Organisational Behaviour

Who decided what ambition looks like?

Poornima Luthra — Wed, 15 Jan 2025 12:14:02 +0000

Who decided what ambition looks like?

Poornima Luthra Wed, 15/01/2025 - 12:14

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Article at a glance

Women do not lack ambition. Dr Poornima Luthra explains that workplaces are still structured in ways that make career progression hard to sustain.

As a result, women are redefining ambition on their own terms, with many turning to entrepreneurship rather than climbing the corporate ladder.

The sheer volume of women leaving their jobs should serve as a wake-up call.
Businesses must rethink how “ambition” and “success” are defined by evaluating their workplace systems and cultures to make sure talent is not being lost due to poorly designed systems.

"Ambition” and “success” need redefining

Women do not lack ambition, as the 2025 Women in the Workplace McKinsey & Company report concludes. But there is a cost to success which has prompted many women to leave the workforce. Ambition is about growth and challenge; it's a personal driver which reflects our individuality.

A recent CNN Business report found that almost half a million women had left their jobs in the US between January and October in 2025 for reasons ranging from poor work-life balance, the cost and challenges of accessing childcare and toxic workplace cultures.

These pressures reflect a deeper structural issue: many workplaces were not designed with diverse career paths or life circumstances in mind.

As a result, many women are turning to entrepreneurship. Women are now starting nearly half of the businesses in the US, according to a recent article in Forbes magazine. A 2024 Wells Fargo Impact of Women-Owned Business Report cites the number of women-owned businesses increasing at nearly double the rate of male-owned businesses between 2019 and 2023. Choosing entrepreneurship doesn’t signal lower ambition. It often signals the opposite — ambition on one’s own terms.

When organisations fail to support diverse forms of ambition, they risk losing talented employees.

Why is this a business problem

The sheer volume of women leaving their jobs should serve as a wake-up call to business leaders. Many organisations are still largely run by men, and gender biases, both subtle and explicit, continue to shape workplace culture. When organisations fail to support diverse forms of ambition, they risk losing talented employees.

How business leaders can redefine ambition and success

We need to make both cultural and organisational changes, with a long, hard look at what ambition and success should look like. Business leaders must redefine these constructs for the workforce and next generation:

On the systems side, leaders must revisit hiring, promotion criteria, pay structures and performance evaluation. If we define ambition solely as vertical progression, we will continue to reproduce inequality and risk losing talented employees.

On the cultural side, leaders must model sustainable success. That means realistic expectations, visible boundary-setting, and rejecting the idea that heroic sacrifice equals commitment.

All leaders and team members should have the agency to challenge bias in their own teams.

Conversations about equity of opportunity must start early, in classrooms and around dining tables, as we speak to young people about success.

Before we question women’s ambition, we need to question the systems we’ve built. If the goal isn’t desirable, the cost is too high and the support isn’t there, disengagement cannot be named as a lack of ambition. It’s simply a rational response to inappropriately designed systems.

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Why your business goals are holding your team back

Guy Voichek — Wed, 15 Jan 2025 12:14:02 +0000

Why your business goals are holding your team back

Guy Voichek Wed, 15/01/2025 - 12:14

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Article at a glance

Setting concrete goals can backfire by locking people into sub-optimal ways of working, according to research by Assistant Professor of Marketing Guy Voichek

Making progress towards a goal increases perceived effectiveness of established approaches, reducing openness to better alternatives

Leaders can counter this bias by building in structured reflection

Targets matter, but so does the means of pursuit

Every year we make resolutions. Every quarter we set targets. Everywhere we measure progress. Setting concrete goals can motivate people to stay on track towards becoming healthier, wealthier and happier. But sometimes the track we choose is not the best way to get there and our focus on achievement can backfire because we undervalue alternative routes.

Dr Voichek’s paper reveals a surprising way in which setting goals can go wrong. When people aim for a specific goal and begin pursuing it via a particular path, early progress inflates the perceived effectiveness of that path, making people less likely to adopt a superior, alternative route.

Progress creates a bias in effectiveness

Through a series of studies spanning diverse areas such as health, finance and work, the authors saw a consistent pattern of behaviour. In one study, participants committed to earning a specific amount of money before beginning a task. After making initial progress using one type of task and earning some money, they became less likely to switch to an easier, higher-paying task, compared to participants who did not set a goal before beginning work. Making progress towards a concrete goal led participants to view the initial approach as a more effective way to earn money, and alternative tasks as less effective. As a result, participants with a concrete earning goal ultimately earned less than those without a specific goal in mind.

Thankfully, there is a simple way to overcome this: rather than focusing only on whether your current actions advance your goal, also consider how different paths might advance it. A reminder to consider the advantages of both current and alternative ways of working mitigated the entrenchment caused by concrete goals, one study revealed.

Once people made progress, they judged their chosen approach as more effective.

The risk of overly specific targets

Once progress metrics are embedded into dashboards, performance reviews and incentives, flexibility becomes even harder. Teams that are “on target” are rarely encouraged to question how they got there. Yet markets, technologies and competitive conditions change constantly. The danger is not only poor goal setting but rigidly sticking to the old methods that have worked in the past for acquiring those targets.

What can business leaders take from this?

Organisations often become more rigid than the people that create them. It's a powerful tendency: when we are satisfied with how things are going, we don’t question our methods.

This research adds an important dimension to our understanding of how concrete goals can produce entrenchment.

How organisations can counteract this:

Institutionalise reflection: Build in regular checkpoints that require teams to explicitly evaluate alternative ways of achieving their goals. Instruct employees to ask not only whether they are on track, but whether they are on the best track.

Reward course correction: Incentivise employees to change direction when doing so makes sense, rather than implicitly reward persistence for its own sake. Consistency should not be confused with efficiency.

Maintain high-level goals: remind people that most goals can be pursued in multiple ways, and that any given method is a means – not an end.

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Swatch: 8 actionable lessons from a pioneering brand

Omar Merlo — Wed, 15 Jan 2025 12:14:02 +0000

Swatch: 8 actionable lessons from a pioneering brand

Omar Merlo Wed, 15/01/2025 - 12:14

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Gen Z may not have the same memories of Swatch that Baby Boomers or Gen X have, but the brand remains a gold standard in entrepreneurship, marketing and leadership. It saved an entire industry in its Swiss homeland and has had a lasting impact on the global watch market.

To ensure these lessons are not lost in the past, I have had the privilege of collaborating with a key member of the brand's original team and its first marketing director, Dr Konstantin Theile. Our book The Dawn of Swatch: Timeless Strategies in Business, Marketing, and Entrepreneurship, reveals lessons that are just as valuable for business leaders today as they were over four decades ago.

Swatch's success offers many lessons – here are just eight of the most actionable for today’s marketers, leaders and entrepreneurs.

1. Flip weaknesses into assets. Swatch was born from an industry on its knees and desperately needing to make a step-change to survive. Cue a small visionary core team of the right people at the right time. It was their perceived weaknesses — youth, naivety and irreverence — that freed them to spurn the established Swiss watch experts and turn the industry on its head. This led them to conceive an injection-moulded, non-repairable, affordable fashion accessory that just happened to tell the time.

2. Marketing can be frugal. In the early days of Swatch, budgets were tiny, and the marketing team became pioneers of guerilla marketing before the phrase was even coined. A 500ft Swatch suspended from the front of the Commerzbank building in Frankfurt would be pretty radical even by today's standards. In 1984, funded largely by the bank itself (persuaded by the potential halo benefits of the Swatch brand), it generated a huge amount of publicity for Swatch in a crucial European market.

3. Think brand experience, not product. The first prototypes (branded Delirium Vulgaris rather than Swatch) were technically impressive but commercially unsellable. The marketing team soon realised that success would hinge on more than engineering; they needed an engaging brand name and story to capture consumers’ imagination. By positioning Swatch as an affordable fashion accessory, they gave customers a reason to buy not just one but several. Their edgy tongue-in-cheek campaigns turned each watch into a statement of individuality.

4. Harness the power of serendipity. While your chance of winning the lottery is in the hands of fate, you do have to be in it to win it. By creating an environment that allows for opportunity and a willingness to take risks, business leaders can create their own luck. For example, when Swatch was struggling to break into the American market, Konstantin's persistence and a fortuitous meeting with a watch buyer named Heidi (a fitting name for a Swiss success story) gave him the opening he needed.

5. Customers may not identify their needs. When it comes to innovation, traditional market research has its limits, especially when consumers can’t yet imagine what’s possible. Early Swatch market tests, for instance, produced negative results; people simply didn’t like the idea. Yet by relying on observation, intuition and belief in their vision, the team discovered unexpressed needs that consumers couldn’t articulate.

6. Embrace change. The Swiss invented quartz watches but their fear of new technology allowed the Japanese to seize the opportunity. By the time the Swiss realised what they’d unleashed, Seiko was already leading the world. Change will happen, whether you like it or not, and at an ever-increasing rate. Ignore it at your peril. As smartwatches reshape the industry, are Swiss brands adapting quickly enough?

7. Trust your instinct. Instinct played a huge role in Swatch's early success. As Konstantin often says: "The test of a good idea is first and foremost does it make the heart sing? If it does, then – and only then – should we apply our rational minds". This prompts anyone to assess the idea emotionally and only then apply rational thought to ensure the idea isn't reckless. Konstantin built his marketing team by prioritising genuine energy, creativity and passion over experience and formal qualifications.

8. Be relentlessly consistent. Swatch executed its fashionable, affordable and imaginative character across every touchpoint with rare obsession and passion. Whether it was product design, pricing, distribution or communication, every detail told the same story: Swatch was a fashion accessory, not just a watch. From fashion-show launches to art collaborations with figures like Vivienne Westwood and Damien Hirst, every move reinforced a single, coherent brand narrative. Branding excellence lies in this obsession with detail.

Gen Z might be more familiar with brands like Apple than with Swatch, but Apple’s success (and that of many leading brands today) borrows from the same timeless lessons Swatch pioneered decades earlier. Let’s make sure those lessons live on.

Note: This article was updated on 11 November 2025 to reflect the author's name and designation in the standfirst.

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Dr Omar Merlo, Associate Professor of Marketing Strategy, offers insights from his latest book on the Swiss watch industry crusader

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Profile: Professor Anita Patel goes behind-the-scenes of health economics

Evie Burrows-Taylor — Tue, 29 Oct 2024 11:40:54 +0000

Profile: Professor Anita Patel goes behind-the-scenes of health economics

Evie Burrows-Taylor Tue, 29/10/2024 - 11:40

29 October 2024

Recently appointed Provost's Visiting Professor of Health Economics, Anita Patel explains the "quiet" but significant impact of health economists.

Last year, House of Commons research estimated the COVID pandemic cost the UK public up to £410 billion – around £6,000 per person. When such figures are involved, it’s easy to appreciate the importance of economics in addressing healthcare challenges: from modelling the scale of risks, to assessing the cost-effectiveness of solutions.

Nevertheless, health economists – the specialists who do this work – don’t tend to find themselves in the limelight. As Professor Anita Patel, who recently joined 51�Թ�� as the Provost’s Visiting Professor of Health Economics, puts it: “Health economists have a significant role in policy and practice, but they tend to do it quietly from the sidelines.”

Resourcing healthcare

“Pretty much every healthcare system in the world is struggling with resourcing what their populations need,” Professor Patel, whose role is a joint appointment between the Business School’s Department of Economics & Public Policy and 51�Թ��’s School of Public Health, explains.

“The bread and butter of health economics is to help define the economic implications of such challenges, evidence or estimate the value of new solutions in a resource-constrained context, and support their implementation into policy and practice. By showing that you can, for example, save millions across a system, or even wider society, just by intervening at a different stage, you can help gain policy interest.

“New interventions and approaches are constantly being developed. There are also many that are already evidenced to be cost effective but not yet optimally implemented in terms of being delivered in the right amounts, to the right people, at the right time. Health economists facilitate this by bringing a social science perspective to practical healthcare delivery challenges.”

Evaluating health policies and programmes

Although she joins 51�Թ�� with 23 years in academia under her belt, Professor Patel has certainly not taken a conventional route to her new role. After academia, she became a freelance health economics consultant, working on projects as diverse as supporting charities to get awareness of specific conditions on the political agenda, and helping tech companies develop their value propositions to pitch products and services to the UK's National Health Service.

And then, at the end of the pandemic, she was ready for a role with more consistent human interaction and work that was closer to national policy. So rather than moving back to mainstream academia, she took up an unusual opportunity at research consultancy Ipsos UK.

An important part of my job is being visible as an ethnic minority woman in a senior position, which is unfortunately still uncommon

“That was a revelation for me,” Professor Patel says. “I realised there are ways to do research within a good work culture that is sadly sometimes lacking in academia. We were evaluating policies and programmes in real time: fast, complex work that was tough but hugely satisfying because the impact was clear and immediate.” The entrepreneurial dimension of the role also played to her strengths.

That experience of working collaboratively, with teams coming together at pace through matrix structures around projects, rather than people, suited her. “It was a surprisingly good fit with how my brain works and felt a more productive and comfortable culture than I’d previously experienced. Interestingly, it was female-dominated,” she explains.

Diversity in academia

“And that’s why the role at 51�Թ�� really spoke to me,” she says. “Unlike a traditional academic role, it specifically has a collaborative and equality, diversity and inclusion remit, in a specific timeframe.”

As the Provost’s Visiting Professor of Health Economics, Professor Patel will work between the Business School and the School of Medicine for one year, which each have a group of health economists. “The group at the School of Medicine has a specific focus on infectious disease modelling,” Professor Patel explains. “And the group at the Business School looks more at addressing public health issues through policy.”

A key focus of her role will be to support 51�Թ�� in extending its health economics work and capacity. “Economic evaluation of new interventions is where my main experience lies, and that’s a recognised gap at 51�Թ��. That kind of work is vital to support clinical and health innovation research, and it opens up funding streams for the university too.”

Pretty much every healthcare system in the world is struggling with resourcing what their populations need

Of course, this won’t happen overnight, so there will be an initial need to strengthen existing partnerships. “That’s something I can help with, using my networks and experience in building health economics capabilities elsewhere,” says Professor Patel.

There’s also another element to the role. “An important part of my job is being visible as an ethnic minority woman in a senior position, which is unfortunately still uncommon,” she explains. “That includes mentoring and supporting staff and students across the university, and it’s something I’m passionate about, having myself experienced many biases in academia.”

Ultimately, it feels like a case of the right position, at the right time. “I was feeling that it was my time to do something, and it’s clear from the role that the Provost is genuinely committed to making a difference in this area, so it’s a timely and opportune role for me.”

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Why you should work with your business rivals

Tim Weiss — Mon, 15 Apr 2024 09:09:37 +0000

Why you should work with your business rivals

Tim Weiss Mon, 15/04/2024 - 09:09

16 April 2024

Henry Ford once called competition the "keen cutting edge of business”. But this approach comes with serious costs that can be mitigated by embracing a spirit of collaboration with your rivals.

Competition drives us to reduce costs, innovate, and work hard to gain an advantage in the marketplace. Framing business in this way alone, though, risks adopting a mindset which is all about outcompeting rivals to reach the top. This ignores the central role that collaboration, cooperation and mutual support play in driving and maintaining success in business.

In the workplace, we often thrive because of the support we receive from, and give to, others. This "in it together" mindset harnesses the advantages of collaboration and working together towards shared goals, and may even apply beyond the boundaries of the workplace, in business, as well as life more generally.

Pulling together

We developed our understanding of this idea from an unexpected group: car mechanics in the neighbourhood of Dagoretti Corner in Nairobi, Kenya. Over a period of two decades, the number of garages located in Dagoretti Corner increased from a handful to 105 individual businesses.

Viewed through a competitive lens, these rival businesses should be competing fiercely with one another for clients, employees, space and prominence, with the weaker entities dying off as aggressive pricing and advertising pushes them out. Instead, more and more individual businesses have come to populate Dagoretti Corner, while the existing ones survive and thrive.

Through fieldwork and interviews, we found that, rather than competing against one another, the businesses adhere to the Kenyan ethos of "Harambee" – Bantu for "let us all pull together". This sees them create a welfare system, supporting each other to survive amid the harsh conditions of life in Nairobi.

Non-competitive growth

There are a number of features underpinning this welfare system. For example, business owners who we would expect to compete against each other instead regularly save and invest together, using the funds for shared purchases and to provide each other with credit opportunities. They also respect that each business has its own set of clients – a customer base that grows organically through word of mouth and referrals based on the high quality of their work, rather than advertisement.

Taking a client from another business is viewed as disrespectful or even fraudulent, but if a business has too much or too little work, the owner will often choose to share out clients or employees, mitigating the risk of one garage leaving others behind. This means that instead of going bust and being taken over by their neighbours, businesses are supported through difficult times.

The existential challenges of the modern world have sparked a search for new ways to organise, work, and find meaning in our lives and careers

There’s also an interpersonal element at play. For example, whenever a business owner or a member of their family faces severe illness – which often comes with significant monetary costs – their peers make donations to provide financial aid and visit the family to offer emotional support.

Collectively, these approaches produce a welfare system where we would expect hypercompetition and conflict to be the norm. This is not unique to Kenya – this type of mutual support between businesses exists across the Global South. And, while saving money together with colleagues or providing financial aid to rivals might be a stretch, there are aspects of this cooperative mindset and behaviours running through all workplaces that can be harnessed to provide a collaborative edge.

Harnessing the collaborative edge

The existential challenges of the modern world have sparked a search for new ways to organise, work, and find meaning in our lives and careers. Where a competitive edge may once have been the goal, many of us now value work-life balance, relationships, mental health and wellbeing above pure career success.

With this in mind, there is power in moving closer together and creating something larger than the sum of its parts. The car mechanics in Dagoretti Corner show us that by prioritising thriving together, we can harness a collaborative edge that sees everyone benefit, though we're in dire need of more examples.

We often thrive most because of the support we receive from, and give to, others

Harnessing the collaborative edge in your workplace or business can be extremely powerful. The Harambe Entrepreneur Alliance, for example, brings together high-impact African and African-diaspora entrepreneurs to support each other through mutual mentoring, investment, and network sharing. Rather than competing against each other, the power here lies in generating a collectivist spirit, because only as a collective can large-scale challenges be addressed to bring about transformative change.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that competition is irrelevant, but competition comes with psychological costs – it can be lonely, isolating and stressful. Making use of the collaborative edge can help balance out these psychological costs, moving us closer both to shared goals in work and business, and to enriched lives that are worth living.

This article draws on findings from "Survivalist Organizing in Urban Poverty Contexts" by Tim Weiss (51�Թ��), Michael Lounsbury (University of Alberta) and Garry Bruton (Texas Christian University).

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Organisational Behaviour

Who decided what ambition looks like?

Who decided what ambition looks like?

More blogs

Left vs. Right: How polarised are our everyday lives?

How resilient brands keep customers in volatile markets

"No jobs are safe from AI, but some are safer than others": Professor of Practice David Shrier on the future of work

Article at a glance

Women do not lack ambition. Dr Poornima Luthra explains that workplaces are still structured in ways that make career progression hard to sustain.

As a result, women are redefining ambition on their own terms, with many turning to entrepreneurship rather than climbing the corporate ladder.

The sheer volume of women leaving their jobs should serve as a wake-up call.

Businesses must rethink how “ambition” and “success” are defined by evaluating their workplace systems and cultures to make sure talent is not being lost due to poorly designed systems.

"Ambition” and “success” need redefining

Why is this a business problem

How business leaders can redefine ambition and success

Subscribe for faculty-led insights from 51�Թ��� Business School

Why the so-called “ambition gap” is really a leadership and systems failure

Why your business goals are holding your team back

Why your business goals are holding your team back

More blogs

Left vs. Right: How polarised are our everyday lives?

How resilient brands keep customers in volatile markets

"No jobs are safe from AI, but some are safer than others": Professor of Practice David Shrier on the future of work

Article at a glance

Setting concrete goals can backfire by locking people into sub-optimal ways of working, according to research by Assistant Professor of Marketing Guy Voichek

Making progress towards a goal increases perceived effectiveness of established approaches, reducing openness to better alternatives

Leaders can counter this bias by building in structured reflection

Targets matter, but so does the means of pursuit

Progress creates a bias in effectiveness

The risk of overly specific targets

What can business leaders take from this?

Find out more about the research

Share

Working towards concrete goals can leave employees resistant to exploring superior ways of achieving results

Swatch: 8 actionable lessons from a pioneering brand

Swatch: 8 actionable lessons from a pioneering brand

More blogs

Left vs. Right: How polarised are our everyday lives?

How resilient brands keep customers in volatile markets

"No jobs are safe from AI, but some are safer than others": Professor of Practice David Shrier on the future of work

Discover insights by Dr Merlo

Share

Dr Omar Merlo, Associate Professor of Marketing Strategy, offers insights from his latest book on the Swiss watch industry crusader

Profile: Professor Anita Patel goes behind-the-scenes of health economics

Recently appointed Provost's Visiting Professor of Health Economics, Anita Patel explains the "quiet" but significant impact of health economists.

Resourcing healthcare

Evaluating health policies and programmes

Diversity in academia

Monthly newsletter

Lessons for leaders: what has long COVID done to personal finances?

Why you should work with your business rivals

Henry Ford once called competition the "keen cutting edge of business”. But this approach comes with serious costs that can be mitigated by embracing a spirit of collaboration with your rivals.

Pulling together

Non-competitive growth

Harnessing the collaborative edge

Monthly newsletter

Experimentation in business: 3 ways to avoid the hidden risks

Subscribe for faculty-led insights from 51�Թ�� Business School