The UK Doesn’t Have a Productivity Crisis. It Has a Nervous System Crisis.

I’ve spent almost three decades watching organisations search for new ways to “fix” productivity.
New systems. New policies. New initiatives.

And yet — the same problem keeps resurfacing.

Not because people aren’t capable.
Not because they aren’t skilled.

But because their nervous systems are exhausted.

We talk about performance as if it’s a mindset.
But before mindset comes biology.
Before engagement comes safety.

You can’t innovate in a threat state.
You can’t collaborate when you’re masking.
And you can’t ask humans to operate beyond capacity and then call it a productivity crisis.

If we want better outcomes, we don’t need another policy.
We need to understand the thing we’ve ignored for far too long:

Emotional safety isn’t a “soft skill”.
It’s the operating system everything else depends on.