---
id: "quote-efficiency-tax"
type: "quote"
source_timestamps: ["§ Why Employees Keep Quiet"]
tags: ["employee-sentiment"]
related: ["concept-efficiency-tax", "claim-efficiency-tax-causes-hiding"]
speaker: "Anonymous Management Consultant"
speakers: ["Anonymous Management Consultant"]
sources: ["execution"]
sourceVaultSlug: "hbr-seg-execution"
originDay: 8
articleStem: "hbr-cl-76-employees-not-transparent-ai-usage"
sourceUrl: "https://hbr.org/2026/06/why-employees-arent-transparent-about-their-ai-usage"
sourceTitle: "Why Employees Aren’t Transparent About Their AI Usage"
---
# The Reality of the Efficiency Tax

> "If I automate A and B, they're not just gonna let me focus on C. They're gonna make me do D, E, F."
> — Anonymous Management Consultant

**Why it matters:** The blunt, first-person logic of the [[concept-efficiency-tax]]. It is the lived experience behind [[claim-efficiency-tax-causes-hiding]] and the **Workload Cost** in the [[framework-costs-of-ai-visibility]] — the reason employees rationally hide productivity gains rather than reveal them.