By David Kolbe, Kolbe Corp.
When a strong employee leaves, most leaders start with the same explanation: money.
Pay matters. But it is rarely what pushes high performers to start looking elsewhere.
The Workplace Reality Report, based on responses from more than 1,000 professionals, shows a different pattern. When people spend a significant portion of their week working against their instinctive strengths, they are 1.5 times more likely to be actively considering leaving their role.
That finding should change how you think about turnover.
Leaders often frame retention problems as motivation, engagement, or culture issues. The data points somewhere else. It points to misfit work.
Misfit work shows up when you consistently ask people to execute in ways that do not align with how they naturally solve problems and make decisions. These employees are not disengaged. In many cases, they are the people you rely on most. They deliver results, even when the work demands more effort than it should. Over time, that extra effort adds up.
The report found that 42% of professionals spend more than a full day each week working against their instinctive strengths. That level of misalignment does not stay contained to one task or one project. It affects how long people can sustain performance in a role and whether they see a future there.
This is why raises and bonuses so often miss the mark. Pay does not change how the work gets done. If the misfit remains, the pressure remains.
The contrast is clear. When people work in alignment with their instinctive strengths, they are far less likely to consider leaving. They are also more likely to have capacity left at the end of the workday.
Alignment does not just drive productivity. It drives staying power.
What You Can Do to Reduce Misfit Work
The Workplace Reality Report leads to a straightforward conclusion: misfit work is not a motivation issue. It is an alignment issue. When you repeatedly ask people to work against their instinctive strengths, sustaining performance becomes harder over time, even for capable employees.
Kolbe Corp’s Three C’s of Sustainable Performance framework — Clarity, Commitment, and Collaboration — give you a practical way to reduce misfit work without asking people to change who they are.
- Start with clarity about instinctive strengths
You cannot reduce misfit work until you understand how each person naturally takes action. Clarity starts when you recognize that people approach work differently by instinct and that these patterns remain stable over time.
Without that clarity, misalignment often looks like a performance problem. You push harder. You add structure. You expect more effort. With clarity, you can see the difference between someone who cannot do the work and someone who can do it but must execute in a way that does not fit how they naturally operate. That distinction matters.
- Commit to aligning strengths with role requirements
Once you understand instinctive strengths, you have decisions to make. Commitment means choosing where and how those strengths get applied. Some outcomes allow flexibility in execution. Others do not. When flexibility exists, define success by outcome and let people reach it using their natural approach. When a role requires a specific method or sequence, make sure the work aligns with how the role demands action.
When misalignment cannot be avoided, do not ignore it. Adjust expectations. Redistribute responsibilities. Provide support. Do not assume the situation will resolve itself.
- Use collaboration to cover unavoidable gaps
No role relies on a single instinctive strength. Misfit work often appears when you expect one person to handle incompatible demands. Use collaboration to distribute work across complementary strengths. This reduces friction, improves consistency, and allows your team to sustain performance without forcing individuals to operate outside their natural mode of action.
The takeaway is simple. Retention improves when you create clarity about instinctive strengths, commit to aligning those strengths with role requirements, and use collaboration to address gaps. Reducing misfit work does not require changing people. It requires aligning work with how people naturally take action.
Want the Full Data?
The Workplace Reality Report includes findings from more than 1,000 professionals, along with deeper analysis on misfit work, alignment, retention risk, and sustainable performance.
The new Workplace Reality Report details why productivity is lost, why workers leave, and what they really need.
About the author:
As CEO of Kolbe Corp, I keep working to make what we do for people more understandable, more approachable, and more effective, all while making sure everyone here at Kolbe Corp has the resources and support to achieve great things.
I’m busy outside the office too as a father and husband who loves to hike, ski, play poker, have great conversations. When I’m not striving I’m listening to music.
