Corporate Life: The Wrong Habitat for Human Brains

We did not evolve for cubicles, contracts, or conference calls.

Our nervous system was tuned by the firelight: thirty to a hundred familiar faces, leadership that shifted with circumstance, belonging as survival. Safety meant the freedom to speak, argue, and contribute without fear of exile.

That was our natural habitat.

Today most of us live in another. Offices, factory floors, and Zoom grids. Hundreds or thousands of strangers. Leadership fixed in titles and reporting lines. Evaluation became formal and impersonal. Our livelihood tied to people who may barely know us.

It’s a habitat our brains struggle to recognise.

As Aristotle observed more than two millennia ago, “Man is by nature a political animal.”
He meant the polis—a human-scale community where we flourish through close relationships and shared purpose.
Our biology still expects that scale of belonging, even when we work inside sprawling modern corporations.

The Mismatch

Our nervous system still expects trust built face-to-face, reciprocity remembered not recorded, authority that flexes with context, and belonging as protection.

Modern organisations deliver instead rules and reviews in place of daily reciprocity, titles that lock authority in place, metrics that pit us against each other, and economic dependence where exclusion threatens survival.

No wonder speaking up feels risky. Silence, withdrawal, and self-protection are not flaws—they are survival strategies written deep into us.

What This Does to Us

In small tribes, the fear of exclusion kept us close and cooperative.
In modern hierarchies, the same circuitry often makes us guarded—hesitant to risk honesty.

We feel it in the body:
the moment before we speak and decide to hold back;
the late-night replay of what we should or shouldn’t have said;
the constant scan of tone in meetings, wondering if we’re safe or exposed.

These aren’t overreactions. They are the nervous system doing what it was designed to do—predicting threats and protecting stability when agency feels uncertain.

The costs are real: bold ideas left unsaid, warnings raised too late, teams drained by politics instead of powered by trust, quiet stress that hardens into burnout or resignation.

The wiring isn’t wrong. The context has changed. Humans evolved to thrive in groups of about a hundred people. Now we navigate hierarchies of thousands, where connection is mediated by titles, dashboards, and quarterly reviews.

Where We Are Now

The need for psychological safety is not a new discovery.
Amy Edmondson’s research showed it is central to learning.
Google’s Project Aristotle named it the number-one factor in team performance.

And yet the problem persists. After two decades of research—and despite companies talking openly about safety—fewer than half of employees say they feel safe taking risks or admitting mistakes. Many still quietly calculate the cost of speaking up and decide it isn’t worth it.

We’ve named the problem. Naming hasn’t fixed it.

What Might a Better Habitat Look Like?

If the human brain was shaped for tribe, what would it take for our workplaces to feel less like hierarchies we endure and more like communities we can thrive in?

Some clues already exist:

• Smaller circles of trust.
  Teams small enough for everyone to know one another reduce the “stranger danger” load on the nervous system.

• Authority that moves.
  Adaptive organisations shift decision-making to whoever has the context, echoing the flexible leadership of hunter-gatherer bands.

• Transparent reciprocity.
  When goals, trade-offs, and recognition are visible and fair, our instinct for mutual aid has room to work.

• Rituals of connection—and play.
  Regular check-ins, storytelling, shared meals, even moments of lightness and play signal I belong here and keep creative energy alive.

Workplaces that nurture stability, genuine voice, everyday kindness, and space for play give the nervous system the conditions it needs to learn, take risks, and create.

These are not perks. They are design choices that respect our biology.

Closing Thought

If our brains were made for tribes but our lives are lived in hierarchies, how will we reshape the places where we work?

Perhaps the first step is to treat psychological safety not as culture wallpaper but as deliberate engineering—bringing a little firelight back into the modern workplace.