They follow a trajectory that is oblique. Obliquity describes the process of achieving complex objectives indirectly.

In general, the oblique approaches recognise that complex objectives tend to be imprecisely defined and contain many elements that are not necessarily or obviously compatible with each other, and that we learn about the nature of the objectives and the means of achieving them during a process of experiment and discovery.

Part 2: The need for obliquity

7. Muddling through

In 1959, Charles Lindblom described ‘The science of “Muddling Through”’. He contrasted two modes of decision making. The root, rational, comprehensive method was direct and involved a single comprehensive evaluation of all options in the light of defined objectives. The oblique approach was characterized by what he called successive limited comparison. Lindblom called the latter ‘the science of muddling through’.

‘Muddling through’ was a process of ‘initially building out from the current situation, step-by-step and by small degrees’.

Applied to geopolitical events, or complex businesses, the methods collapsed. These latter problems are best tackled, not by moral algebra, but obliquely: they involve high-level objectives achieved through adaptation and iteration, with constant rebalancing of incompatible and incommensurable components that are imperfectly known but acquired as the process goes on.

Conclusions

21. The practice of obliquity

There is not, and will not be, such a science. Our objectives are typically imprecise and multi-faceted, and change as we work towards them, and properly so. Our decisions depend on the responses of others and on what we anticipate those responses will be. The world is complex, imperfectly known, and our knowledge of it is incomplete, and theses things will remain true however much we learn and however much we analyse it.

We do not solve problems in the way the concept of decision science implies because we can’t. The achievement of the great statesman is not to reach the best decision fastest but to mediate effectively among competing views and values.

When faced with a task that daunts you, a project that you find difficult, begins by doing something. Choose a small component that seems potentially relevant to the task. While it seems to make sense to plan everything before you start, mostly you can’t: objectives are not clearly enough defined, the nature of the problem keeps shifting, it is too complex, and you lack sufficient information. The direct approach is simply impossible. Every writer has experience of sitting at a blank page, waiting for inspiration. The wait is often lengthy. Get it down. That is how this book was written, and it couldn’t have been done in any other way.