The Friction Project

How Smart Leaders Make the Right Things Easier and the Wrong Things Harder

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Summary

‘If every leader took the ideas in this book seriously, the world would be a less miserable, more productive place.’ Adam Grant, author of Think Again

Every organisation is plagued by destructive friction. Lengthy and convoluted emails, inefficient processes, and antiquated procedures can all be obstacles to excellence at work.

Yet some forms of friction are incredibly useful. Often teams need to slow down, struggle and develop some bad ideas to find that rare good one. And leaders who attempt to improve workplace efficiency often make things even worse.

Drawing from seven years of hands-on research, The Friction Project by bestselling authors Robert I. Sutton and Huggy Rao teaches readers how to become “friction fixers.”

Sutton and Rao will help you to:

identify where to avert and repair bad organisational friction
acknowledge where to maintain and inject good friction
reframe friction troubles that can’t be immediately fixed, so they feel less threatening
repair failing organisations

The Friction Project is the ultimate guide to making the right things easier and the wrong things harder.

‘Hard to put down and easy to like, this is a business book to savour.’ Tim Harford, author of The Data Detective

Reviews

This is a practical manual, an entertaining litany of "bad" friction, from pointless meetings to guff-filled emails, a hymn in praise of "friction-fixers", and a timely pointer to the "good" friction that nudges us away from bad decisions
Financial Times, (Best Books of 2024: Business)

About the authors

Robert I. Sutton

Robert I. Sutton is an organizational psychologist and professor of Management Science and Engineering in the Stanford Engineering School. He has given keynote speeches to more than 200 groups in 20 countries, and served on numerous scholarly editorial boards. Sutton’s work has been featured in the New York Times, BusinessWeek, The Atlantic, Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, Vanity Fair, and Washington Post. He is a frequent guest on various television and radio programs, and has written seven books and two edited volumes, including the bestsellers The No Asshole Rule; Good Boss, Bad Boss; and Scaling Up Excellence.

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Huggy Rao

Huggy Rao is the Atholl McBean professor of Organizational Behavior at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and a fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in Behavioral Science, the Sociological Research Association, and the Academy of Management. He has written for Harvard Business Review, Business Week, and the Wall Street Journal. He is the author of Market Rebels and coauthor of the bestselling Scaling Up Excellence.