The Narrowest Definition of Ambition

In the myriad ways we are no fun at parties, a few weeks ago, one of us was on a panel at an evening event for entrepreneurs. And the question of ambition came up. Specifically, Canadian ambition.

“How can we address the lack of Canadian ambition? What does the government need to do to support ambition?”

The structure of this question is so fucked on so many levels. The first is that it’s not a question at all. It’s two conclusions in a trench-coat. There is a lack of ambition does not end in a question mark. And the solution to lack of said ambition is governmental in nature also does not end in a question mark. Even if you accept the framing of the first statement, you need to do a whole bunch of jumping to get to the second.

And wait, can we go back to that first part for a sec? Can you be more specific? Which Canadians lack ambition? The more than half of Torontonians who moved here from somewhere else in the world to pursue a better life for themselves, their families, their children? Even though they didn’t know a soul when they arrived. Even though it’s cold. Those are the folks lacking in ambition? Please.

Or is it our HQ neighbours who opened one restaurant 25 years ago. And then another. And another. And another. There’s a major issue with their drive?

And if you’re quick to point out that no, no, that’s not what you mean. Then we really are going to need to dig in a bit.

Ambition is everywhere

During the first half of the year, you couldn’t throw a business football without hitting the word “Uncertainty.” We’re now squarely in the second half of the year and the word du jour is “Ambition.”

The business community simply will not shut up about ambition. We aren’t laying people off. We are making ambitious cuts to streamline operations. We aren’t cutting open headcount. We’re making ambitious investments in automation. And we’re not witnessing a massive consolidation of wealth and power. We’re entering an era of bold ambition, the likes of which the world has never seen before.

It’s really all in how you look at it. But we encourage you to look at it. Really, really look at it. The sleight of hand where ambition acts as a stand-in for Unassailable Business Good? Who benefits from that framing? Who does not? Show us any ongoing business narrative with a clear winner and a clear loser. And we’ll show you a PR team earning their retainer.

This narrow definition of ambition usually speaks to money and scale and little else. McDonald’s has far more money and far more scale than the family-run restaurants next to our office. McDonald’s is an objectively ambitious operation. But it’s not the only way to run a restaurant. And while the Golden Arches often win superlative bingo on biggest, most global, wealthiest. They struggle with best.

The excesses ambition excuses

To be clear, there’s nothing wrong with wanting to get paid. There’s nothing wrong with wanting your work to have major impact, even global scale. It’s not instantly bad to want those things just because an investment banker wants you to want them. But it’s hard to separate this definition of ambition from the context that surrounds it. And that context is, as a technical matter, slimy as fuck.

The people who tout this model of ambition have a whole cinematic universe of heroes and villains and moral dramas and cautionary tales. Heroes with ambition for wealth like Travis Kalanick, whose ambition famously started with toe-stepping and kept right on going through bullying, harassment, and abuse. Heroes with ambition for scale, like Mark Zuckerberg, who wishes we’d stop mentioning the genocides his platform facilitates and the harm that comes with using his apps because hey, scale is really really hard, bro. Heroes with ambition for power, like Elon Musk, who literally dresses up as a super hero while he cancels HIV treatment programs for children and seems tragically unable to understand why he is not more loved.

Are those things intrinsic to ambition? No, not at all. But those ambitions, co-signed by investors and boards, have been used to explain, and excuse, and keep the trains running.

And then so what should everyone else do? If that’s what ambition looks like, and ambitious is a thing you want to be, should you join one of these companies? We certainly know many people who have. Who want to work with massive scale, have global impact. And yes, honestly, who want to get paid. Maybe they tell themselves it isn’t that bad. Maybe they tell themselves they’ll change it from within. Maybe they quit after a decade and write tell-all books about the shocking, outrageous things they encountered. Or maybe they don’t quit, and just lose their sense of shock and outrage.

We also know a lot of people who opt out. They opt out of working in those shops, yeah, but more than that. They sort of opt out of the idea of ambition altogether. If ambition is this slimy thing, this wealth and scale at all costs, greed is good, self-aggrandizing, shit-eating-grin? Then no, they would rather not. It’s so utterly incompatible with their story of who they are and who they want to be that even being called ambitious lands as an insult. If that’s what ambition needs to look like, then maybe the only winning move is not to play.

You might know some of these people. They might be on your team. You might be one yourself. And if so, we want to talk.

That’s not what ambition needs to look like

Ambition is the drive to make things better. It’s the combination of hope, agency, and action. And we don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we could use a lot more of that right now? On a wide variety of files? It’s one thing to need a rest, rest whenever you need to. But opting out? Because your hopes don’t fit a narrow and superficial definition advanced by narrow and superficial people? No way.

You can be ambitious for things beyond wealth and scale and personal advancement. Let us say that again because we’ve met some folks who need to hear it. Your ambition doesn’t have to fit someone else’s definition to be valid. You can be ambitious for your non-profit to reach more people. You can be ambitious for your team to roll out the new internal tooling. You can be ambitious for a world without prisons, or hunger, or landmines. You can be ambitious for better customer-support times, or better city-bike programs. For your newsletter, or for your European expansion, or for your retirement travel.

This is not about diluting the word, this is about taking it back. And once you have a grip on it, help your team do the same. So many people we talk to try to push away ambition because it sounds too self-important. You don’t want to be a climber. You don’t relate to the ladder-climbing careerist identity and, like, fine. But that’s defined in the narrow, negative space. It’s not self-important to care about things. What does the positive space look like? Where do you wish things could be better? Where do you see opportunities that light you up?

We all lose when we accept the narrowest definition of ambition. Not because there aren’t actual humans showing up where that version applies. But because there are far more humans showing up in situations where it doesn’t. And, we promise, they are no less ambitious.

— Melissa & Johnathan