Don’t Confuse Ambition and Scale

We continually face major challenges in social life. Poverty, inequality, poor health, violence. Common sense tells us that big problems demand big solutions. From here it is a short step to say ‘we need to work at scale’. 

Here are a few lessons from my work with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to halve preventable deaths of children in the world (an ambition that was achieved).

First, nearly all social change comes from activity that is at a scale much smaller than the object of change. The story of marriage equality in Ireland -as told in this documentary- starts with two women trying to get their marriage recognised by the state. It continues with the two women bringing other activists together around their dining room table. Part of the journey involves a Citizen’s Assembly of 99 Irish Citizens. The story ends a decade later with maybe 100 core activists celebrating among thousands of other gay people after the great majority of Irish Citizens voted in favour of change to the constitution and law.

Second, scale is proportional to the scope of the change being sought. GNP might very well change the world, or England at least. But its focus is a place. Swiss Cottage ward. Home to 10,000 people. Working with 100 residents (1 per cent of the population) would be significant. Engaging with 300 (3 per cent) would be thought of scale in most books on the matter.

Third, most widely impactful social change is well beyond the control of the catalyst. Marriage equality in Ireland happened because, as the debate continued, and no doubt influenced by broader shifts in social life, the majority of Irish people recognised that gay people had the same rights as straight people. Put in personal terms, most people got to thinking that if they had a gay son or daughter who wanted to marry, they ought to have the same options as their straight brother or sister. 

(There is important theory and practice wisdom about how to scale ideas and innovation using the above lessons, which we can explore more).

A broader learning emerged in the September 2025 learning meeting. Don’t confuse ambition with scale. Jeff Raikes, former CEO of Microsoft, helped me understand the difference. He told me that Microsoft set out to dominate the world market in computers. They got there by making two ‘big bets’. The first was placed on a computer with a ‘mouse’. The second was placed on licenses for Word, and Outlook, and Powerpoint, that could be used with any computer -cf Apple that made software that only worked on its own machine.

In the cases of Microsoft, the Marriage Equality advocates in Ireland and the Gates work to halve preventable deaths of children, to which I could add the Settlement Movement’s work to secure the Welfare State, or communities fighting for taxpayer funded Secondary Schools in the United States, and dozens more examples, the scale of impact followed clear ambition and laser like focus.