THE COMPLEXITY OF SUCCESS
Our conclusions for the UK today
THE COMPLEXITY OF SUCCESS
Our conclusions for the UK today
THE COMPLEXITY OF SUCCESS
Our conclusions for the UK today
Our summary
What makes for success in the UK today reveals a complex and layered concept. What people consider success to be – and how it is achieved – stretches far beyond possessions and even experiences to include disparate factors such as mindset, behaviour and circumstances. We find a tension in how success is assessed: most people in the UK consider themselves reasonably successful and take a meritocratic perspective on what it takes to be a high achiever. Yet we see a growing role for connections, against the backdrop of the English north-south divide which has a significant impact on how successful people think they can be.
“We are a comfortable country overall, which has benefits for our national happiness.”
In common with much of UK society today, age plays a significant role in shaping individuals' perceptions of their own success. Older people in the UK are more likely to think of themselves as successful and are much more likely to be “satisficers”, happy with the extent of their achievements. By contrast, younger people generally see themselves as less successful and with more to prove – they dominate in the “strivers” category of more driven individuals who are looking to push on to greater success.
This split between satisficers and strivers also tells us about the UK’s approach to success overall. Just three in ten of the population want to work harder and achieve more, while half are content with where they have got to today. We are a comfortable country overall, which has benefits for our national happiness, as the satisficer group feel happier, more fulfilled and less anxious than strivers.
“In common with much of UK society today, age plays a significant role in shaping individuals' perceptions of their own success.”
This may also be reflected in the limited extent of strong emotions around success when we ask people directly: few express jealousy about others’ achievements or admit to comparing their progress against family members. Just half say they think a competitive spirit is important to success. Yet this is far from the whole picture. When we use social intelligence analytics to understand how people talk about success online, jealousy, competition – even hate – plays a significant role. As in so many other areas of life, online conversation provides a window onto our less guarded views on the topic.
Our conclusions
Despite it all, we find there are still some agreed-upon signs of success. When we last approached this topic in the late eighties, possessions and household appliances were heavily represented. By contrast, today the shared signs of success are financial and security-oriented: home ownership, a lack of debt, an inheritance to pass on. We have seen a democratisation of possessions as many of the household items people wanted in 1989 – dishwashers, cars, big TVs – have become commonplace.
One expression of this is the growth of “quiet luxury” and discreet consumption, which dominates the high-net-worth world. But again, when we dig into online behaviours rather than opinions, we still find room for a louder form of consumption among lower-income and aspirational consumers.
As might be expected in a complex society, the way success is judged is similarly nuanced. This means that the idea of creating a simple list of signifiers of success could lead to failure. Yet we have made some headway in understanding how success is viewed in the UK today, which has clear implications for brands, government, and society.
01.
Everyone wants to feel like they can be successful
When it comes to getting ahead in the UK today, while people are often aware of the structural barriers facing them they do not bear much repetition: people want to feel in control of their destinies. This leads to an age-old reflection, that no matter where people find themselves in life, an optimistic story of self-improvement will appeal more than being made to feel dependent on external help.
02.
The signs of success appear at the margins
In a modern world where physical possessions are easier to come by, many more people have been able to build conventionally successful lives than in previous decades. Signs of success are therefore financial and less obvious. This has the benefit of making them more open to all types of people – there are many more types of successful person today. But it also pushes these signals underground, making them less easy for outsiders to break into. This idea of “secret” success is appealing to UK consumers today.
03.
The UK has a convoluted relationship with success
While many deny being driven by competition and jealousy, there is clearly a larger role for this in life than people will admit to. Taking subtler approaches to harnessing the UK’s competitive drive for products and policies will have more success than openly competitive or brazen routes.
04.
Those who are more driven and competitive fall into two camps
While both are more youthful than the UK overall, one is genuinely wealthy while the other is merely aspirational. While one can be considered the consumers of today, the other may well be the consumers of tomorrow. But these groups have distinct interests, and our analysis of online retail traffic suggests different approaches are needed to engage both these groups.
