Chess, change and obliquity

To bring my guest blogging time to a close here are a couple of ideas from John Kay to mull on: the first is Business lessons from chess grand masters where “People who hold to a single idea, or a fixed design, generally lose in chess, as they lose in battle, in business and in economics.”

The second introduces the notion of obliquity: achieving goals by not heading for them directly. Obliquity chimes in nicely with Dave’s practice of never asking a direct question when gathering narrative material. In summary: “Obliquity is characteristic of systems that are complex, imperfectly understood, and change their nature as we engage with them.”

Pip! Pip!