1.2 Module 1 · The 97% Problem

Legacy Tax Calculator

Put a dollar figure on the friction in your workflow. This is the number that gets the board's attention — and it's almost certainly larger than you think.

Legacy Tax Calculator Annual Cost Projection

The 97% Statistic

Margaret's billing complaint: 49 hours of elapsed time, 5 human handoffs, one system rejection — and approximately 45 minutes of actual productive work. That means roughly 97% of the workflow time was not work. It was waiting, formatting, re-entering, and approving.

The factory test: If you ran a factory where 97% of the time nothing was being produced, you'd shut it down. In knowledge work, we call it "normal."

Legacy Tax Calculator

Enter your real numbers. The calculator shows you the annual cost of friction hiding inside this single workflow.

Annual Legacy Tax — This One Workflow

$0

Work vs. Architecture 97% not work
3% work
97% waiting
48,250
wasted hours/year
23.2
full-time equivalent salaries
with iceberg multiplier (×26)

Cumulative Cost If Nothing Changes

Year 1
$0
Year 3
$0
Year 5
$0

Assumes 3% annual salary inflation compounding.

The multiplier question: This is one workflow. One. How many do you have? If your organisation runs fifty workflows with similar friction profiles, the total Legacy Tax is not this number — it is fifty times this number.