The Friction Project

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

By: Robert I. Sutton, Huggy Rao

Narrated by: Sean Patrick Hopkins

This program features a bonus conversation between the authors.

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).

A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin’s Press.

©2024 Robert I. Sutton and Huggy Rao (P)2024 Macmillan Audio

Critic reviews

“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

Surviving and appreciating bureaucracy. Management in large organizations.

The audiobook will help the listener see where bureaucracy has gone too far and needs to be hacked and why structure is necessary in the first place. There is a generosity and cheerfulness throughout which flows from Sutton and Rao's desire to help people. And, happily, the listener benefits from their exacting clear writing and insistence on accuracy that flows from their academic disdain for BS and cliché and cant. Because they are long-time Stanford professors, they regularly point listeners to other good sources and research. I thought the final 30 minute conversation between Sutton and Rao was an outstanding way to review the main ideas. I noticed that the content is mostly about large organizations but I also think sometimes managers at smaller organizations appreciate seeing the relevant lesson in relief on a large scale. I even thought of spouses of people who work in larger organizations and do not understand the sludge and frustration that their spouse has to deal with. This could be a book for them too. In short, this book sketches ways to bring humanity and efficiency into large organizations that often devolve into people-grinding stupidity. Good people can make a difference and this book helps people grow wiser on how to do that.

Classic Bob Sutton

You know it’s a bob sutton book when it’s educational, funny and sassy af. Since this book is professionally titled (to get him paid speaking engagements), I’m excited for his next book that will presumably be a little more naughty.

Subtraction

A great read for both business and personal life! Interestingly, it's an addition book about the power of subtraction. It reminded me of the importance of creating an environment that naturally encourages desirable habits and actions.

Just WOW!

I started listening to this book and found it so enlightening and relevant that I bought the actual book as well. I have 30 Post It notes marking areas I want to revisit and implement. Absolutely loved and will recommend this book to everyone!

not clear purpose

To me it was not clear the target of this book. It has a lot of different ideas for different topics, just too much for me to focus and follow up.

Insightful but a bit too long

There are some terrific and insightful concepts and examples, but I felt the stories became somewhat repetitive and I found it hard to stay focused.

Applicable to everyone not just C Level

When reading the title, one may think that you have to be a sea level executive to be a friction. Fixer however throughout the book it gives explicit examples on how individuals at any level can be a friction. Fixer Reed is entertaining and flows quickly with great information.

Great read and gives tangible things to do

Really found this interesting and easy to implement…friction is in every business and it often isn’t sexy, but it needs to be addressed…the idea of making the right things easy and the wrong things hard it’s simple and brilliant.

Outstanding read!

The Friction Project provides a perfect guide for understanding how better and timely thinking can assuage bad choices and better outcomes in life and business.

Insightful and actionable

Appreciate the real world examples and transparency. So eerily relatable. Love the diversity of strategies and how actionable they are.