Publishers Weekly
10/23/2023
Organizational psychologist Sutton and Stanford Graduate School of Business professor Rao follow up their 2014 collaboration, Scaling Up Excellence, with an impassioned guide for reducing “friction,” which they define as “forces that make it harder, slower, more complicated, or downright impossible to get things done in organizations.” Highlighting organizations that have successfully simplified their operations, the authors describe how the chief medical officer at Hawaii Pacific Health saved hundreds of nursing hours per month by making such minor tweaks as reducing the “required clicks for documenting a diaper change from three to one.” Sutton and Rao outline a five-level “help pyramid” suggesting how workers with different degrees of power might resolve “friction”; those with less institutional influence will have to settle for helping coworkers view obstacles as less daunting by joking about challenges, but senior executives can implement “systemic repairs.” (For example, higher-ups at pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca saved staffers “from thousands of unnecessary emails” by “adding steps before employees could ‘reply all’ to more than twenty-five” recipients). The guidance is solid and the case studies illustrate how even small changes can have large effects. Readers tired of sitting through unnecessary meetings will want to check this out. (Jan.)
From the Publisher
This is the ultimate guide to diagnosing and fixing the problems in your organization. No one knows more about making work better than this pair of experts, and they’ve produced a remarkably insightful, engrossing, evidence-based, and actionable read. If every leader took the ideas in this book seriously, the world would be a less miserable, more productive place.”
—Adam Grant, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Think Again and host of the TED podcast WorkLife
"Friction—good and bad—is among the most important but least understood elements of an organization. Get it right, and your team will wake up happy to go to work, get it wrong, and you'll make everyone miserable and undermine their ability to scale your vision. Bob Sutton and Huggy Rao have spent the last decade studying the causes and remedies for friction troubles at a wide range of companies. They’ve distilled their lessons to help you and your team make the right things easier and the wrong things harder in your company. Every executive, investor, board member, and leader should buy The Friction Project.”
—Reid Hoffman, Co-Founder of LinkedIn and Partner at Greylock Partners
"A spectacular achievement. Sutton and Rao show that friction is the secret source of organizational failure—and success. Full of practical advice, this book will make the world a better place."
—Cass R. Sunstein, Robert Walmsley University Professor, Harvard University, author of Sludge
"Sutton and Rao have given us a thousand gems, each an invaluable insight on its own, reinventing management as the art of ensuring that things get done as they should without unnecessary struggle. Marshalling the crucial insights from classic works, as well as from the very latest studies, they make a convincing case for friction as a vital focus and offer countless practical suggestions that you can apply in your work. I guarantee that their profoundly humane arguments will win your hearts, change your behavior, and transform your companies."
—Amy C. Edmondson, Professor, Harvard Business School, author of Right Kind of Wrong: The Science of Failing Well
“An energetic guide … Readers tired of sitting through unnecessary meetings will want to check this out.”
—Publishers Weekly
"If you dream of freeing your people and organization to focus their time on what really matters, The Friction Project is the book for you. More than ever today we need more nimble, innovative, customer centric, and human organizations. Eliminating needless friction is at the heart of that quest, as Bob Sutton and Huggy Rao show in their wonderful new book."
—Herminia Ibarra, The Charles Handy Professor of Organizational Behavior, London Business School, and author of Act Like a Leader, Think Like a Leader, and Working Identity
"Subtract friction and an organization will move faster, become more innovative and drive productivity gains. The Friction Project is a 'how-to' guide in a period of workforce transformation across sectors."
—Donna Morris, Executive Vice President, Chief People Officer, Walmart Inc.
"The idea of leaders as friction fixers is dynamite. Their job is to remove obstacles to help teams drive decisions and impact, whether that’s through eliminating friction that’s impeding progress or introducing friction to foster debate and better outcomes. Sutton’s and Rao’s insights in The Friction Project offer leaders at all levels important tools and real-world examples to recognize the role that both kinds of friction can play in their organization’s success."
—Shantanu Narayan, Chair and Chief Executive Officer of Adobe
"It’s a great and provocative read. As a business leader I never thought of leaders as 'friction fixers.' The Friction Project identifies when friction is and is not desirable. It’s packed with real-world examples from varied organizations, their frictions, and above all, how the people who make repairs practice their craft."
—Carlos Brito, CEO of Belron and former CEO of Anheuser-Busch InBev
"As I read this groundbreaking book, I imagined a future where every leader eliminates bad friction and harnesses good friction to build better organizations. Every manager MUST read The Friction Project to learn how, by leading through a friction lens, and using the practical solutions Sutton and Rao provide, they can create productive, innovative, and caring workplaces."
—Tsedal Neeley, Harvard Business School, author of Remote Work Revolution and coauthor of The Digital Mindset
"Are you making the right things effortless and the right things hard? Sutton and Rao take us on a delightful tour of bad emails, infuriating subscriptions and labyrinthine hiring processes—and they show us how to fix it all. Hard to put down and easy to like, this is a business book to savor."
—Tim Harford, author of The Data Detective and host of Cautionary Tales
"I have found every place I’ve been to be filled with people who REALLY CARE about doing the right thing for the company. Sutton and Rao show how leaders who pay attention to friction—which kinds are helpful and which are not—can equip these people with the right tools, build their trust, and make incredible progress as a result."
—Ed Catmull, cofounder of Pixar, former president of Pixar and Disney Animation Studios, and author of Creativity Inc.
"A leader's role in removing and managing friction is a powerful lens for building companies that go fast and slow at the right times. Sutton and Rao break down this challenge with insightful stories and actionable lessons you won't want to miss."
—Clara Shih, CEO of Salesforce AI, founder and board chair of Hearsay Systems, and author of the New York Times bestseller The Facebook Era
FEBRUARY 2024 - AudioFile
The latest book by a professor of organizational behavior and a colleague is served well by the upbeat performance of veteran narrator Sean Patrick Hopkins. Much like the principal author's speaking style--a bonus interview with Sutton and his coauthor concludes the production--Hopkins's vocal enthusiasm is prominent but never detracts from the intellectual soundness of these ideas. The authors say friction is the part of any organizational process that makes work more difficult to complete. Good friction slows down processes so that people have time to be more thorough. Bad friction consists of complications that will be familiar to everyone--bloated verbiage, endless meetings, irrelevant paperwork, and self-indulgent managers. With help from the narrator's fitting performance, these are accessible ideas for addressing a rampant problem in organizational life. T.W. © AudioFile 2024, Portland, Maine