1. Obliquity

Visionary companies pursue a cluster of objectives, of which making money is only one— and not necessarily the primary one. Yes, they seek profits, but they’re equally guided by a core ideology— core values and sense of purpose beyond just making money. Yet paradoxically, the visionary companies make more money than the purely profit driven companies.

— Jim Collins and Jerry Porras, Built to Last

The environment— social, commercial, natural— in which we operate changes over time and as we interact with it. Our knowledge of that complex environment is necessarily piecemeal and imperfect. And so objectives are generally best accomplished obliquely rather than directly.

5. Objectives, goals and actions: how means help us discover the end

An old story tells of a visitor who encounters three stonemasons working on a medieval cathedral, and ask each what he is doing. ‘I am cutting this stone to shape,’ says the first, describing his basic actions. ‘I am building a great cathedral,’ says the second, describing his immediate goal. ‘And I am working for the glory of God,’ says the third, describing his high-level objective. The construction of architectural masterpieces required that high objectives be pursued through lesser, but nonetheless fulfilling, goals and actions.

Objectives, goals, states and actions evolve together because learning about the nature of high-level goals is a never-ending process. The distinction between means and ends, which seems obvious and important in simple problem solving, is, as Lindblom explains, not central to practical decision making. The process in which well defined and prioritised objectives are broken down into specific states and actions whose progress can be monitored and measured is not the reality of how people find fulfilment in their lives, create great art, establish great societies or build good businesses.

The person closest to the problem often has the most accurate information about it. What they tend to lack is a broader perspective. The person working on the line at McDonald’s knows how to fix a recurring problem at their restaurant better than a person merely analyzing some data. What they don’t know is how it fits into the bigger picture. They don’t know whether the problem exists everywhere, or whether the solution wold cause more harm than good if implemented globally, or how to roll the idea out to everyone.