The Indirect Approach

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At RubyStar we love a book called Obliquity by John Kay, and it is a great fit with lots of our approach. It’s one of the reasons why we caution small businesses against setting too many goals.

We believe that if we set too many goals it can lead to:

• Loss of focus
• Loss of motivation
• Tendency to increase effort, spend and resources on the wrong things, rather than divert them

Goals can also encourage linear thinking which can be restrictive and can stifle innovation.

In the real world problem solving is iterative, which means we make sucesssive choices from a narrow range of options – we don’t often make choices based on all possible options.

If influences and consequences are unpredictable, or where outcomes depend on the interaction of people, markets and organisations, even high level objectives require a constant and tricky balance between progress and compromise.

The Obliquity approach recognises that:

• Objectives are usually multi-dimensional and inter-dependant
• We learn about our goals though muddling through and analysis, not by linear actions
• Over simplification of complex problems, is naïve, and sometimes dangerous
• There is often more than one possible answer to a problem or route to achieving your goal
• We too often infer design from outcome

So next time you are beating yourself up about one of your milestones, take time to check whether it is really a vital stage to achieving your broader purpose, and if its not…. set it free.