The dice tax
Stop rolling the dice.
Midfire helps you decide and beat the odds.
A wrong decision is never paid once. First the money at stake, then the months every team spends carrying it out. And finally, the decisions built on top of it.
Your company
About 15 decisions a month for each decision-maker, big bets included.
Deciding blind
40 people · 4 decision-makers · per year · as most calls are made today
The cascade: teams executing the wrong things¹ ⁵
40 people × 21% drag¹ × 25% decision share⁵ × $65,000Everyday calls that fail²
4 decision-makers × 15/mo × 12 × $1,000 at stake × 44% × 50% lostBig bets that fail²
1/mo × 12 × $15,000 at stake × 44% × 50% lostWith a structured process
40 people · 4 decision-makers · per year · top-quartile discipline¹ ²
The cascade: teams executing the wrong things¹ ⁵
40 people × 13% drag¹ × 25% decision share⁵ × $65,000Everyday calls that fail²
4 decision-makers × 15/mo × 12 × $1,000 at stake × 30% × 50% lostBig bets that fail²
1/mo × 12 × $15,000 at stake × 30% × 50% losta year¹ ²
Assumptions and sources
Fixed, because they're published: 21% of productive capacity lost to drag at the average company vs 13% at top-quartile organizations (Bain¹, both bills use Bain's own pair) · 44% failure on single-option calls vs 30% when real alternatives are weighed, derived from Nutt's published success rates (Nutt², 56% to 70%). Both pairs are published differences between cohorts, not measured effects of adopting any tool. Nutt tracked consequential organizational decisions; carrying his rates onto everyday calls is our extension, and every stake stays yours to edit. We round every output to two significant figures; eight digits of confidence would be its own bad decision.
Where these numbers come from
- ¹ Mankins & Garton (Bain), Time, Talent, Energy (HBR Press, 2017): The average company loses more than 20% of its productive capacity to organizational drag (index: average 21 points; top-quartile organizations 13). Both bills use Bain's own pair: 21% for the average company, 13% for the top quartile.
- ² Paul Nutt, Academy of Management Executive (1999) · Why Decisions Fail (2002): 400+ real decisions tracked over two decades: about half fail (not fully adopted within two years; a third never used at all). Managers weighed multiple options in under 20% of decisions; when they did, success rose from 56% to 70% (1999, p. 85). The bills use the derived failure pair: 44% single-option, 30% with real alternatives weighed.
- ³ Russo & Schoemaker, Sloan Management Review (1992): 2,000+ professionals asked for 90%-confident ranges: fewer than 1% were calibrated. "90% sure" captured the truth roughly half the time.
- ⁴ Kahneman, Rosenfield, Gandhi & Blaser, "Noise" (HBR, 2016) · Kahneman, Sibony & Sunstein, Noise (2021): Underwriters at one insurer differed by a median 55% on identical cases; executives had expected about 10%.
- ⁵ Mankins & Steele, "Turning Great Strategy into Great Performance" (HBR, 2005): Companies deliver only 63% of the financial performance their strategies promise. Of the 37 points lost, the direction slice (poorly communicated strategy 5.2 + actions not clearly defined 4.5 + unclear accountabilities 4.1) is 13.8 points, about 37%. This calculator counts only 25% of drag as decision-attributable, below what the waterfall supports: very conservative on purpose. The other three quarters are not billed here.
About half of organizational decisions fail.
Nutt, 400+ decisions²"90% sure" managers are right about half the time.
Russo & Schoemaker³Experts judging identical cases differed by a median 55%.
Kahneman et al.⁴
Beat the odds on your next big call.
Bring a decision you have to make this month. We frame it with you and send your team its first questions. Or step into the demo first: three companies, real decisions, no signup.