The Misalignment Tax
What is misalignment actually costing you?
Research puts 1–2 days of every manager's week inside misalignment and the friction it creates. Enter your numbers and see what that adds up to — for your team, specifically.
Your numbers
Three inputs. Adjust the sliders and watch the number move.
Anyone who manages people or owns decisions across teams.
Research puts it at 25–40% of a manager's week. We start at the conservative end.
Your Misalignment Tax
1.25 days
lost per leader, every week — and that's a conservative floor.
A year, across your leaders
$350,000
Leader-days lost, per week
12.5
10 leaders × $140,000 × 25%. Sources: Coleman & Ferguson; CPP Global.
Recover it
Most of it can be handed back.
The work to recover it costs a fraction of your annual tax — and pays for itself several times over in the first year.
Your annual tax
$350,000
Handed back each year
$140,000
How it's calculated
The number is conservative — and mostly recoverable.
The point isn't the number — it's that most of it can be handed back.
Start with the research
Managers lose 25–40% of their time to misalignment and the friction it creates (research on workplace conflict — Coleman & Ferguson). We use 25% as the floor.
Apply it to your team
Your leader count × average salary × the share of time lost. No loaded-cost multiplier, no overhead — just salary.
Read it as a floor
It counts only your leaders' time. It doesn't include the ripple onto the teams they lead.
Figures anchored to Coleman & Ferguson, Making Conflict Work (managers spend 25–40% of their time on conflict), and the CPP Global Human Capital Report.