“In an environment where companies’ risk appetite is reducing dramatically, my generation has no right to ask about peoples’ ambition—as ambition only comes from opportunity,” said 63-year-old Vineet Nayar, the former CEO of HCL Technologies, now on the board of the National Stock Exchange.
When ambition is a middling 6/10 The ambitionless’ primary motivator at work is to survive, not thrive—largely because those companies themselves are trying to hang on.
Naturally, that has a certain trickle-down effect on employees. Even at so-called disruptive workplaces like startups where one could possibly find more ambitious people, companies are being built not to last but to be sold, said Nayar, who also advises early-stage startups.
So, when people are not totally locked in, they’re not punching as hard as they used to.
In The Ken’s survey, only 21% said their teams are very ambitious, while over half of them said their teams are only somewhat ambitious. Also, 39% said they don’t take on tasks that are not their core responsibility.
“People on my team only want to work on big, shiny bets,” said a financial-services executive. Alternatively, routine tasks need constant follow-up. “Whatsapp is the new workplace demon. I have to be in multiple groups and push people even on daily tasks. That much push was not needed earlier,” he added.
It’s something the consumer-tech company executive has noticed too. He leads a team of 200 people and the ambition level in his team is about 6/10. According to him, it should be 8/10. “I’m looking for some emotion in people. All of them are intelligent. But an intelligent person, if not emotionally engaged, is not good enough for me,” he said.
