THE FRICTION FIX

Too often, getting the right, necessary things done at work is hard, requiring convoluted, unnecessary, time-consuming, and soul-crushing gyrations. And yet just as often, organizations make the wrong things far too easy to do, taking down guardrails and roadblocks when we should in fact pump the breaks. The result is friction—this maddening muck that we find ourselves wading through every day—eating away at our energy, creativity, and productivity and the health of the organization overall.

Since the launch of their co-authored bestseller SCALING UP EXCELLENCE, Bob Sutton and Huggy Rao have been deluged with friction horror stories. Countless employees, executives, and customers bemoaned hours lost to ballooning bureaucratic burdens, mazes of red tape and rules and requirements, “efficiency tools” that become anything but, and clueless leaders who pile on needless complexity. As these stories added up, Sutton and Rao became obsessed with the riddle of what ought to be easy and what ought to be hard in organizations—and how to change things for the better.

They’ve spent the last decade diving into these questions with The Friction Project, producing a deep well of research, case studies drawn from numerous corporate engagements, viral articles for the Wall Street Journal and others, hundreds of classes and workshops, and the Friction podcast. In the end, the project not only revealed just how wide spread this affliction is, affecting every sphere and sector at every level, but it also pointed to a way out, throwing a spotlight on the special people who have already been fighting the good fight, working to turn back the tide and unclog their own organizations.

Drawing from those examples, and the wealth of research, studies, and stories that have emerged in this ambitious, years-long project, THE FRICTION FIX will chart a roadmap for readers to take up that mantle too and blaze a path out of the muck. Throughout the book, Sutton and Rao tease out the most common and destructive forms of friction, showing how they arise and the disastrous affects and—more importantly—what proven tactics, tools, and practices can help us avert those traps and design solutions going forward. Ultimately, they urge us all to take responsibility for our own time and others’, and they make the case for a new philosophy that empowers us to build positive, productive, and humane organizations that make life better for their people and those they serve.

Bob Sutton is an organizational psychologist and Professor of Management Science and Engineering at Stanford, where he is a co-founder of the Technology Ventures Program and at the famed “d.school.” He is the author of seven books, including the bestsellers THE NO A**HOLE RULE, which has sold nearly 500k in all formats in the US and has influenced policy at countless companies and people as the title worked its way into our culture. SCALING UP EXCELLENCE, Sutton’s first book with Rao, has sold over 76k copies and continues to backlist.

Huggy Rao is the Atholl McBean Professor of Organizational Behavior and is a Fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in Behavioral Science, the Sociological Research Association, and the Academy of Management. He’s written extensively on collective action and organizational change, and is the author of MARKET REBELS, in addition to SCALING UP EXCELLENCE. Their full bios, with more detail on their robust platforms, awards, and extensive speaking and consulting work, are included in the proposal.