Obliquity: Why our goals are best achieved indirectly

'Persuasive, rigorous, creative and wise. Brilliant' TIM HARFORD

'Kay is both a first-class economist and an excellent writer' FINANCIAL TIMES

It may feel paradoxical, but in business and in life, our goals are often best achieved when approaching them indirectly. In a traffic jam, the quickest route home might involve going the long way round. Those who deliberately seek love rarely find it and the endless pursuit of happiness often leads to misery. For a corporation, focus on cutting-edge engineering, new technology or a unique product is what generates profit; making profit the sole purpose of a business usually leads to its collapse.

From the celebrated economist John Kay, Obliquity is a manifesto for aiming slightly off-target. In this provocative thesis, Kay deals with everything from football to forest fires to show how problems are best solved when thought of obliquely, and shows us how to achieve our objectives through a gradual process of risk-taking and discovery.