After years of consultancy, I’ve come to understand that organisations are systems designed for efficiency; humans are not.
Most workplace friction comes from this fundamental mismatch.
Why experience at work often feels harder than it “should”
Organizations optimize for:
predictability
control
risk reduction
scalability
Humans operate through:
context
meaning
relationships
tacit knowledge
When these two logics collide, people experience:
frustration (“this makes no sense”)
disengagement (“why bother?”)
exhaustion (“everything is harder than it needs to be”)
This is not a personal failure. It is a structural tension.
The illusion of simplicity in organizations
Just like with technology, organizations often believe:
“If we ask simpler questions, things will be simpler.”
In reality:
Problems are simplified before they are understood
Complexity is pushed downward onto individuals
People are blamed for systemic issues
This creates a common pattern:
Leadership asks for clarity
Middle layers translate complexity into procedures
Frontline workers absorb the unresolved contradictions
The result is emotional labor disguised as “professionalism”.
Why people feel unheard even when they are consulted
Many organizations ask questions but do not change their listening level.
They ask:
tactical questions when the issue is strategic
performance questions when the issue is cultural
compliance questions when the issue is relational
People then feel:
“I answered, but nothing changed”
“They don’t really want to know”
“The real issue is unspeakable here”
Over time, silence becomes a survival strategy.
Experience is shaped more by interfaces than by intentions
In organizations, interfaces matter more than values.
Interfaces include:
processes
meetings
tools
KPIs
reporting structures
approval chains
Even well-intentioned organizations create poor experiences if their interfaces:
break context
fragment responsibility
reward the wrong behaviors
punish honesty indirectly
People don’t experience strategy.
They experience how hard it is to do their job.
The quiet cost: cognitive and moral fatigue
When people repeatedly have to:
work around broken systems
translate reality into acceptable language
pretend problems are individual rather than systemic
They accumulate:
cognitive fatigue (“thinking for the system”)
moral fatigue (“knowing what’s right but being unable to act”)
This is one of the main drivers of burnout, even in “good” organizations.
What actually improves human experience at work
Across organizations, improvements consistently come from a few conditions:
Problems are allowed to be fully articulated before being simplified
Authority matches responsibility
Feedback changes decisions, not just dashboards
People are trusted with context, not just tasks
Failure is treated as information, not guilt
These are cultural choices, not technological ones.
The deeper truth
Most people don’t leave organizations because of workload or technology.
They leave because:
reality cannot be spoken
effort is disconnected from impact
intelligence is constrained rather than used
In that sense, the human experience at work is less about motivation and more about permission:
permission to see clearly, to name things honestly, and to act coherently.
