The Friction Project
How Smart Leaders Make the Right Things Easier and the Wrong Things Harder
Published on 15. February 2024
Book
Paperback/Softback
304 pages
978-0-241-59485-8 (ISBN)
Description
Featured in Financial Times 'Best Business Books of 2024'
The definitive guide to eliminating the forces that make it harder, more complicated, or downright impossible to get things done in organizations. Find out why Adam Grant says "If every leader took the ideas in this book seriously, the world would be a less miserable, more productive place."
Every organization is plagued by destructive friction. Yet some forms of friction are incredibly useful, 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 kick off the book by unpacking how skilled friction fixers think and act like trustees of others' time. They provide friction forensics to help readers identify where to avert and repair bad organizational friction and where to maintain and inject good friction. Then their help pyramid shows how friction fixers do their work, from reframing friction troubles they can't fix right now, so they feel less threatening, to designing and repairing organizations. The heart of the book digs into the causes and solutions for five of the most common and damaging friction troubles: oblivious leaders, addition sickness, broken connections, jargon monoxide, and fast and frenzied people and teams.
Sound familiar? Sutton and Rao are here to help. They wrap things up with lessons for leading your own friction project, including linking little things to big things; the power of civility, caring, and love for propelling designs and repairs; and embracing the mess that is an inevitable part of the process (while still trying to clean it up).
'Entertaining and eminently practical' - Financial Times
The definitive guide to eliminating the forces that make it harder, more complicated, or downright impossible to get things done in organizations. Find out why Adam Grant says "If every leader took the ideas in this book seriously, the world would be a less miserable, more productive place."
Every organization is plagued by destructive friction. Yet some forms of friction are incredibly useful, 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 kick off the book by unpacking how skilled friction fixers think and act like trustees of others' time. They provide friction forensics to help readers identify where to avert and repair bad organizational friction and where to maintain and inject good friction. Then their help pyramid shows how friction fixers do their work, from reframing friction troubles they can't fix right now, so they feel less threatening, to designing and repairing organizations. The heart of the book digs into the causes and solutions for five of the most common and damaging friction troubles: oblivious leaders, addition sickness, broken connections, jargon monoxide, and fast and frenzied people and teams.
Sound familiar? Sutton and Rao are here to help. They wrap things up with lessons for leading your own friction project, including linking little things to big things; the power of civility, caring, and love for propelling designs and repairs; and embracing the mess that is an inevitable part of the process (while still trying to clean it up).
'Entertaining and eminently practical' - Financial Times
Reviews / Votes
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) * 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 savour. * Tim Harford, author of The Data Detective * This is the ultimate guide to diagnosing and fixing the problems in your organization. If every leader took the ideas in this book seriously, the world would be a less miserable, more productive place. * Adam Grant * 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, co-founder of Pixar, former President of Pixar and Disney Animation Studios, and author of Creativity Inc * 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 * Sutton and Rao have given us a thousand gems, each an invaluable insight on its own ... 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 * The idea of leaders as friction fixers is dynamite ... 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 * 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 Organisational Behaviour, London Business School and author of Act Like a Leader, Think Like a Leader, and Working Identity * 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 co-author of The Digital Mindset *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Penguin Books Ltd
Target group
Professional and scholarly
College/higher education
Product notice
Paperback (UK-trade)
Dimensions
Height: 208 mm
Width: 134 mm
Thickness: 30 mm
Weight
304 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-241-59485-8 (9780241594858)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Robert I. Sutton (Author)
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.
Huggy Rao (Author)
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.
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.
Huggy Rao (Author)
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.