Neil Arun didn’t want to miss a rare but risky opportunity to embed with an Iraqi police unit, hunting members of al Qaeda. But his employers -- responsible for Neil’s security -- weren’t happy. This film by Richard Pendry nvestigates how a frontline journalist balances risk and reward.
That's a bit of an exaggeration of John Kay's argument, but it's not far off. He says that the principle of 'obliquity' - the idea that complex goals are often best pursued indirectly - means that directly pursuing a goal will not be as successful as going at it in a round-about way.
His examples - the most successful businesses which have principles besides profit, wealthy people who are driven by other motives, and many others - are engaging, but they surely beg the question: if you take his advice, and try to achieve something by doing it indirectly, won't you still have your eye on the original goal, and therefore be pursuing it directly anyway?
Regardless, it's thought provoking stuff, and I've certainly taken it to heart: I'm indirectly going about writing my essay by reading long articles in the Independent. Works fine for me!
Landing on the moon...
You head straight for the moon... you crash into the moon. Orbit the moon so you can use its gravity to slow you down enough to make a safe landing... you get to run about on the moon.
Go ahead and keep that goal in mind, just take care and focus more on what it takes to get you there. Rather than the end result.
Eurgh... I must stop using space to illustrate my points.