So, the John Lewis Partnership is the UK’s most successful retailer. Or at least it appears to be riding such a wave of popularity at the moment that it’s about the only institution that could cause a bout of national cheering by announcing annual bonuses of 16 per cent for its bosses. Of course, the whole point of the John Lewis model is that it’s not just the bosses getting the bonuses. All “partners”—that’s employees to you and me—get the same.

It’s perhaps the best recent example of what economist John Kay calls Obliquity. This idea, explained in Kay’s elegant new book of the same name (reviewed in the forthcoming April issue of Director), is that the best way to achieve an objective is by aiming somewhere else: the indirect route. Thus, the John Lewis Partnership’s mission is to look after the interests of its staff, with good pay, proper training, a generous defined benefit pension scheme and a range of fringe benefits that includes subsidised holidays. Engaged employees in turn look after customers, who spend more and thus bring in higher profits. As long as management keeps costs under control, it’s a roundabout recipe for success.

So why not just set the mission as maximising profits? Because, shows Kay—drawing on an encyclopaedic knowledge of strategy gained from teaching the subject at London Business School—it doesn’t work. His book is bursting with examples of good businesses that have gone bad by taking too direct an approach. Last year, no less a figure than Jack Welch poured scorn on the notion of growing shareholder value as a key business objective. Now here’s Kay to explain why.

But are there lessons in this oblique approach for politics? Let’s hope so. As the lack of distinction between the main political parties drags us further into a fake war of two-dimensional personalities (tough-guy versus toff-guy), maybe it’s time for politicians to stand up for something they really believe in. In a policy vacuum, the first politician to make a clear, brave and honest pledge to do the right thing for the economy and for society as a whole—regardless of how it might play in the focus groups—would just as likely clean up at the polls.

Richard Cree

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