Success, from another angle

Every now and then I come across an idea that is immediately both interesting and “feels right”. I recently came across one such idea in a podcast from Tim Hartford, his “Cautionary Tales” episode about Tony Hsieh, the billionaire CEO of Zappos. The concept is “obluiqity”, that the best way to actually reach a goal is often to not focus directly upon that goal.

The term was coined by the economist Professor Sir John Kay, who noticed that often when companies had a focus purely on profit, they were not that profitable. Regularly they failed and were sold off or went bankrupt. However when a company focused on being outstanding at providing their particular product or service, they were often far more financially successful.

As Mr. Hartford explained the idea of obliquity, I could see it in so many aspects of my own life. I never had any ambitions during my 20 year career as an engineer. I just got out of bed every morning and did the very best I could that day. That lead to a pretty successful career. Then I set out to run a small business with my Dad. We both just fell into that situation, and we had no plans for growth or profitability. We just simply provided the best customer service we could each day. And that worked out pretty well also – better than either of us expected.

From a personal finance perspective, I was reflecting after a visit with our financial planner about how we ended up in our current situation. We never had a plan for retiring at any particular age or having a certain amount in our investments. But it all worked out OK. I really was a bit puzzled – “how did we end up here?”.

I think that part of the answer is obliquity. We didn’t think about any grand plan. We were just careful with our spending each and every day. We have had some good holidays (vacations!) and purchased some nice things. But our daily purchases have been simple and minimal. And every spare cent went to either paying down debt or increasing our investments.

I feel like obliquity explains some of my past and might help to inform my future. And I think it can provide some direction for many of us … don’t worry too much about a grand goal, just get up every day and do the best you can.