The friction project : how smart leaders make the right things easier and the wrong things harder

The friction project How smart leaders make the right things easier and the wrong things harder

Robert I. Sutton

Book - 2024

"Every organization is plagued by destructive friction-the forces that make it harder, more complicated, or downright impossible to get anything done. 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," so that teams and organizations don't squander the zeal, damage the health, and throttle the creativity and productivity of good people--or burn through cash and other precious resources. 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, which ranges 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)"--

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Location Call Number   Status
2nd Floor New Shelf 658.403/Sutton (NEW SHELF) Due Nov 3, 2024
Subjects
Industrial management > Decision making.
Problem solving.
Leadership.
Organizational change.
Management.
Published
New York, NY : St. Martin's Press, an imprint of St. Martin's Publishing Group 2024.
Language
English
Main Author
Robert I. Sutton (author)
Other Authors
Huggy Rao, 1959- (author)
Edition
First U.S. edition
Physical Description
viii, 293 pages ; 22 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN
9781250284419
  • Part I. Setting the Stage
  • Introduction: Why Friction Is Terrible and Wonderful. And How You Can Fix It
  • Our Friction Project
  • Part II. The Elements of Friction Fixing
  • 1. A Trustee of Others' Time
  • 2. Friction Forensics: The Easy Way or the Hard Way?
  • 3. How Friction Fixers Do Their Work: The Help Pyramid
  • Part III. The Friction Traps: Intervention Points for Friction Fixers
  • 4. Oblivious Leaders: Overcoming Power Poisoning
  • 5. Addition Sickness: Putting the Subtraction Mindset to Work
  • 6. Broken Connections: On Preventing Coordination Snafus
  • 7. Jargon Monoxide: On the Drawbacks and (Limited) Virtues of Hollow and Impenetrable Babble
  • 8. Fast and Frenzied: When and How to Apply Good Friction
  • Part IV. The Wrap-Up
  • 9. Your Friction Project
  • Acknowledgments
  • Teach Us More, Learn More
  • Notes
  • Index
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

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.)

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