The Friction Project

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

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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.

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)

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

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

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

About 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.

About 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.

Details

Imprint: Penguin
Published: 06/02/2025
ISBN: 9780241594865
Length: 304 pages
Dimensions: 199mm x 20mm x 130mm
Weight: 216g
Price: £10.99

All editions

The Friction Project

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

Format:

Pre-order:

About Robert I. Sutton

About Huggy Rao

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