The Great British Productivity Crisis: Time to Unleash Your Business

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 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

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?

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.

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 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.

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.

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

    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.

    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.

    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.

    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.

    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.

    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.

    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.

    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?








      A revolution in remit | Dear CFO – it’s time to break the chains… 

      Sunlight streaming through a window illuminating a luxurious home office with classic wooden furniture

      “The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not the turbulence; it is to act with yesterday’s logic.” 

      ~ Peter Drucker 

      Progress doesn’t wait for next fiscal period 

      Static funding, rigid cycles, fiscal gatekeeping … ahh the salad days of certainty; when jolly CFOs planned the budget 12 months out.  

      This is still possible of course, assuming you’ve got shiny crystal balls?  

      Thought not. Dynamic (sometimes known as agile) funding preps, primes and readies firms for financial decisioning in-the-moment. Instead of dancing to a tune set last year, dynamic funding means adjusting and adapting to the beat in real-time as trends, data, markets and opportunities do their thing. 

      It’s the solution for our time and for the why we defer to Charles Darwin: “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent; it is the one most adaptable to change.” 

      CFOs’ (r)evolution in remit 

      Organisations traditionally map funding cycles to reporting periods. Historically this approach bought regularity, visibility and control. Yes, it nixed opportunism and spontaneity but that was a small price to pay for relative certainty.  

      Huh. Remember certainty? 

      Given the speed of change static finance isn’t now fit for purpose. Rigid forward planning creates a deep and deepening back hole between what the business needs and what the business planned to need. Between forecasts and results. Between make-believe and reality. 

      See, business is happening now. By switching to a model which moves resources towards opportunity and value, now, firms can finally concede that which was once unconcedable …  

      Progress doesn’t conform to arbitrary timescales.  

      At the outset dynamic funding looks like a major gear shift. Recasting the gatekeepers and critics of extra-curricular spending as proponents of it? Converting budgets into living, breathing strategies that favour opportunity, value and growth? It’s a hell of a memo …  

      But dynamic funding puts CFOs and mobilised finance teams to work in real time. Putting all that skill and expertise into the live game brings extra visibility and accountability into ongoing initiatives. Finance team insights can empower leaders to dynamically allocate funds, resources and attention commensurate with the value of those projects.  

      In short, dynamic funding brings finance closer to the action – day by day and week by week. It’s a mindset shift away from pre-approving – sometimes many moons ago – long cycles of spend based on abstract business cases before reality proves they’re worth a damn. There isn’t time. 

      We’re not in Kansas any more 

      Those familiar with The Rebel Perspective series know that evolution doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Businesses have worked in static funding cycles for a lifetime hence change won’t be accomplished in one move. 

      It’s a root-and-branch thing. Dynamic funding isn’t a patch fix on the old but a new playbook entirely. It’s not a quick fix. It requires governance and frameworks to hold it in place, and company culture needs to rally around it via a new mindset whereby rapidly trying, learning and, yes, failing are embraced.  

      Scary – maybe. But nothing changes if nothing changes. Progress is breaching the limits of what is. We’re not in Kansas anymore.  

      The benefits of dynamic funding, the 360-degree version of it, include organisational agility and the ability to rapidly respond to threats and opportunities that mightn’t be inclined to wait for next fiscal period.  

      Benefits also include more (not less) accountability for outcomes. Armed with the right information and empowered to act, company chiefs can better identify the initiatives delivering value – not tick box outputs – and resource those harder, better, faster, stronger.  

      Data and the dynamic toolkit 

      A major variable in the mix is the data piece. Dynamic funding works in a data-driven world and firms need to ensure those mechanics are in place  

      Business decisions are based on information. This fact of life hasn’t changed yet the volume, application, dexterity and 24/7 nature of data most definitely have. For dynamic funding to take root, firms must first be supremely confident in their ability to capture and analyse data. It’s the bedrock. It’s the enabler for pushing resources regardless of season or cycle.  

      We’ve probably all seen it: a project flops yet it runs for six more months until funding is pulled at year end. Ditto, we’ve probably all seen the project which, though packed with genuine fire and magic, gets shelved ‘cos no one made provisions for it. There wasn’t time, resource or budget so it died on the vine.  

      An outcome-based funding model is a real flip on the standard output-based model, where firms measure in length, size and quantity versus real value and promise. With dynamic funding, assuming there’s quality data underneath, teams can operate at F1 speed: think big, start small, learn fast and roll with the punches. It’s a far cry from planning a project and setting a budget months and months in advance.  

      This scenario means money constantly moving around the system to fund and reward potential, performance and priority. It essentially means every pound of investment up for grabs all the time.  

      Dear CFO,

      The financial models and fiscal staples that got us here won’t get us there. The game has changed.  

      Our organisation needs you pushing for innovation, not holding it back. We need to be agile and responsive to real-time changes in the market, but we’re hamstrung by the gods of Excel.  

      We know you’ve heard of dynamic funding, and it probably sounds scary. It’s new and it’s different. It reads like losing control …  

      But maybe that’s its beauty. At a certain height, business has never had control – not over people, places and things. Not over market forces and the world at large. A generation ago, we had some stability, and progress went at its speed. Static funding was the model.  

      But that model can no longer keep pace. We move too fast for yesterday’s decisions to keep up with what’s relevant and what’s necessary. Ultimate control is an illusion, but dynamic funding is the best-fit financial model to maintain it in our time.  

      It’s mechanisms allow us to seize the opportunities of the market; to adjust, adapt and scrutinise what we do based on merit, value and potential. To make timely decisions. To embrace failure; to embrace new en-route to progress.  

      It looks like liberation from the spreadsheet strait jacket. It looks like turning risk from a threat into a catalyst. It looks like the future boldly reimagining itself. 

      We’re not asking you to leap blindly. We’re inviting you to co-create a new financial narrative. Imagine a model where every pound is a seed of potential, where financial stewardship means nurturing innovation rather than constraining it. Together, we can transform our Excel columns from tombstones of past performance into launch pads for future breakthrough. 

      So, join us on the dance floor. We need your moves. And we think you’ll like it, 

      Sincerely, 

      The rest of the business

      ______________________________________________________________________________________








        Three things your leader probably isn’t

        Tell your boss they’re wrong and watch what happens

        Leadership. Can’t think why we’re talking about this right now. Oh wait …

        Like people, businesses can have a muddled view of leadership. The character traits we seem to value in leaders are often the same ones that make for a piss poor leader.

        Let’s skin it like this: the personality traits that’ll land someone the big job are the personality traits that’ll likely cause them to botch the big job.

        Research says so. Our experience says so. Here’s more …


        It’s science

        Different studies point at this paradox, but Dr Tomas Chamorro-Premusic makes an excellent presentation in his book Why Do So many Incompetent Men Become Leaders?

        In a nutshell, society tends to conflate confidence and competence and this dates back millennia. Freud wrote that humans instinctively want to recognise and promote brave, confident and even narcissistic people and, well, we do.

        But oh the irony. Because the character traits commensurate with genuinely successful leadership are modesty and conscientiousness. Does that describe your C-suite?

        Very unfortunately we see this play out most obviously in the realm of gender (per Tomas’s book). Men are more likely to present as unbreakable, self-assured and tough – women not so much hence this bears out in board rooms and pay gaps.

        Leadership material

        In the context of the Big 5 OCEAN traits of personality, successful leaders tend to score highly in open-mindedness, conscientiousness and agreeableness. So to answer the question posed in this article’s title: the three things your leader probably isn’t would be humble, considerate and emotionally mature.

        These traits translate into effective leadership if and when a business culture provokes authenticity, respect, collaboration and, in fact, sees vulnerability as an asset.

        Sweet Aunt Nelly that’s vulnerability and effective leadership in the same sentence.

        This matters because we’re at a turning point. The changes coming down the pike have the power to rip through businesses that cannot adapt. We’re into Darwin rules and businesses need to stay agile; to evolve and keep rolling as the pace picks up.

        Almost all modern businesses need to compete in arenas such as brand, tech, customer experience and purpose. Getting ahead in these domains needs seamless integration of human talent, analytics, data, AI, marketing, media and more.

        Basically, every business requires more brains and expertise than ever before to ensure its dogs are barking.

        The humble leader, admitting their lack of omnipotence, knows the necessity of a culture of trusting relationships, stakeholder ownership, discussion and collaboration so as to discern the course of action best for business. The humble leader is open-minded. This is strength. This is effectiveness.

        The reality

        So often, consultants and transformation gurus gather the data and build a watertight case for change, yet they temper the big reveal to pander to leadership narcissism.

        Can’t say that. They won’t like that. They won’t want that. No, that’s the CFO’s treasured project. No, I’m tracking for a promotion. No, that dumpster fire’s a CEO initiative. That’s a no-go. That’s untouchable. That’s taboo.

        Don’t criticise, wear blue, bring coffee, smile more …

        You’d be surprised how many times transformation consultants feel compelled to water down the work and undersell the job. There might even be two versions of the final report: the what we really need to do document and the what we can get away with document.

        The message is softened so that, best case, a handsome 75% of what needs to happen can pass through the board. It’s a lie to make sure CEO Smith feels sufficiently fluffed and fuzzy; feels not the need to sulk or activate douchebag mode.

        Change consultants might die a little inside but they’ll settle for half-baked because a) it’s better than nothing and b) let’s hope the cheque clears.


        Redefine and rebel

        Some leaders want to keep all the power for themselves, but empowering, trusting and nurturing others is essential for buy-in. For organisational agility.

        Some leaders want to appear tough and impenetrable, yet culture stalls and productivity nosedives when collaboration and challenge are taken off the table.

        Transforming businesses is a fact-finding and fact-facing endeavour. Leadership egos and taboos are often elephants in the room too big to navigate. Hence, perhaps, why almost all change projects wind up falling short and disappointing.

        In transformation, leaders are the glue. If they’re not able to stick themselves to the process and the solution – and inspire others to do the same – the lot’ll come unstuck.

        This is business survival and there are no sacred cows.

        So what ‘bout you? Are you ready to evolve and change the way things are done around here?

        We’re sparking a movement and the question is this: how Rebel are you?









          Fur coat and nae knickers

          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.