Feynman's Obliquity | LSW#41
The direct vs oblique approach to reaching our aspirations
Today’s post is the final one in my series on goals. The rest of the posts in this series are here. Recent editions ICYMI:
In my previous edition titled Good Goals Gone Bad, I highlighted how an exclusive focus on pre-determined, outcome-focused goals often blinds us to the emergent. At its worse, this can even lead to disengagement and burnout.
So I was gratified to come across a particularly poignant and revelatory piece of writing from Nobel laureate physicist Richard Feynman, which captures many of the key points I made about positivist vs constructionist approach to goals.
A Nobel Prize for piddling around
The young Feynman was going through a depressive phase and was disengaged with his work at the time. It included some major imposter syndrome as well.
During this period I would get offers from different places universities and industry with salaries higher than my own. And each time I got something like that I would get a little more depressed.
I would say to myself, "Look, they're giving me these wonderful offers, but they don't realize that I'm burned out! Of course I can't accept them. They expect me to accomplish something, and I can't accomplish anything! I have no ideas. . ."
One offer in particular bothered him the most:
Institute for Advanced Study! Special exception! A position better than Einstein, even! It was ideal; it was perfect; it was absurd!
It was absurd. The other offers had made me feel worse, up to a point. They were expecting me to accomplish something. But this offer was so ridiculous, so impossible for me ever to live up to, so ridiculously out of proportion. The other ones were just mistakes; this was an absurdity!
He was burdened by the positivist expectations he’d imposed on himself. While others might not have intended it that way, his experience of it very much was. And this took a toll.
What turned it around for him was doing a complete 180 and reframing it as play instead of wilting under the pressure of positivism.
And then I thought to myself, "You know, what they think of you is so fantastic, it's impossible to live up to it. You have no responsibility to live up to it!"
It was a brilliant idea: You have no responsibility to live up to what other people think you ought to accomplish. I have no responsibility to be like they expect me to be. It's their mistake, not my failing.
He doubled down on this notion of engaging with his original naiveté that rekindled his passion for physics. While it was aimless from an outsider’s perspective, it set in motion the process that ultimately led to him winning the Nobel Prize.
Then I had another thought: Physics disgusts me a little bit now, but I used to enjoy doing physics. Why did I enjoy it?
I used to play with it. I used to do whatever I felt like doing it didn't have to do with whether it was important for the development of nuclear physics, but whether it was interesting and amusing for me to play with. …
So I got this new attitude. Now that I am burned out and I'll never accomplish anything, I've got this nice position at the university teaching classes which I rather enjoy, and just like I read the Arabian Nights for pleasure, I'm going to play with physics, whenever I want to, without worrying about any importance whatsoever.
Within a week I was in the cafeteria and some guy, fooling around, throws a plate in the air. As the plate went up in the air I saw it wobble, and I noticed the red medallion of Cornell on the plate going around. It was pretty obvious to me that the medallion went around faster than the wobbling.
I had nothing to do, so I start to figure out the motion of the rotating plate. I discover that when the angle is very slight, the medallion rotates twice as fast as the wobble rate two to one. It came out of a complicated equation! Then I thought, "Is there some way I can see in a more fundamental way, by looking at the forces or the dynamics, why it's two to one?"
I don't remember how I did it, but I ultimately worked out what the motion of the mass particles is, and how all the accelerations balance to make it come out two to one.
I still remember going to Hans Bethe and saying, "Hey, Hans! I noticed something interesting. Here the plate goes around so, and the reason it's two to one is. . ." and I showed him the accelerations.
He says, "Feynman, that's pretty interesting, but what's the importance of it? Why are you doing it?"
"Hah!" I say. "There's no importance whatsoever. I'm just doing it for the fun of it." His reaction didn't discourage me; I had made up my mind I was going to enjoy physics and do whatever I liked.
I went on to work out equations of wobbles. Then I thought about how electron orbits start to move in relativity. Then there's the Dirac Equation in electrodynamics. And then quantum electrodynamics. And before I knew it (it was a very short time) I was "playing" working, really with the same old problem that I loved so much, that I had stopped working on when I went to Los Alamos: my thesis type problems; all those old fashioned, wonderful things.
Hans Bethe’s question of “what’s the importance of it? Why are you doing it?” is classic positivist goal-thinking which trips up many of us. Unlike Feynman, in our case it’s not someone else but we ourselves doing the questioning.
Feynman ends the piece with these iconic words:
There was no importance to what I was doing, but ultimately there was. The diagrams and the whole business that I got the Nobel Prize for came from that piddling around with the wobbling plate.
— from Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman
This leads us to the key point in this edition: the oblique approach to goals.
The Direct (D) vs The Oblique (O)
In one of my all-time-favorite books, Obliquity, John Kay highlights the differences between a direct approach vs an oblique approach to decision-making and problem-solving:
In obliquity there are no predictable connections between intentions and outcomes. Oblique problem solvers do not evaluate all available alternatives: they make successive choices from a narrow range of options.
Effective decision makers are distinguished not so much by the superior extent of their knowledge as by their being aware of its limitations. Problem solving is iterative and adaptive rather than direct. Good decision makers are not identified by their ability to provide compelling accounts of how they reached their conclusions.
The most complex systems come into being, and function, without anyone having knowledge of the whole. Good decision makers are eclectic and tend to regard consistency as a mark of stubbornness, or ideological blindness, rather than as a virtue.
Rationality is not defined by good processes; irrationality lies in persisting with methods and actions that plainly do not work—including the methods and actions that commonly masquerade as rationality.
He highlights the differences between the approaches along 9 key dimensions:
Intentionality
What happens is what we intend to happen. (D)
Outcomes arise through complex processes whose totality no one fully grasps. (O)
Limited comparison
Actions are selected after scanning all available alternatives. (D)
Actions are chosen from a constricted subset of options by successive limited comparison. (O)
Information
Decisions are made on the basis of fullest possible information. (D)
Decisions are made after recognizing that only limited knowledge of the world is or can be available. (O)
Eclecticism
Good decisions are made through explicit statement of objectives and a clear view of the world. (D)
Good decision making is eclectic in its use of models, narratives and sources of evidence. (O)
Adaptation
The best outcome is achieved through conscious processes of maximization. (D)
Good outcomes are derived through continual (but often unsuccessful) adaptation to constantly changing circumstances. (O)
Expertise
Rules can be defined that allow people (or machines) to find solutions. (D)
The expert can do things that others can’t — and can only rarely learn. (O)
Direction
Order is achieved by a directing mind. (D)
Order often emerges spontaneously. (O)
Consistency
The rational decision maker is consistent. (D)
Consistency is a minor, and possibly dangerous, virtue. (O)
Process rationality
Good decisions are the product of a structured and careful process of calculation. (D)
Good decisions are the outcome of good judgment. (O)
Notice how the standard approach to goals, OKRs, and strategy, especially in corporate setups, is steeped in the philosophy of directness while trying to minimize uncertainty, but which also means ignoring the opportunity of obliquity.
This spills over into our personal endeavors as well.
Jeff Bezos calls the oblique approach “wandering”, and also the primary reason failure is built into Amazon’s philosophy. A certain amount of naïveté is almost a requirement in order to pull off anything unconventional.
My point is not that the direct approach is wrong, but that we over-index on it at the cost of equally effective, and often what we actually need, oblique approaches. It’s worthwhile to spend some time with your goals and consider if you have obliquity built into your strategy, or if you are actively trying to eliminate it.
⚡️Announcement! ⚡️
Next week, I’m starting a new series on what I call Organizational Stagecraft. It’s often the missing piece that stops well-deserving, conscientious folks from reaching their full potential in careers, despite being excellent at what they do.
If you’ve ever told yourself “I don’t like to play politics” or “My work should speak for itself”, you’ll find this series useful.
I’m also building out a cohort program on Organizational Stagecraft. Stay tuned and watch for updates in this space.