REBEL BLOG

Category: Change

The Great British Productivity Crisis: Time to Unleash Your Business

Posted on by Jemima Bird
Ordinary office workers, breaking out into super hero productivity champions

The UK is stuck in a productivity nightmare. While other nations surge ahead, we’re trapped in a fifteen-year slump that threatens more than just bottom lines – it’s endangering our future living standards and well-being. But here’s the real kicker: Most businesses are still playing by yesterday’s rules in tomorrow’s game.

The Perfect Storm Is Here

The landscape has fundamentally shifted:

– Customers are more demanding and informed than ever

– Employees seek purpose and autonomy, not just pay-cheques

– Digital transformation and AI are accelerating change (and wait for no-one)

– National Insurance hikes are squeezing margins

– Shareholders demand faster returns

– Society expects instant results

And the chancellor’s message? “Figure it out through efficiency gains or eat the costs.” (thanks for that….)

Breaking Down the Crisis

Hard Truth: Most organisations have become trapped in patterns that kill productivity:

Misaligned Priorities and Inefficient Processes

– Too many initiatives running simultaneously

– Resources spread too thin

– Inability to complete what matters most

Organisational Silos and Central Control

– Departments working in isolation

– Innovation stifled by hierarchical decision-making

– Knowledge and resources trapped in silos

Leadership Gridlock

– Leaders trapped in endless meetings

– More time spent reporting than leading

– Unable to clear paths for their teams

Restrictive Governance

– Multiple approval boards slowing progress

– Risk-averse decision-making

– Innovation strangled by process

Ask yourself:

– When was the last time you made a fast, effective change?

– Does your culture empower or suffocate?

– How many great ideas died in your approval process?

– Are you still wading through treacle to get simple things done?

The Revolution: Business Agility Unleashed

This isn’t about another initiative or hanging motivational posters. This is about fundamental transformation – starting with how your organisation (read “the Leaders”) thinks and operates.

Your Five Steps to Great Agility

1. Inspired Leadership

– Build real relationships, not broadcast messages

– Clear the path for your people to succeed (Actually listen… revolutionary right?)

– Empower accountability at the front lines

– Transform from control to enablement

2. Dynamic Culture

– Make continuous learning your superpower

– Embrace diverse perspectives like your business depends on it (it does)

– Share information openly – good, bad, and ugly

– Make failure your teacher, not your enemy

3. Digitally Driven

– Transform technology into your competitive edge

– Put people first, always

– Focus on value creation through technology, by enabling swift, informed decision-making

– Remember: Technology alone is useless – it’s what people do with it that matters

4. Outcome Driven Mastery

– Make your strategy as adaptive as your market

– Orient around outcomes, not outputs

– Move people where value is being created

– Break down walls between teams

5. Value Realised

– Measure what matters: impact, not activity

– Fund dynamically based on outcomes

– Give maximum autonomy with smart guardrails

– Prioritise ruthlessly

The Path Forward

The next two decades will bring more change than the last century. The productivity crisis isn’t just a headline – it’s your wake-up call. Organisations have three choices:

1. Transform now, on your terms

2. Be forced to change later when it’s too late

3. Become irrelevant

The businesses that break free from outdated thinking and empower their people to actually lead will dominate the market. Everyone else will be left explaining to shareholders why they couldn’t see the writing on the wall.

Time to Change the Game

According to the Productivity Institute: “The UK has experienced significantly slower productivity growth than comparable countries over the decade and a half since the global financial crisis… If the current trend in productivity growth continues for the next two decades, it will not be possible to maintain current living standards, let alone deliver sustainability and improved wellbeing.”

The businesses who rise above this inertia – who free their leaders to lead and empower their teams to deliver – will outperform the market. But this cannot be a surface change. This is a root and branch transformation that starts with reframing how your organisation thinks and operates.

What’s your move? The future belongs to businesses agile enough to seize it.

Are you ready to change the game?

Join PerfectRebel today, and stay up to date with the latest business continuity thinking.

_____________________________________________________________________________________








    Wake Up! Your Business Isn’t Actually About Your Customers (Yet)

    Posted on by Jemima Bird

    Let’s cut through the corporate BS: Most businesses are lying to themselves about being customer focused. They’re trapped in a maze of pointless meetings, blame games, and soul-crushing governance processes that have nothing to do with delivering actual value to customers.

    Here’s the uncomfortable truth: While you’re busy pointing fingers at the tech team or preparing your next mind-numbing governance presentation, your competitors are out there actually talking to customers.

    The Real Question That Should Keep You Up at Night

    Who actually pays your salary? (Hint: It’s not your boss.)

    Imagine this: A mere 5% increase in customer retention and wallet share could transform your business. But you’re too busy maintaining the status quo to seize that opportunity. That’s not just sad – it’s dangerous.

     Your Five-Step Revolution to Customer Dominance

    1. Your People Are Your Revolutionary Force

    Forget the traditional hierarchy. Your front-line employees are the ones who can make or break your customer experience. Give them power. Let them take risks. Let them fail. Then watch the magic happen.

    Want innovation? Stop suffocating your people with rules and start unleashing their potential. Push decisions down to those closest to the customers. That’s where the real revolution begins.

    2. Make the Customer Your Co-Conspirator

    Take a page from Terry Leahy’s Tesco transformation playbook: He had the audacity to stop meetings dead if they couldn’t answer one simple question: “How does this help the customer?”

    Don’t just talk about customers – bring them into your meetings. Let them disrupt your comfortable internal narrative. Test ideas with them. Fail with them. Learn from them. Be first, be bold, be customer obsessed.

    3. Diversity Isn’t Just a Buzzword – It’s Your Secret Weapon

    Let’s be brutally honest: Your executive team probably looks nothing like your customer base. Where’s your Gen Z perspective? Your diverse market voice?

    Stop being an echo chamber of similar thoughts and experiences. Seek out the uncomfortable truths that come from different perspectives. Then actually do something with them.

    4. Adapt or Die

    Strategic planning isn’t an annual retreat – it’s a daily revolution. Your market moves faster than your quarterly planning cycle, and your customers evolve faster than your five-year strategy.

    Embrace experimentation. Celebrate failures as learning opportunities. Keep moving, keep changing, keep pushing boundaries. Standing still is the new going backward.

    5. Build an Organisation That Moves Like Water

    Forget rigid hierarchies and fixed departments. Your organisation needs to flow where the customer value is. That means building teams that can reshape themselves without drowning in change management bureaucracy.

    But warning: This isn’t about moving deck chairs on the Titanic. It’s about building a completely different kind of ship – one that can change direction at the speed of customer needs.

    The Revolution Starts Now

    This isn’t about incremental change or playing it safe. It’s about fundamentally transforming how your business thinks, moves, and delivers value. It’s about leading the revolution instead of being disrupted by it.

    Transform your business by empowering frontline employees, making customers active partners in innovation, embracing diverse perspectives, adapting continuously, and building fluid organisational structures – because in today’s economy, a customer-obsessed culture isn’t just about satisfaction, it’s the key to unlocking Britain’s productivity potential.

    The question isn’t whether you need to change. The question is: Are you bold enough to lead the charge?

    Your customers are waiting. Your employees are ready. What’s your next move?

    _________________________________________________________________________________________








      Fur coat and nae knickers

      Posted on by Jemima Bird

      Culture eats strategy for breakfast

      In our industry that breakfast quote’s like a Beyonce-level megahit.
      Attributed to management guru Peter Drucker, the quote effectively says that business strategy is doomed to fail unless company culture can accept and encourage it.
      And sweet Cowboy Carter that’s as true today as it ever was …

      Is this culture?

      First nostalgia. Circa 2010 the push was on to build, emphasise and publicise company culture. Some businesses went a bit mad.

      Part of it was The Social Network effect: the Facebook biopic depicted an unpretty workplace world of energy drinks and atomic wedgies that exactly fit the company’s vibe, ethos and purpose.
      Poetic Hollywood license, sure, but true in broad brushstrokes. Kid-coders shared a common goal to change the world, and a culture of frattishness, democracy, meritocracy and transparency was the perfect framework to do just that.

      Remember this was already social media’s growth spurt hence firms were freely able to pump out culture PR. Playing for fans, followers and fresh talent, they showered us with diverse and inclusive shots of foosball tourneys and tales Beer Pong Friday.

      But it’s plain today as it was back then – culture is too often just a photo op. Just a press release. Just a handout. Too often the five core values embossed on company walls bear not a kirdy of resemblance to the diktat which actually defines a business and its people and its future.
      Too often, to coin our favourite Scottishism, it’s fur coat and nae knickers.

      80% commitment ain’t enough

      Transparent. Inclusive. Progressive. Innovative. Dynamic.

      Give or take the above values are listed on every business About Us page ever. The branding gurus who distil ‘em and write ‘em have it made. Copy, paste, to the pub …

      Anyway. As aspirations and values these five are all very worthy. When forensically and painstakingly embedded through a business, almost any set of values working in concert can effectively comprise this thing called culture.
      Okay. But let’s grab the first of the five and run a thought experiment. D’you reckon most businesses want to be 100% transparent, or d’you think they’d rather just look 100% transparent?

      Exactly. Too many firms settle for as much of a value as looks good, yet it is ultimately compromiseable. Bosses maintain a cultural bufferzone (circa 80%, say) should they ever need an out. Should they ever need to conceal, cover up, gloss over, pull rank, swerve, weave, deflect, dodge or deny.

      And this is the crux of a major problem. Great culture is DNA. It’s fundamental.

      Culture is a way of life, not an abstract idea, and as such we need leaders to embody, embed and protect it. It’s a relentless undertaking to weave an essence through every system, person, function and facet of business. It takes courage and commitment with rigorous checks and balances.

      So the price is high but the juice is always worth the squeeze. Forbes reckons exemplary business culture is worth a fourfold increase in revenue.

      The values chain

      No value lives in its own air just as no team, operating model or company structure lives in its own air. A thriving company is singular entities working in concert just as a thriving culture is singular values working in concert.

      When singular workers are divorced from business objectives, power structures and one another then quite frankly it’s cultural kryptonite. When employees can only see through the narrow lens of self-interest then the battle will rage for budgets, attention, promotions and territory. Cue disillusionment, resentment, turf wars, obstruction and conflict …

      Today’s businesses can afford precisely none of that. Reality is that business needs to be more cohesive, not less, to run bigger, faster, smarter, stronger. Getting there demands dynamic, high-performing cultures which embrace diverse perspectives and nurture worker freedoms.

      A major wrinkle in the mix is that one in four workers globally are Gen Zs. In a handful of years this’ll increase to one in three. Autonomy, self-direction, transparency – Gen Z’s workplace expectations are a matter of public record yet too many leaders seem determined to swim against the stream.

      Rigid hierarchies, inflexibility, walls, silos – firms where leaders march the halls espousing old-fashioned subservience can kiss Gen Z talent goodbye, Beer Pong Friday or no.

      Culture is an action

      Culture is action and it’s tough. It’s toil. Glossy photos and witty captions are easy but business culture is that which happens away from the cameras in every deep, dark corner of business.

      The best way to gauge how well a business is meeting its own cultural aspirations is to simply poll the rank-and-file. Does the carpet match the curtains? Spoiler alert the answer’s rarely …

      When change consultants begin to probe a firm’s cultural disconnects, the leader’s response often says all we need to know.

      Should bosses lapse into excuses, deflection, justifications and blame then Houston, we have a problem. Should they own the gaps and start testing for culture leaks then we’re in a much more positive spot.

      Progressive firms know that culture is key in securing and retaining top talent and with the best people on board the odds of survival just improved.

      A good strategy could save a business. But the business that’s not culturally primed to facilitate that strategy … well, it’s breakfast time.








        Embracing the digital drive

        Posted on by Jemima Bird

        PS it’s not all about the tech

        A timely truth bomb for the techies: it ain’t all about the tech.

        The shiny AI, the gleaming new dashboard, the polished bits and bytes – it’s intoxicating stuff. But without the right people, culture and vision it can be an expensive distraction.

        ‘Cos tech isn’t the hero of the piece. The story of the ages is that technology brings to life that which begins in the human imagination.

        Aligning the two is still just good business …

        The digital delusion

        For organisations, digital transformation isn’t any longer optional. It’s a matter of survival. Firms need to engage the market’s best solutions if they’re to maintain their competitive edge.

        But those who think this is just a matter of tech miss the forest for the trees.

        It’s the classic trap; focusing on tech before outcomes is a killer …

        What does digitally driven really mean?

        We talk about being digitally driven as a necessity in business. It is. But it’s sometimes important to explain what digitally driven is not …

        Being digitally driven is not about fetishising fashionable tools and shelling out on blind faith. It is not assuming that because it’s shiny or new, or ‘cos Wired magazine thinks it’s tops, the results will come Field of Dreams style.

        No. Being digitally driven is more holistic. It is a culture of continuous learning and innovation; where data informs sharper, faster, better business decisions. It is leveraging appropriate technologies specifically to facilitate business outcomes; whether that’s strengthening customer relationships, enhancing productivity or facilitating creativity.

        Digitally driven? It’s more about the casing for the technology than technology itself.

        Throwing kit at the wall to see what sticks

        There’s a stat which gets a lot of press in our industry. It says that nine in every ten digital transformation projects fail …

        But that’s misleading. Nine in ten business transformation projects don’t fail per se – they just disappoint. Nine in ten projects do not live up to leaders’ expectations and the perception is that tech tools ultimately underdeliver versus their price and promise.

        If we had a nickel …

        Should business leaders identify the need for new tech solutions then those solutions cannot be seen in a vacuum because they will not succeed in a vacuum. Results hang on other forces; human ones …

        When business culture and / or leadership are not in place and primed to receive, embrace and optimise new tools, it’s basically throwing kit at the wall to see what sticks.

        ‘Cos tools are just that – tools. They’re not magic beans. They won’t sprout efficiency and profits as soon as we flick the on switch. Technology might’ve changed but the land of milk and honey is built on familiar bedrock.

        The ingredients of digital success

        Tech or no, strategy, culture and leadership are the trinity. Groundbreaking new kit won’t live up to expectation if the fundamentals aren’t working in harmony.

        For technology to succeed it needs to align with broader business outcomes. That’s strategy.

        For strategy to succeed, it needs all people pulling in that direction. That’s culture.

        For culture to continue on its course it needs management. That’s leadership.

        The organisation that is truly digitally driven – with the trinity and its structures in place – can have the confidence to view technology almost as icing on the cake.

        AI needs HI

        These solid business foundations are just as vital as we stare down the next frontier.

        For sure, AI’s potential is massive but all is abstract and academic until a business can activate that potential. Strategic alignment with business outcomes, a culture of competence, and commitment from leaders, an investment in getting your data together would be a starting point. “as the saying goes Sht in, sht out…. AI is different … but it isn’t that different, and it isn’t a unicorn

        There’s a huge opportunity to use AI to solve problems, bridge gaps, expose efficiencies and evolve outcomes, but humans remain at the business end of everything.

        That story of the ages mentioned in the intro, well the numbers still tell it: automation might displace 85 million jobs but it’ll create 97 million new ones. The key is adaptability.

        The PerfectRebel challenge

        Our challenge to business is to urge that you stop obsessing over the technology you could buy and start obsessing over the outcomes you want to create. Start there.

        Identify where next-gen tools may be able to address clear and present business problems and honestly appraise whether business culture is ready and optimised for the change.

        And let’s say you’re ready today, what about tomorrow? What about next year?

        Digitally driven is a constant. It’s not static. It’s a verb. The pace of progress is only getting quicker. Yes the story is evolving, but tech is tech where humans are still front and centre.