Ever sat in a meeting where leadership announces a new ‘productivity initiative’ — AI tools, more processes, new dashboards — and you can feel the room quietly shut down?
That’s not resistance to change.
That’s experience talking.
I’ve watched a pattern repeat across companies of different sizes and industries: well-intentioned productivity pushes that create short-term activity while quietly degrading trust, judgment, and long-term effectiveness.
Here’s the uncomfortable truth most initiatives miss:
Productivity is created by people, not tools or imposed structure.
It rises or falls based on what your workforce's day-to-day experiences have taught them is safe, valued, and worth investing in.
Belief is shaped by repeated experience. I've found that three things consistently shape that lived reality:
1️⃣ Belief erodes fastest when people experience opacity, fear of layoffs, or see toxic leaders and chronic under-performers protected.
2️⃣ Authority, rigidity, and intimidation may produce compliance; but they actively weaken curiosity & critical thinking, and therefore innovation.
3️⃣ The wider the gap between a decision-maker's day-to-day reality and the workforce’s repeated experience, the harder productivity is to sustain.
If any of this feels uncomfortably familiar, you’re not imagining it and you’re not alone.
This is some of the work I do best: helping leaders see what’s actually shaping behavior, not just what should be, and developing the most effective strategies, goals, and plans from there.
If you’re navigating this or responsible for fixing it, feel free to contact me.