Clover ERAWhat managers can't see, what their teams already know.
First findings from the Manager Gap Index cohort, to date. Eleven companies. Six dimensions. The cost number their dashboards weren't reporting.
Companies in the cohort, scored on the gap between manager perception and team reality.
The Manager Gap Index is a 10-minute assessment that scores managers on six dimensions and calculates the dollar cost of the gap their team is experiencing. The cohort to date includes 11 companies assessed since Q1 2026. Companies span 300 to 1,200 employees across four sectors. Median company size: 540 employees. Each company received their own report and approved its inclusion in the cohort dataset before publication.
The median company loses $20 million a year. Their managers are blind to 70% of what their teams are experiencing.
Across the cohort to date, the median annual cost of Silent Degradation is $20M. The range runs from $8M for a small retail business to $65M for a healthcare organisation. The average MGI score is 28 out of 100; no company has scored above 45. Most CEOs predict their company will score 60+. The gap between expectation and reality is the most consistent finding in the dataset.
Six in eleven could see the signals but had no mechanism to act.
The Action sub-score measures whether managers respond to detected signals. Six companies in the cohort to date scored zero out of twenty. They had visibility into team-level patterns. They had no structured way to translate visibility into intervention within the same week. When asked what they did when they noticed a team-level signal, managers in these companies described patterns of waiting, escalating, or normalising. None described acting.
Forty-seven percent of the cost is turnover. The other fifty-three percent is what's hiding.
Across the cohort to date, 47% of total Silent Degradation cost comes from Regrettable Attrition. The remaining 53% comes from five other layers combined: Disengagement Tax, Manager Drag, Promotion Risk, Innovation Suppression, and Customer Impact. Companies measuring only turnover are measuring less than half the problem. The cost layers leaders haven't been tracking are larger than the one they have.
The full publication includes findings by company size and sector, methodology in detail, and implications for leaders. Publishing June 2026.
The Q1 2026 cohort included 11 companies. As of April 28, 2026, the cohort stands at 11. Companies completing the Manager Gap Index between now and June 2026 will appear in the published Q2 Index. The cohort target for Q3 2026 is 30 companies, with explicit goals for sector and size diversification. None pay to be included.
Companies interested in participating can request the assessment at mgi.cloverera.com. Senior leaders who already know their exposure can schedule a 15-minute Cohort Conversation with one of the founders. Pricing for the platform is published openly at cloverera.com/pricing.
Get the full publication on launch day.
Email subscribers receive the Index 24 hours before public release. No marketing emails. No promotional content. Just the publication, on launch day, with a direct download link. You'll see periodic updates as the cohort grows past the current 11.
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Don't wait for the publication. Take the assessment.
The Manager Gap Index assessment runs in 10 minutes. You get your score, your six-dimension breakdown, and your annual cost number across the same six layers we use in the Index. Average first-time score: 28 out of 100. Companies completing the assessment between now and June 2026 will appear in the published Index.
Take the Manager Gap Index›mgi.cloverera.comThe Silent Degradation Index is published by Clover ERA. Co-founders Clive Hays, Neil Hays, and Chad Williams. Clive and Neil are authors of The Trillion Dollar Problem (2024) and Already Gone (2026).
Suggested citation: The Silent Degradation Index Q2 2026 (Preview). Clover ERA. silentdegradation.com.