The future of work depends on
friction
Introducing The Friction Project: How Smart Leaders Make the Right Things Easier and the Wrong Things Harder
Available January 30, 2024. Order now.
Let's put an end to burnout by instilling the right kind of friction into our teams. When we conduct friction audits periodically to understand what is holding our teams back, reward “friction fixers,” and work to instill good friction into critical decisions–people managers can create an environment ripe for innovation and productivity.
Authors Huggy Rao and Robert I. Sutton conducted seven years of research at key companies to understand the origins of friction that hold these organizations back and what we can do to fix it.
About the Author
Atholl McBean professor of Organizational Behavior at Stanford Graduate School of Business
Huggy Rao is the Atholl McBean Professor of Organizational Behavior and Human Resources at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business. He is also Director of the Managing Talent for Strategic Advantage Executive Program, Co-Director of the Customer-Focused Innovation Executive Program, and Academic Director of the Stanford Innovation and Entrepreneurship Certificate Program.
His research and courses center around scaling up mobilization, innovation, and talent in organizations. Huggy’s latest book comes out on January 30, 2024, “The Friction Project: How Smart Leaders Make the Right Things Easier and the Wrong Things Harder,” his second book co-authored with Stanford Professor of Management Science and Engineering professor, Robert I. Sutton.
Huggy has consulted with and conducted executive workshops for organizations including Aon Corporation, British Petroleum, CEMEX, General Electric, Hearst Corporation, IBM, and Mass Mutual. He has also worked with nonprofit organizations like the American Cancer Society, government organizations like the FBI and CIA, and the intelligence community.
Accolades
“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
