can make a predictable connection between an action and outcome, we are almost destined to fail. Who was it who said: “Results are what you expect and consequences are what you get”?

Consider the traditional approach to improving profits, or educational outcomes, or sales. Typically, we would identify the problem, plan a range of actions targeted at their deficits, and sit back expecting positive results – and then be surprised when no substantive change takes place.

An oblique approach to the problem would not tackle this directly but would, among other things, address the culture of the organisation, people’s values, and look for the unexpected elements which might just hold the key to unlocking the problem.

Yet such an approach takes courageous leadership from a leader, particularly in an environment that places undue value on sophisticated plans and confident “direct” action.