Have you ever sat in a meeting and thought, Why does this feel like slow, suffocating torture? Or perhaps you’ve endured “leadershit,” been “waterboarded by PowerPoint,” or struggled to breathe amidst clouds of “jargon monoxide.” These hilariously dark terms, borrowed from the opening section of Robert Sutton and Huggy Rao’s The Friction Project, capture the absurd, often maddening challenges that talented organizations face when they seem unable to get things done.
The authors don’t shy away from confronting these organizational nightmares. They bring humor and hard truths to the table, dissecting why even the most gifted teams sometimes can’t translate their potential into progress. As someone who previously reviewed Sutton and Rao’s earlier book, Scaling Up Excellence, I found The Friction Project to be a natural extension of their work. It focuses not on how to grow excellence, but on why it can grind to a halt—and how to fix it.
This book didn’t just resonate with me; it reframed how I think about organizational dysfunction. I’ve worked with teams brimming with talent and ambition, yet they often felt bogged down by invisible barriers. After reading this book, I realized the problem wasn’t the people—it was the friction.
What is Friction, and Why Does it Matter?
Sutton and Rao define friction as the unnecessary effort, confusion, and frustration that prevents people from doing meaningful work. Some friction is unavoidable, like navigating complex regulatory landscapes, but much of it is self-inflicted. As they note:
“The worst kinds of friction are the ones we create for ourselves—rules, routines, and habits that served a purpose once but now only slow us down.”
Through vivid anecdotes and research, the authors illustrate how friction manifests in real organizations. One particularly memorable story involves a hospital that required doctors to fill out nearly 50 pages of forms to discharge a patient—a bureaucratic obstacle so absurd that it delayed care and drained morale. Another is about a Silicon Valley company whose “death by meeting” culture led talented employees to spend more time crafting presentations than solving problems.
These examples highlight a sobering reality: talented people don’t fail because they lack ideas or effort—they fail because friction drains their energy and focus.
Personal Takeaways: Rethinking Organizational Stuckness
As someone who’s had the privilege of observing high-performing teams, I’ve often wondered why certain groups fail to deliver despite their obvious talent. Reading The Friction Project gave me the language to understand what I was seeing. One particular passage struck a chord:
“It’s not that people don’t want to do great work—it’s that we make it ridiculously hard for them to do it.”
This insight helped me reflect on my own experiences with organizations that felt like they were running on a treadmill set to maximum resistance. In one instance, I worked with a team of brilliant engineers whose creativity was stifled by “malicious compliance to stupid rules.” Their company had built a labyrinth of approval processes that punished innovation and rewarded playing it safe. It wasn’t a lack of talent holding them back—it was friction.
The Dark Humor of Dysfunction
Sutton and Rao’s dark humor provides a much-needed counterbalance to the weighty topic of friction. They describe organizations where customers are trapped in “roach motels”—easy to check into but nearly impossible to escape. Another laugh-out-loud example involves “rule freaks” who enforce policies so rigidly that they crush common sense, like the airline that stranded a passenger because their support dog was 0.2 pounds over the limit.
These stories aren’t just funny—they’re cautionary tales. They remind us that friction often stems from a misalignment between rules and purpose. When leaders prioritize control over outcomes, they inadvertently create environments where compliance becomes the goal, not excellence.
Leadership and the Power to Reduce Friction
One of the book’s most empowering messages is that reducing friction isn’t just the job of people with fancy titles—it’s everyone’s responsibility. Whether you’re a formal leader or someone who influences your peers, you have the power to remove barriers and make work easier for others. As the authors write:
“Leadership is about removing obstacles, not adding them.”
This idea resonated deeply with me. In one of my roles, I noticed that a key process was bogging down our team. Instead of waiting for higher-ups to fix it, I worked with a few colleagues to streamline the workflow. The result? Faster decisions and fewer headaches for everyone. It was a small change, but it demonstrated how even those without positional authority can create a ripple effect.
Key Lessons from The Friction Project
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Friction wastes talent. Even the most skilled teams will fail if they’re weighed down by unnecessary obstacles.
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Start by asking “Why?” Many sources of friction exist because no one has questioned their relevance or necessity.
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Balance rules with trust. Overregulation kills innovation. Leaders must strike a balance between structure and flexibility.
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Friction is often invisible. What feels “normal” might actually be a massive source of inefficiency.
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Small changes matter. Reducing friction doesn’t always require sweeping reforms—sometimes it’s as simple as eliminating redundant steps in a process.
Final Thoughts
The Friction Project is a must-read for anyone frustrated by the slow, grinding inefficiencies of modern organizations. It’s not just a book about what’s wrong—it’s a guide for how to make things right. Sutton and Rao’s humor and candor make the topic accessible, while their stories and research provide actionable insights.
This book left me with a profound realization: organizations don’t have to be perfect to succeed, but they do need to stop getting in their own way. Whether you’re a CEO or an intern, a formal leader or an informal influencer, you have the power to reduce friction and help your team thrive.
If Scaling Up Excellence was about spreading the good, The Friction Project is about eliminating the bad—and both are essential for creating an environment where people and ideas can flourish.
