Jim Rembach says election shifts offer a warning for senior leaders

Jim Rembach, author of The Drift Tax, argues that slow-building change shows up all at once in elections and inside companies. He says leaders can use the 2026 results as a reminder that performance drift, turnover and budget waste often build long before anyone notices.

Why it matters: - The 2026 election results underscore a broader management lesson: shifts that build over months can surface in a single moment. - Rembach says the same pattern shows up inside companies, where performance drift creates hidden costs in finance, operations, HR and strategy. - The message lands as organizations head into budget season and weigh how much repeated spending is masking deeper execution problems.

What happened: - Rembach, author of The Drift Tax: Why Organizations Pay Twice for the Same Performance and How to Stop, said senior leaders can learn from the election results without taking a political side. - The AP Voter Poll found roughly three-quarters of voters felt angry or dissatisfied with the direction of the country. - Voters under 30 and Hispanic voters shifted from their 2024 choices. - The Drift Tax was published by LEI Press on Oct. 12, 2026, and is an Amazon best seller in two business and management categories. - Rembach is executive director of the Leadership Execution Institute.

The details: - Rembach says change happens before anyone counts it, and election night only records a shift that formed over months of conversations, prices and news. - He writes that the cost of drifting performance reaches a company quietly and in fragments until someone runs the total. - The book frames every offer letter as a bet on behavior. - Rembach argues companies pay for judgment and ownership when they hire, then often fail to reinforce that behavior once pressure arrives. - The book cites Gallup research showing 52% of departing employees said their manager or organization could have done something to keep them. - Rembach says the resignation appears in one month's numbers, but the decision was made long before. - The Drift Tax defines the “Drift Tax” as the cumulative cost organizations absorb when behavioral stability decays after investment, forcing the same performance to be paid for again. - The book says finance sees part of that cost as margin compression, operations sees productivity variance, human resources sees turnover and strategy sees timelines slip. - Rembach says no single line on the P&L adds the pieces together. - Rembach said, “Nobody fails. Everybody pays,” and added, “This is not an HR problem. It is a P&L problem wearing an HR costume.” - About 4 in 10 voters named the economy as the most important issue facing the country, according to the AP Voter Poll. - Chapter 6 of the book is titled “The Tax Collector Loves November.” - The chapter follows how annual budgets fund the same performance a second time through consultants, coaching, program relaunches and replacement hiring, with none of it labeled a repurchase. - Ron Friedman, Ph.D., author of Superteams and The Best Place to Work, wrote that the book shows leaders how to create an environment that reinforces the right behaviors day after day and promotes sustained excellence. - The Drift Tax Diagnostic includes 10 statements about how an organization runs on an ordinary Tuesday. - The diagnostic produces an Architecture Score that shows how much of an organization’s stability is held by design rather than effort. - The diagnostic is free at the book site. - The Drift Tax is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook and audiobook through Amazon and major retailers. - Excerpts and details are available at the book site. - The book is published by LEI Press and was released Oct. 12, 2026, in hardcover, paperback, ebook and audiobook editions. - The hardcover ISBN is 979-8-90589-141-0. - The paperback ISBN is 979-8-90589-140-3. - The ebook ISBN is 979-8-90589-139-7. - The audiobook ISBN is 979-8-90589-142-7. - The book says it examines the hidden taxes organizations pay when people drift, causing execution failures, and how to stop paying them. - Jim Rembach is also president of Execution Architects, where he helps organizations design and implement scaffolding to upgrade their operating systems for the post-AI era. - Rembach hosts the Fast Leader Show and has interviewed hundreds of management thinkers. - Rembach spent three decades inside complex operations before writing the book. - Rembach lives in Greensboro, North Carolina. - LEI Press is the publishing division of the Leadership Execution Institute, which studies leadership behavior, behavioral drift and culture-calibrated execution systems. - Research briefs, reports and publications from the institute are available at Leadership Execution Institute. - Review copies and interviews are available on request.

Between the lines: - Rembach is using a political moment to make a business argument: leaders often treat visible breakdowns as sudden events when they are usually the end result of slow erosion. - The book’s framing suggests many organizations misread execution problems as isolated HR issues instead of systemic operating costs. - By tying November budgets to “repurchasing” performance, the book points to a recurring management blind spot: leaders may pay again for fixes to problems they never designed out.

What's next: - Organizations can use the free Drift Tax Diagnostic to measure how much stability is built into systems versus dependent on effort. - The book’s availability in multiple formats and through major retailers broadens its reach to leaders looking for a management framework. - Rembach and the Leadership Execution Institute are positioning the book as a tool for leaders evaluating execution systems in the post-AI era. - Review copies and interview requests remain available through the institute.