John Kay

If unplanned social interactions are the key to a vibrant city, they are also the key to a vibrant organisation.

On the 27th March, John spoke at an event hosted by Policy Exchange on the issues of obliquity, long-term decision making and the limitations of knowledge in relation to energy and transport policy. Watch it here.

If you want to go in one direction, the best route may involve going in another. This is the concept of ‘obliquity’: paradoxical as it sounds, many goals are more likely to be achieved when pursued indirectly. Whether overcoming geographical obstacles, winning decisive battles or meeting sales targets, history shows us that oblique approaches are the most successful, especially in difficult terrain.

 
The US edition of Obliquity is now available.
 
You can order Obliquity – US edition, in hardback now for £10 (incl. p&p to the UK and Europe).

John’s latest book Obliquity has now been released in many different languages, in countries all over the world. They include the US, Germany, Brazil, Italy, China, Korea, Taiwan, Turkey, Holland, Japan, Hungary and Portugal.

INET (the Institute for New Economic Thinking) is an initiative kick-started by George Soros to promote a more pluralist approach to economic thinking in the wake of the financial crisis. John is a member of the INET advisory board. INET is based in New York (http://ineteconomics.org/) and has sponsored major conferences at King’s College, Cambridge, in [...]

On April 14, the US edition of Obliquity was published by Penguin Press USA.  For an early review by the Wall Street Journal, click here.  To buy it click here.

Consistency is the defining principle of rational choice theory. John looks instead to Ralph Waldo Emerson ‘a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds’.

Today Robert Teitelman in New York wrote a blog on The Deal called Appreciating John Kay.

Sophistication of method is used to torture data to reveal conclusions that do not obviously follow from them, but which fit either the researchers’ preconceptions or the sponsor’s policy objectives, or both.