#599 Friction: Why making things harder can make you better

Squiggly Careers

Helen and Sarah explore Robert Sutton and Huggy Rao's *The Friction Project*, examining how friction impacts workplace efficiency and creati

Key takeaways

• Robert Sutton and Huggy Rao's *The Friction Project* frames friction as neither universally good nor bad, but context-dependent.
• Identifying frustration is a reliable starting point for spotting unnecessary workplace friction.

Main topics

• Workplace friction
• Meeting efficiency

Notable quotes

"Friction isn't universally bad. There is some friction that's actually quite helpful to make people pause and stop and think because speed at all costs doesn't always result in the best outcome."

Conclusion

Listeners gain actionable frameworks to audit their workflows for unne

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:00) Hi, I'm Sarah. And I'm Helen. And this is the Squiggly Careers podcast, where every week we borrow brilliance from a person, a place, a book, even an object, and we try to turn that curiosity into useful action Speaker 1 (0:12) for you and your squiggly career. And before we tell you what we've been borrowing brilliance from this week, we have an exciting announcement. Is it exciting? Speaker 2 (0:21) think it's exciting yes it is very exciting basically Speaker 1 (0:23) every week we do the podcast and we produce a one-page summary of the ideas we talk about it to make it really easy to sort of turn your listening into action um and it's called a pod sheet and we put it in our emails and we put it on our linkedin page but we've made it even easier for you to find it so you've not got to go searching around so all you need to do is go to squiggly Do you like it? Because everyone who listens is squiggly. So squiggly.me. Sure. It's great. Anyway, go to squiggly.me and then that will basically take you to the newsletter so that every Tuesday you will always get the links to our podcast. We put out two a week and you'll also get the link to the pod sheet. So squiggly.me is your place to go to sign up to our newsletter and get all the links for listening Speaker 2 (1:02) and learning. And that has actually come from some feedback that we have had quite a few times over the years. It's just taken us a while to sort, which is... We know that sometimes people do find it hard to discover the different resources or the summaries that we produce around the podcast. So you'll have to let us know. It should. It's designed to make everyone's life easier, right? Squiggly.me is the one place you need to go, and then that's how you'll get everything. So let's see whether it does the trick. Let's see. Speaker 1 (1:31) You can always give us feedback. Feedback is always welcome to me and Sarah. So today, then, we are going to borrow brilliance from... The Friction Project. I can't remember why I picked up this book. I just, I really can't remember why. But, you know, like, I think I was in a bookshop and, you know, just browsing and I was like, oh, it's kind of interesting. The Friction Project. Written by two, I like Robert Sutton and Huggy Rau. What a great name. Huggy Speaker 2 (1:57) Rau sounds Speaker 1 (1:57) cool. And they're two Stanford professors endorsed by many people, including Adam Grant and also Amy Edmondson and lots of people that we. like and follow. And it is all about friction, friction at work and where friction can work for or against you in work. And so we started reflecting on the concept of sort of squiggly careers and tried to turn it into something helpful in this episode. So we're going to think about how you can spot the sources of friction that might exist in your work today and how that might be getting in your way. And then how you can get rid of bad friction. And then maybe a surprising thing, how you can create good friction. I think a key point of the book is friction isn't universally bad. There is some friction that's actually quite helpful to make people pause and stop and think because speed at all costs doesn't always result in the best outcome. So I think we explore friction from two different perspectives, good friction, bad friction, and how we can make friction work for us at work. Speaker 2 (3:00) And actually, I've really enjoyed, obviously, you did some research and I've spent some time reading your perspective and then adding to it. I think there's some very practical actions as you go through this. It did actually make me think about small changes I would make to make life more frictionless week to week in kind of the work that we do. And then actually, I think the good friction is almost like a... a nuance that you'd easily forget or you wouldn't necessarily think of first. So I think that gets you to some surprising actions. I think the first one, you're like, oh, this is going to make my life easier. Yeah. And then the second, you're like, oh, this is going to make my life more interesting. Speaker 1 (3:35) But I always think with these episodes, when we're borrowing brilliance, sometimes that works because you're like, I never thought of it like that. But I really like it when we borrow brilliance from something that can then become a conversation. Like you and I could be like, oh, where's the friction in your week? what friction is working for and against you. I think the more we take these concepts and they become conversations, the better it is for careers. So we're going to start with how Speaker 2 (3:57) to spot sources of friction. And so when I first started thinking about this, my first reflection was, I don't use the word friction very often. It's not like an everyday word that I use. And if you just said to me, what are the sources of friction in your week or in your work? I'd find that a little bit difficult to answer. I couldn't immediately be like, oh, it's this or it's this. So I tried asking myself some different questions and also sort of framing, well, what is friction as a starting point? So maybe some listeners are like, they know straight away what friction is for them. But if you are like me, here are some things that kind of helped me to spot the friction. Something that feels frustrating. I was like, I think most of the time we'll get onto good friction, but even good friction, I think there's still... some frustration. So what feels frustrating? When is something harder than it needs to be? Speaker 1 (4:48) Because Speaker 2 (4:48) that was revealing for me. You know when you have that thought that goes through your head like, why is it so hard? Or this is definitely harder than it should be. Speaker 1 (4:57) So Speaker 2 (4:57) I think those moments are often friction moments. And then maybe when is something not working, but you're not really sure why? You know, like, oh, this doesn't really work. This meeting isn't really working. This deck is a bit confusing. why is that email not really working why is that relationship not really working but you're a bit like I'm not I've not really thought about it I've not thought deeply about it it's just sort of there's that like antsy angst around it and then when I started to do that I was like oh okay I could then start to be specific about what what what are those kind of friction moments for me I Speaker 1 (5:34) think the frustrating thing I recognise is a way of finding friction, like what feels frustrating. I think I could probably get to it without those questions. Yeah, whereas I couldn't, not straight away. I was just like thinking about something recently, a project that Sarah and I were working on. Actually, to be completely honest, it was the launch of our Squiggly Careers Skills Profiler. And there was like this trio of people working on that in our business. There was me and Sarah and Priya. Speaker 1 (6:00) there were lots of handoffs between us. Speaker 2 (6:02) And Speaker 1 (6:03) sometimes it would go to Sarah and I could see, I could imagine for Priya sometimes, it probably felt like there was too much friction because she was thinking, well, Sarah's done something, does Helen need to see it? Speaker 2 (6:13) And I Speaker 1 (6:14) think, I guess maybe the opposite of friction is flow, maybe. I don't know. I might have to think about that for longer though because I still think there is good friction. But in that, I think that friction got in the way of flow at times because it probably... slowed the work down it wasn't clear who needed to see what so I can instantly associate this concept of friction with that project and think oh that probably wasn't good friction yeah Speaker 2 (6:41) whereas I think I would have a different perspective on that because I think that friction was useful so I think the profiler was better because of some of that friction some of it yeah I think good friction Speaker 1 (6:54) would be Speaker 2 (6:56) Sarah Speaker 1 (6:56) and Helen are looking at it and they've got a different perspective and it needs to be resolved. I think that's good friction. I think bad friction with that example would be where Priya wasn't clear on which one of us needed to see. Do they both need to see everything? And so she's having to check. Does Helen need to see this? Does Sarah need to see that? And then probably because we haven't created that clarity, she was having to do additional steps in a checking process that she probably didn't need to. And I'm not like there was no real frustration, but that's a good point. I don't. I didn't feel frustrated by that. But when I think about the concept of friction and that project, I can see where there could have been some in that process. Speaker 2 (7:33) Yeah, it's a good question. You know, like with the things that you're working on, you know, if you were like ranking 10 things I've done this week and you were doing, how frustrating have you found them? High to low. Like it could be like, you know, like doing a podcast most of the time is pretty low frustration. Like we both enjoy it. We might have some challenging like friction, probably some good friction as part of the process. but it would always be quite low down as like a task, you know, recording. Whereas there would be certain things that I could think of quite quickly where I'd be like, oh, that's quite high. I know I can get quite frustrated like in those moments. The things that I came up with to then be specific, because I think to make this useful, you've got to, you know, you have got to be specific about what this might mean in your week. I definitely find long Teams messages like frustrating because I think I, and I am somebody who I like things that are... thoughtful and I don't mind length and things like that. But I think on Teams, Microsoft Teams, I think because it is like a messaging tool, I want it to be short, simple. to the point and I want to be able to help quickly you know as in like if someone is asking me for something a decision a point of view a perspective I want to be able to get there fast and because and I think it's useful to think about your own you know your own accountability for this I can't figure out a way in Microsoft Teams to save things to come back to whereas actually emails are different for me because I flag emails and I've got a real system of emails of being like It's very rare that I would miss an email that was important. It might still happen, but it's sort of a bit easier. If anyone does know how to use Microsoft Speaker 1 (9:10) Teams, please, please Speaker 2 (9:10) do let me know. Send us Speaker 1 (9:12) feedback and Microsoft Teams support. Yeah. So Speaker 2 (9:14) I appreciate, you know, like sometimes something does need a longer message or more context. Speaker 1 (9:20) But then you need to come back Speaker 2 (9:20) to it. But then it's like, well, I can't do that in five minutes. I need to come back to it, but I can't figure out how to do that very well. Yes, you can say it, but I have tried actually. I've tried a few things. I've never quite cracked it. And so... those I'm always like I find that frustrating because I think I feel frustrated with Speaker 1 (9:36) myself so Speaker 2 (9:36) is that bad Speaker 1 (9:36) friction because that is like an ineffective workflow for you like yeah Speaker 2 (9:43) I think I feel frustrated that I've not responded but then I don't know how to respond because I've not kind of been able to engage with it probably sometimes I think oh if this is this long it should probably be a conversation you know so like you know when when something's harder than it needs to be I'm like actually this message is making something harder than a five minute chat yeah might be I think it's probably sometimes I have that um Or then, and this is probably a bit of friction, you know you get chased on something. Because I don't like being chased. Because I like to feel like I'm on top of things. I don't mind other people chasing me. It's my own. I like to be in control of my workload and getting things done in the right way and in the right order. So I think that also, I get frustrated with myself. Because there's frustrations with other people or with other processes. And then there's also you feeling frustrated. Speaker 1 (10:34) I'm just trying to think on the friction. So for you. when you are being chased it's almost like the flow of work is going the wrong way yeah like it's come back to you you're like no no I should be driving this work it's like there's friction because it's coming back and Speaker 2 (10:46) I'm a bit like well I should have been like I want to have been able to do it the first time yeah I don't want that kind of like the friction that's like back and forth back and forth yeah what Speaker 1 (10:54) does it what does it look like for you oh I mean I think I could take most processes that we Speaker 2 (10:59) Sorry, I felt like you were going to go. Speaker 1 (11:01) I think every day there's really quite a lot of friction and Speaker 2 (11:05) essentially we're a nightmare. I Speaker 1 (11:07) think I could think about when do you and I could use