Trajectory (trans meaning across, jecto meaning to throw), the curve that a body such as a planet describes in space, a path or line of development similar to the same, is a word which is frequently used in management speak. It is what Lackoff and Johnson (1980) refer to as a ‘metaphor we live by’ in the sense that it makes intuitive, cognitive and bodily sense. It’s a spatial metaphor
with an implicit understanding that we launch our project or plan, and it rises in a gentle curve of our plotting towards an end point we have preplanned. Like physicists or rocket scientists, we can steer the vessel, the organisation or the department, in a calculated way. The appeal is also to engineering science and cybernetic systems thinking.
A document I read recently outlining a strategy had the word ‘trajectory’ peppered through it a number of times and it made me wonder about what else was being communicated. The course of the trajectory was unsurprisingly ‘upwards’, towards a better, improved position for the organisation. The metaphor implies calculation and control, as well as an ability to predict in advance what ‘better’ and ‘improved’ is going to mean. It fits broadly within the ‘life as a journey’ metaphor, where we have a destination and/or a ‘direction of travel’. It also carries with it implicit inclusion/exclusion criteria. If we want to reach the same destination, the improved position, then of course we need to travel together on this trajectory and get on the same bus/train/rocket. Otherwise we might get left behind, or we might reveal ourselves to be the kind of staff members who don’t want to travel in the first place, in which case we might not belong on the team. Anyway, who would set themselves against improvement, refusing to travel to a better destination? It’s rare to find people who want to be left behind.
So the word trajectory does a lot of work. It conveys simply the idea that managers promoting the strategy are in control and can make predictions about how things will turn out: if the calculations have been done correctly, then we will definitely arrive on the moon. It is deterministic, plotting one course. The metaphor makes instinctive sense that we can’t make any changes unless ‘we know where we’re going’ and have a ‘destination’ in mind. And at the same time it arouses a degree of anxiety about being included or excluded, along with the everyday anxiety of all travellers about showing up on time, so we don’t miss the train/opportunity.