Friction 101: How to make the right things easier and wrong things harder (w/ Bob Sutton and Huggy Rao) (re-release)

Summary

Podcast Summary: Fixable – “Friction 101: How to Make the Right Things Easier and Wrong Things Harder”

Guests: Bob Sutton and Huggy Rao (Stanford Professors, co-authors of The Friction Project)
Hosts: Anne Morriss & Frances Frei
Release Date: July 6, 2026
Episode Type: Re-release
Relevant Book: The Friction Project

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Overview

This episode dives deep into what friction means in the workplace—what creates it, how it impacts individuals and organizations, and how to both reduce “bad” friction and intentionally introduce “good” friction. Hosts Anne Morriss and Frances Frei are joined by Stanford professors Bob Sutton and Huggy Rao, experts in organizational psychology and authors of The Friction Project. Together, they discuss real-world strategies for making work more efficient, humane, and meaningful.

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Main Discussion Points & Insights

What Is "Friction" in the Workplace?

[11:29] Bob Sutton:

• Defines friction as “when an employee or a team is trying to do something and it feels harder than they want.”
• “I don’t know whether a physicist would agree with that, but that’s the kind of thing that got me going.” – Bob Sutton

[11:48] Huggy Rao:

• Views friction as "obstacles" and questions if they infuriate or educate.
• Friction isn’t always bad; sometimes it “helps educate decision-makers.”

The Real-World Damage of Bad Friction

[12:12-14:06] Huggy Rao:

• Recounts stories of workplace exhaustion:
  • Someone described their company as a “frustration factory.”
  • A woman pours herself “into work that’s largely inconsequential,” leaving “scraps of herself for her family.”

[13:32] Bob Sutton:

• “The most damaging kind is the kind that kills people’s will.”
• Common culprits: Excessive emails, meetings, procedures.

Memorable Quotes:

• “I feel like I’m swimming in a sea of shit. And why do they expect me to show any initiative?” – as quoted by Bob Sutton [13:42]
• “Your job is to be a trustee of others’ time.” – Bob Sutton [14:13]

Friction in Leadership Contexts

[14:34] Huggy Rao:

• Urges leaders to value employees’ time and avoid wasting it unconsciously.

[15:15] Bob Sutton:

• Describes a moment confronting 400 VPs complaining about too many Slack messages, challenging them to look at their own behaviors.

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The Subtraction Mindset: Less is More

[15:28-16:58]

• Rather than adding complexity or tools, simply eliminate needless work.
• “Instead of adding complexity… just subtract, send fewer Slack messages.” – Anne Morriss

[15:43] Huggy Rao:

• Subtraction isn’t just about tasks.
• “The most important thing to subtract are the negative feelings associated with being overwhelmed at work.”
• Tells the AstraZeneca story: Team effort to save 2 million hours and serve more customers/research.

Transformative Results of Subtraction

[16:58-18:48] Ann Morriss & Bob Sutton:

• Anecdote about “Scott,” an exec working 16-hour days, who cut work by half, improved health, team performance, and even saved his marriage.

[18:48] Huggy Rao:

• Advocates for job design that recruits “a more curious and generous” version of people, rather than exhausting them.

Memorable Quote:

• “What’s the point of designing a job that’s going to recruit an exhausted version of myself?” – Huggy Rao [18:48]

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Practical Steps to Reduce Bad Friction

[20:08] Huggy Rao:

• First: “Get rid of stupid stuff.”
• Constraints for solutions:
  • A 10-year-old should understand.
  • Only one rule, no more than four words.
• Failures are often of imagination, not execution.

[21:22] Bob Sutton:

• Leadership is part therapy, part organizational design.
• Sometimes you must “keep people moving forward in the mess.”

Separation of Concerns Example

[22:05] Bob Sutton:

• Clara Shih (CEO of AI at Salesforce): divides teams into “business as usual” and “the mess,” helping set expectations and organize problem-solving.

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From Logistics to Love: Infusing Meaning in Systems

[23:23] Huggy Rao & Bob Sutton:

• “Love has to meet logistics.”
• Story: Todd Park (former US CTO, Devoted Health) prioritizes love in system design for the elderly.

[24:42] Frances Frey:

• Their professional philosophy: “Love is the simultaneity of high standards and deep devotion.”

[25:04] Ann Morriss:

• “It’s super provocative to use the word love in corporate settings.”

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Other Subtraction Tools: Jargon Monoxide

[25:05-25:58]

• “Jargon monoxide” = language that confuses/overwhelms, becomes friction.
• Example: “Agile” means 40 things to 40 people—if so, it means nothing.

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Good Friction: When Slowing Down is the Advantage

[28:01] Ann Morriss asks:

• “Tell us about good friction. Tell us why we want it and what it is.”

[28:06] Bob Sutton:

• “Many things in life should be slow because they’re hard and there’s no other way to do it right.”
• Higher IQ folks solve hard problems slower—rushing creativity or innovation leads to mistakes (eg. Theranos vs. FDA-approved startups).

[29:41] Ann Morriss:

• FDA approval is purposeful “good friction.”

[29:47] Huggy Rao:

• Good friction in policing: Adding one question to traffic stops checklist led to 31% fewer stops and increased feelings of public safety.
• “The obstacle can take various forms.”

Dating Apps & Savoring

[31:08] Bob Sutton:

• “One of the most important lines in our book, which is from the Supremes, which is, you can’t hurry love.”
• Research: Too much speed (eg. in relationships, startups) often leads to adverse outcomes (eg. lawsuits).

[34:36] Bob Sutton:

• Encourages savoring: Jumbo supermarkets in the Netherlands introduced a “slow lane” for customers to have chit chats—a way to appreciate moments.

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Applying the Lessons: Individual and Organizational Takeaways

[35:37] Huggy Rao:

• “The people with the most power in any organization are people who can waste your time and you can’t do a darn thing about it.”
• Challenge: Only attend meetings where “my curiosity and generosity are recruited.”

[36:42] Bob Sutton:

• Anyone can help reduce friction:
  • Story of DMV worker triaging lines, improving experience for all.
  • “If this guy at the DMV can be a trustee of other people’s time, then almost anybody else can.”

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Notable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• “The most damaging kind [of friction] is the kind that kills people’s will.” – Bob Sutton [13:32]
• “Your job is to be a trustee of others’ time.” – Bob Sutton [14:13]
• “You can move fast and break things. All four of us are in agreement that that’s bad.” – Frances Frey [32:48]
• “The real purpose of job design is … to help [employees] recruit a more curious and generous version of themselves.” – Huggy Rao [18:48]
• "You can’t hurry love.” – Bob Sutton (citing the Supremes) [31:08]
• “Make haste slowly.” – from Augustus Caesar, cited by Huggy Rao [34:09]
• “Could AI help you do more of what you love?” – Reflective closing thought [38:26]

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Important Segment Timestamps

• [10:04] – Guest introductions, context on The Friction Project
• [11:29] – Defining friction
• [12:12] – Damaging stories of workplace friction
• [13:32] – What kind of friction destroys motivation
• [15:28] – The subtraction mindset and “editor in chief” metaphor
• [16:58] – Anecdote of Scott (exec whose life transformed by subtraction)
• [18:48] – Job design for curiosity and generosity
• [20:08] – “Get rid of stupid stuff” exercise
• [22:05] – Separation of concerns in leadership
• [23:23] – “Love meets logistics,” Devoted Health example
• [25:05] – “Jargon monoxide”
• [28:06] – Good friction: when slowing down is a virtue
• [29:47] – Impact of simple changes (traffic stops)
• [31:08] – “You can’t hurry love” and the dangers of over-prioritizing speed
• [34:36] – Savoring: the slow lane at Jumbo grocery
• [35:37] – The power dynamics of time-wasters
• [36:42] – The DMV triage story, everyone can reduce friction

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Key Takeaways & Actionable Advice

• Reduce Bad Friction:

  • Start by “getting rid of stupid stuff”—eliminate or streamline inefficient processes, meetings, comms.
  • Use the “rule of halves”: Try to cut workloads/meetings/emails by 50%.
  • Subtract negative feelings, not just tasks—focus on giving employees the “gift of time.”

• Design for Good Friction When Needed:

  • Sometimes friction slows us down for a reason—creativity, safety, ethical decisions, or relationship building.
  • High standards and deep devotion—leadership is about love + logistics.

• Communicate Clearly:

  • Avoid jargon that causes confusion ("jargon monoxide").
  • Communicate goals and procedures in ways even a 10-year-old can understand.

• Be Accountable for Others’ Time:

  • Leaders must model respect for time—becoming “editors in chief.”
  • Everyone, regardless of position, can improve experiences (DMV example).

• Test Your Calendar:

  • Ask before every meeting: Does it foster curiosity and generosity?
  • Evaluate if meetings or tasks are worth the time investment.

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Closing Thoughts

Bob Sutton and Huggy Rao emphasize a nuanced view of friction: not all friction is bad, and in many cases, the right kind—or the right amount at the right moment—can be transformative. Leaders should see themselves as stewards of their employees’ time, should subtract unnecessary burdens, and consciously design jobs for curiosity and generosity. Sometimes, slowing down is not just permissible—it’s essential.

As Frances Frey paraphrased:

• “You can move fast and break things—or you can make haste slowly. The best organizations know when to speed up, and when to hit the brakes.”

Challenge to Listeners:
Try the “rule of halves” in your own work life. What’s one burden you can reduce by 50% this week?

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[For more actionable ideas, listen to the full episode or explore The Friction Project by Bob Sutton and Huggy Rao.]

Transcript

[Ann Morris]

Hey listeners, we want your questions. Are you early in your career and trying to find meaning in the job hunt? Are you looking back on years in one industry and wondering if you found your life's work yet or if you might have missed it when thinking about your purpose and how it ties to your career? Whatever's on your mind, we want to hear from you. Send us your questions by emailing fixableed.com and we'll deliver you answers in a special series coming soon.

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[Huggy Rao]

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[Ann Morris]

Hey fixable listeners. This week we're sharing one of our favorite episodes from our archives. It's a fast moving conversation with Stanford professors and organizational psychologists Bob Sutton and Huggy Rao. In this episode we talk about their terrific book the Friction Project. Together we get into what's behind the friction that makes work feel like such a slog. Bob and Huggy share how we can get rid of obstacles that stand in the way of making progress. But friction isn't all bad. Counterintuitively, we learned that friction can be surprisingly useful in slowing you down when high stakes decisions have to be made. Right in this moment, when our to do lists seem never ending and our calendars are filled with meetings, this discussion is as relevant as ever. So thanks for joining us. Now onto the show. Francis, how are you?

[Frances Frey]

Oh, I'm doing well today, baby.

[Ann Morris]

On a scale of 1 to 10, what is the level of friction you're experiencing in your life today?

[Frances Frey]

Well, may I be annoying?

[Ann Morris]

Always. You don't need my consent.

[Frances Frey]

If you say on a scale of 0 to 10, I know which one is higher.

[Ann Morris]

So this is. This is my least favorite form of friction, the 0 to 10 scale. Friction. Why don't you explain what you mean, honey, for all our eager listeners out there?

[Frances Frey]

So loads of customer research was done and they would always give a scale of 1 to 10 for how satisfied you were. And what they found out is that Some people interpreted 10 at the top of the scale and some people interpreted one at the top of the scale, and it's not self evident. And then there was the genius observation. If we give a scale of 0 to 10, we know which is the best and which is the worst.

[Ann Morris]

Do we really want the people who were confused in the data set? It seems obvious that 10 is best.

[Frances Frey]

Except for at the Harvard Business School, we give grades of a 1, 2, and 3. Which is best?

[Ann Morris]

No. You're unpersuaded.

[Frances Frey]

I didn't hear the answer.

[Ann Morris]

We never have to have this conversation again.

[Huggy Rao]

Thank you.

[Ann Morris]

So why don't we call this getting on the same page? Friction.

[Frances Frey]

I love it. Maybe speaking the same language friction.

[Ann Morris]

Or maybe letting your wife win this one.

[Frances Frey]

You know what? That would have been a good note to have gotten earlier on.

[Ann Morris]

You know, it's. Despite my resistance, it's actually a good example of what we're talking about when we talk about friction, which is things getting in the way of progress. And I don't think it's an overstatement to say that this is one of the great sources of frustration in your life.

[Frances Frey]

In particular, that is an absolutely true statement. And just the smallest amount of friction can just veer me off course for days. For days.

[Ann Morris]

So you and I are obsessed with this question of how to set people up for success. And I love identifying friction as this very material variable in our ability to do what we came to do at work.

[Frances Frey]

Yeah, I often refer to Pebbles and boulders. And the way that I often encounter it is that people feel like they have a big problem in their way Boulder and what I try to do is with the right frame and the right insight is right size that down to a pebble and then help equip them to sweep it away.

[Ann Morris]

Well, sweeping things away is our topic for today. We are having another master fixer on the show, actually two of them, Bob Sutton and Huggy Rao. Both are fantastic Stanford professors and they are co authors of a new book called the Friction Project.

[Frances Frey]

I love that our listeners are gonna get to meet Bob and Huggy. A beautiful, beautiful collaborative partnership. They're brilliant individually and together they have so much insight. They take their topics seriously, but they don't take themselves seriously and they spark joy.

[Ann Morris]

Yeah, I'm really excited to dig in here. I think this topic is under examined as an important issue in the workplace.

[Frances Frey]

I'm so excited. Let's dive in.

[Ann Morris]

I'm Ann Morris. I'm a company builder and leadership coach.

[Frances Frey]

And I'm Frances Frey. I'm a professor at the Harvard Business School.

[Ann Morris]

And I'm Ann's wife and this is Fixable from the TED Audio Collective. On this show, we believe that meaningful change happens fast. Anything is fixable, and good solutions are often just a single brave conversation away. This episode is powered by AT&T Business. I was thinking recently about those early days of building something of your own. It's not just the little things. You're building the whole plane as you fly it. Think of those mornings you might find yourself sitting in a crowded coffee shop or the back of a library, hunched over a laptop and just hoping the public WI fi would hold long enough to upload a pitch. It's a stressful way to start a day and an even harder way to build a legacy. You're working from wherever you can, piecing things together, hoping everything holds. And it's funny. Connectivity is one of those things you don't really think about until it becomes a problem. And when it does, it can throw everything off. The last thing you want is to be worrying about whether things are going to work when you need them to. That's why AT&T business is a great provider for small business owners. It's built to work so you can stay focused on what you're building. Powered by AT&T Business Built to Work get today at business.att.com support for today's episode comes from Square. Think about the last time a local business made your day a little better. Maybe it was a quick checkout, a friendly hello or someone remembering exactly what you like. For me, it's that perfect cappuccino from La Colombe. Even on a busy morning, Square helps the people running these shops to keep things moving so they can focus on creating moments that matter. As a business, you can track sales, manage inventory, and access reports in real time, whether you're in the shop on the go or running things all on your own. With Square, you get all the tools to run your business with none of the contracts or complexity. And why wait? Right now, you can get up to $200 off square hardware at square.com go fixable that's sq U-A-R-E.com go fixable. Run your business smarter with Square and get started today.

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[Ann Morris]

Bob Sutton and Huggy Rao welcome to Fixable.

[Bob Sutton]

Anne, it's great to see you. And Frances, I'm so excited.

[Huggy Rao]

It's a delight to be here this afternoon.

[Ann Morris]

You both have been helping organizations become better, more effective and more humane places for decades and so it really is our privilege to host you. We are particularly excited about your new book which is the Friction Project, which we both loved. Loved. It's truly fantastic and really one of the pleasures of the past year has been getting to know your work better. So thank you for that gift as well.

[Bob Sutton]

I love getting to know your work better and the two of you just crack me up. So just fun to talk.

[Ann Morris]

Well, that is really the bar that we're shooting for and the metric we care most about. So that's a great start for us. We want to start with the problem you're focused on now, which as we understand it in its simplest form, is to reduce bad friction in organizations and increase good friction That's a wonderful summary.

[Bob Sutton]

I think that's a classic, really difficult challenge that every leader struggles with every day.

[Ann Morris]

Yeah, well, that's why we're excited for this conversation. So, in your work, how do you define friction? What is it?

[Bob Sutton]

When I think of friction, I think of when an employee or a team is trying to do something and it feels harder than they want. I guess that's where I would start. So I don't know whether a physicist would agree with that, but that's the kind of thing that got me going. Huggy, what would you add or argue with?

[Huggy Rao]

The only small modification I'd make, Bob, is that for me, friction consists of obstacles. And the real question is, do obstacles infuriate or do obstacles help educate decision makers?

[Ann Morris]

Look at you. That's lovely. Well, let's go to some examples. So where am I most likely to see it in the workplace?

[Huggy Rao]

So after Bob and I wrote this lovely book called Scaling Up Excellence, what people would kind of respond with was feelings of how hard it was to get anything done. I remember asking one person in an executive program, hey, where do you work? And the guy looks at me and says, I work in a frustration factory. And I'm thinking to myself and saying, oh, my God, how can you even summon the will to go there? Every day, another person spoke with an extraordinarily moving quiver to her voice. And I said, how would you describe what you do? And she looked at me and said, I pour myself into work. That's largely inconsequential. But then she said, when I go home, I just have scraps of myself for my family. And that kind of hit me in the gut, you know? And to us, they actually kind of evoke the world of bad friction, if you will. Obstacles that anger infuriate and fundamentally exhaust people, if you will. You just give up?

[Ann Morris]

Yeah. So, Bob, what's the most damaging type of friction?

[Bob Sutton]

The most damaging kind is the kind that kills people's will.

[Ann Morris]

The woman who comes home with scraps of herself. That Huggy was describ.

[Bob Sutton]

Another great line from. From another executive we talked to was, I feel like I'm swimming in a sea of shit. And why did they expect me to show any initiative? So that's the bad friction. And, you know, if you sort of go down the standard list, it's emails, it's meetings, it's routines and procedures that make things difficult.

[Ann Morris]

So do you have a way of framing this challenge or describing it in a way that really allows people to put this at the front?

[Bob Sutton]

One is that for people in leadership positions, in fact, almost anyone. Your job is to be a trustee of others time. And then stealing a line from an HBS grad named Michael Dearing, now a venture capitalist, he had this argument that the best leaders see themselves as editors in chief.

[Ann Morris]

I love that metaphor.

[Huggy Rao]

The only minor thing I'd like to add is what leaders need to do is they really need to understand how valuable the time of their employees is. So you don't want to piss it away. And how many leaders do that effortlessly.

[Bob Sutton]

So I really like where Huggy's going with this, because when it's dysfunctional, everybody points their fingers at everybody else and says it's everybody else's fault. And I'll give you a little example. This was just about two months ago. I've got 400 executives. They're all vice presidents. This is like some kind of huge company. And they're all complaining there's too many slack messages on too many trivial things.

[Ann Morris]

Too often a universal complaint that we hear. Yeah.

[Bob Sutton]

And then I say to them, you are the 400 vice presidents in this huge companies. Why don't you look in the mirror and look at the slack messages you sent this morning and start working on it?

[Ann Morris]

I love that. And it's a great example of this subtraction mindset you advocate for in the book. Basically, instead of adding complexity or nuance, or maybe in this case a slack bot to solve a problem, just subtract, send fewer slack messages.

[Huggy Rao]

One minor thing. Even though Bob and I use the term subtraction as shorthand, most people think subtraction is about the elimination of activities or elimination of tasks. Of course that's important, but for us, what's the most important thing to subtract are the negative feelings that are associated with being overwhelmed at work. So for Bob and I, the outcome of subtraction may certainly be a more efficient organization. But what's most important is that we give employees the gift of tie. They're starved for time. And we have a case study that both of us wrote together about AstraZeneca, where a team of people, they actually launched a social movement of sorts, if you will, to save 2 million hours so you could serve 4 million more customers, run 400 early phase trials, and so on. So I think it's kind of very important to connect from our point of view, subtraction, to the idea of giving employees the gift of time.

[Ann Morris]

I love that you tell a story in the book that has really stuck with me about an executive named Scott. So Scott is working 16 hours a day, seven days a week. When we encounter him, he embraces this subtraction idea. The performance of his team improves, he works fewer hours, his health gets better, and he saves his troubled marriage. So are these the kind of results you're willing to commit to for our listeners?

[Bob Sutton]

Well, so you gotta be careful with people like us who do management cases. Cause we tend to make excessive claims. But the principle that we talk about, suppose we applied the rule of haves.

[Ann Morris]

So Bob, so for the non academics among us out here, so the rule of halves is you're just, you're cutting a work burden by 50%. So the number of standing meetings, the number, the length of emails, is that the idea?

[Bob Sutton]

That's a goal. But, but to be more realistic, there's a woman named Rebecca Hines. So we worked with Rebecca on this thing called a meeting reset with 60 Asana employees. Rebecca did most of the work, to be clear, and, and what she had 60 employees do is go through it, rate every standing meeting on their calendar in terms of how important it was and how much work it was. And they found that a whole bunch of the meetings were valueless. And in fact, one thing, 30 of them removed all standing meetings from their calendar for 48 hours and put them back in. And on average, the average person saved about four hours a month by eliminating meetings, by making them shorter, less often smaller, things like that. And to us, that's an example. It's not 50%, but it's four hours a month, which ain't nothing.

[Huggy Rao]

So how many executives think of how do I go about designing a good job? A good job that fosters initiative, that actually fosters generosity. Because in the end, that's really the purpose of job design, isn't it? The way I like to think of it is the real purpose of job design is not to get people to do a series of tasks, only you want to help them recruit a more curious and generous version of themselves. We have many versions of ourselves. What's the point of designing a job that's going to recruit an exhausted version of myself? And that's kind of the problem. We feel in organizations that leaders kind of have the ask muscle. I want you to do more using one rhetorical slogan or the other. But what about the help muscle? Trying to create jobs so that people don't have scraps of themselves to go back home.

[Ann Morris]

I love focusing on the metric of how employees feel not only when they're working, but at the end of the day. So say I'm listening and you have my attention where do I even begin to solve this problem? Where's the starting place for people who

[Huggy Rao]

are convinced the simplest place is to get people to think of how do we get rid of stupid stuff? There's a lot of stuff that everybody thinks is stupid. How do we do that there? Bob and I have tried this in class and when I ask executives, hey, imagine you're going back to work. You have an initiative called get rid of stupid stuff. I'm going to impose two constraints on you. First, whatever initiative you want to come up with, a 10 year old should be able to understand immediately. Otherwise it's never going to scale. The second thing is you're only allowed one rule as a result, and the rule shouldn't contain more than four words. And when you put that constraint on people, I, you know, both Bob and I have seen it's just not a failure of implementation. It's also a failure of imagination.

[Frances Frey]

Yeah, it's beautiful.

[Ann Morris]

I love elevating that question to a mission critical question and not just a backroom whisper conversation, which is where it often happens. Bob, what would you add? Where would you advise people to start?

[Bob Sutton]

Well, first of all, and we heard this, you know, because we teach executives and they're pretty smart usually. I remember this woman saying that my job is part therapy and part organizational design. Organizational design is extremely important. But part of your job as a leader is to be aware that there are going to be systems and situations that can't be fixed, at least for now. And your job is to keep people sort of moving forward in the mess in some ways, you know, to be more, a little bit more precise. There's a woman, her name is Clara Shy. So she's now CEO of AI at Salesforce. And she talked about when she launches a big initiative, what she does is she tells people it's going to be messy, you're going to be upset, we're not going to be able to fix things. She has two teams and she calls this separation of concerns. One team is basically to do all the stuff that is going as it was supposed to go and the other team are the people who deal with the mess, the unexpected stuff. And I thought that was a pretty complete view of how you as a leader move people through friction. And that's why she's a CEO and I'm not. She's really good.

[Frances Frey]

I am marveling at this delightful conversation and huggy. I love the way that you bring the heart and the head together with the language. It's just really beautiful. The, the recruit a more curious and generous version of ourselves. I think a lot, and we think a lot about creating the conditions to thrive. But you've added just a poetic nuance to that and a higher mission to it. So the first thing is, while it's a. Like you're talking about friction, which seems like an operational morsel, you're actually talking about moral. So you've gone from morsels to morals in a really beautiful way.

[Huggy Rao]

Beautifully put.

[Frances Frey]

Yeah.

[Huggy Rao]

You know, maybe this is the perfect stage, given what Francis just said, to talk about our discovery of how in this whole Friction project, love has to meet logistics.

[Bob Sutton]

Oh, so let's talk about love. So the way this started. So we get introduced to a guy who's gonna be a guest in Huggies class in a few weeks. His name is Todd Park. He was the CTO in the Obama administration. He actually led the effort to fix the Obamacare website. And he's build a software company. He's a fixer. Okay. So he and his brother Ed started a company called Devoted Health, which. What they do is they. They make health care more accessible and clear for people over 65. And we all know how hard it is to navigate the healthcare system. It's like. It's unbelievable. So we're interviewing him, and he starts talking about love.

[Huggy Rao]

I go, huh?

[Bob Sutton]

You're like a. And he said. So, yes, he said, if you start with the notion that. That the person we're helping is like your mother or your father, and you love them and you want to have an experience that feels great for them, and then you design the interaction, you design the software around them to support them. If you start with love, things were better from both an efficiency and mental health standpoint.

[Ann Morris]

We've used that word in our work, and we use it to define setting high standards and revealing deep devotion simultaneously.

[Frances Frey]

So that this is called Devoted Health is amazing to us because our definition of love is the simultaneity of high standards and deep devotion.

[Ann Morris]

It's super provocative to use the word love in corporate settings. And we've really enjoyed playing with that tension because it really brings the conversation to a different place.

[Bob Sutton]

Yes.

[Ann Morris]

Are there other subtraction tools? Give us one more thing to walk away from this conversation.

[Frances Frey]

Some monoxide. Something.

[Bob Sutton]

Let's talk about jargon. Monoxide. Cause that's just fun. So essentially, it's language that bores, confuses, and overwhelms people. This is when a word which used to mean something means so many things to so many people that it qualifies for Daniel Kahneman's definition of noise, which is a random scatter of ideas. My favorite example, which is in the book, is there was an agile consultant in Australia who can describe 40 different kinds of agile in 40 minutes. If something means 40 different things to 40 different people, it means nothing. So that would be an example of friction inducing jargon, monoxide and super actionable

[Ann Morris]

to just let's say what we mean in a way that we can hear it. Yeah.

[Huggy Rao]

And maybe this is a bridge to our conversation on good friction. A new case is underway about a company called Mind 24 7. They are transforming, I would say, mental health care. You know, a startup by Stanford Alamo. Amazing guy. I sort of asked him, I said, okay, tell me, what is it you're doing in mental health? And he looks at me. They're building physical structures that are open 24 7.

[Ann Morris]

Yeah. Mental health, you can't really schedule. Yes.

[Huggy Rao]

Yeah. And it's really interesting. He gets paid by the local county because he's taking friction out for the ER rooms of local hospitals. Otherwise they're going to be crowded with mental health patients they don't know quite what to do with. And I said, who refers the patients to you? And he said, you know, the best referral sources are cops. I said, cops? What do you do for them? He said, the average cop in Tucson spends roughly one day a week driving around trying to find out, hey, Francis, will you take my patient? No, hey, Ann, will you take my, you know, and so we just compress all of that. And to give you a sense of love, meeting logistics. In their mental health clinics, you can actually get to see a psychiatrist in 22 minutes.

[Frances Frey]

Oh, my gosh.

[Ann Morris]

Wow.

[Huggy Rao]

22 minutes. And the way he described it from an operations point of view was he said the real challenge in mental health is, he said the logistical model, he said, is that of a car wash. You know, you got like bronze and silver and platinum and like whatever, but you got to have the front end and the experience suffused with love.

[Ann Morris]

That's so powerful. I love it.

[Frances Frey]

I love it.

[Ann Morris]

Well, Bob, tell us about good friction. Tell us why we want it and what it is.

[Bob Sutton]

We're pretty obsessed with good friction. In fact, our argument is that many things in life should be slow because they're hard and there's no other way to do it. Right. And so there's this really cool study which came out actually after our book, that compares problem solving increasingly difficult tasks among people who have higher and lower IQs. And then they do these brain scans, fmris and everything. And what they Found is that. Is that higher iq? People solve easy problems faster, more difficult problems slower, but better. And to me, that's a reasonable metaphor. And then I think we should talk about creativity. So your colleague, Teresa Mobley spent her whole life studying creativity since she was a student. Stanford Ph.D. student, and now she's emeritus. And one of the big lessons is when you try to hurry creativity too much, you screw it up, you cheat, you wear people out. And then I can tell you a tale of two Stanford startups. One that probably you've all heard of. Theranos. Elizabeth Holmes. Is she in jail yet? I'm not sure. But she cheated and lied because she had a hurry too much.

[Ann Morris]

Yeah, she was in a hurry.

[Bob Sutton]

I would compare her to Greta Meyer and Amanda Calabrese. They started a company called Sequel. They're reinventing the modern tampon. They just got FDA approval. They've got $5 million in venture capital. They took every hard startup class at Stanford. They did everything the tough way. They formed a relationship through hell. And they both finished their degrees. They didn't drop out.

[Ann Morris]

You could argue that FDA approver itself is an example of good friction.

[Bob Sutton]

Yes.

[Frances Frey]

Yeah.

[Huggy Rao]

And the obstacle can take various forms. Our wonderful colleague, Jennifer Eberhardt, she worked with the Oakland Police Department, and I believe, I think it was 2018, they had like 31,000 plus traffic stops. And tragically, more African Americans and Latinos were being stopped. And the operative question is, how do you reduce needless traffic stops? And she came up with a pretty simple idea, which was when you stop a vehicle, there's like a three question. Yes, no, checklist. They added one more question, and that question was, do you have prior intelligence connecting this vehicle to a prior crime? Yes. No. And if it's yes, stop the vehicle. Otherwise, let it go. Just adding that question lowered the number of stops by 31%.

[Ann Morris]

And presumably crime did not increase.

[Huggy Rao]

That's right, Ann. Ironically, even though there were fewer traffic stops, people felt safer.

[Ann Morris]

Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure. It reminds me of the research around dating apps, where if you make making it easy to so easy to swipe left or right, actually leads to worse outcomes in terms of people building relationships. Yeah. But then creating these high, higher friction, even if they're more awkward moments where strangers come together, actually created a context where people made stronger connections.

[Bob Sutton]

One of the most important lines in our book, which is from the Supremes, which is, you can't hurry love.

[Ann Morris]

Yes. Well, now we have the data.

[Huggy Rao]

This dating study is a fascinating study. This is not a published paper. It's still in process. But, you know, our graduate student, we said, hey, why don't you use large language models, take a look at all the various startups and look at their mission vision statements and whatever public documents and tell us what's the linguistic emphasis on speed? And so they came up with a number. So she said, what do I do with this number? And we said, well, show us the relationship between the linguistic emphasis on speed and the time taken to become a unicorn and receive that $1 billion value. Predictably, the more you emphasize speed, the faster you become a unicorn. So the graduate student thought, this is really cool. And we said, wait a minute, do another study. Show us what's the relationship between the time taken to get to unicorn status and the probability of lawsuits two years down the line. So the faster you became a unicorn, the more likely you were to be slapped with lawsuit.

[Ann Morris]

Well, Frances, I'm wondering where your head went, but I also want to make the link between this conversation and a book we published titled Movements.

[Frances Frey]

It's exactly where I'm going. It's exactly where I'm going. So listen, your book came out after ours, but should we just tear it up?

[Ann Morris]

Because that's the question.

[Frances Frey]

Because here.

[Ann Morris]

So I want to just put it

[Frances Frey]

out here, you can move fast and break things. All four of us are in agreement that that's bad.

[Bob Sutton]

Right?

[Frances Frey]

But there are two antidotes to this. You can either slow down, which is what you're arguing for, or you can put in some good friction. But I just, I want to make sure. Is our book obsolete?

[Bob Sutton]

I don't think that we disagree. A good analogy is who wins the most races in, like, Formula one or nascar. So people who know when to hit the gas and know when to hit the brakes, and their overall speed is highest. But if you don't hit the brakes when you go into the corner or when you're about ready to smash into the car next to you, it's all over. And so to me, that is sort of the analogy that I like to use is it's the gas and the brakes. So it's your overall speed is what matters, right?

[Ann Morris]

Yeah. No, I love it. I was gearing up and putting on the gloves and getting ready for the showdown in this conversation. But then as I went deeper into the book, I realized that one way to think about the theory we just launched into the world is that Monday through Thursday is about creating good friction, and then on Friday, you earn the right to eliminate all the bad friction. We're just saying sequence it yeah, you

[Huggy Rao]

know, it's as I was reading your book, which I enjoyed, the phrase that rang through my mind was a phrase that apparently Augustus Caesar used to use when he sent his generals to battle. And he would always tell them, apparently, make haste slowly. And I sort of see that as like the connection.

[Ann Morris]

Yes, that's it, Huggy. We're one of the two women obsessed with ancient Rome, in addition with all the men.

[Bob Sutton]

So I want to add one more thing. There's a really cool academic literature on savoring. So you talk about coping. It's like bad stuff, gotta cope with it. I'm in a hurry, you know, I got an upset. But savoring is when good things happen. When you're having a lovely meal, you're having a lovely conversation. Literature shows that, that it's good for your mental health to slow down and enjoy things. And so the example that we use in the book, the largest supermarket chain in the Netherlands is called Jumbo. And they experiment with the slow lane. And this is where for people to slow down and have a chit chat with the clerk. And they've scaled it out to 125 different grocery stores in Holland.

[Frances Frey]

It warms my heart.

[Huggy Rao]

Yeah, this is for the elderly customers.

[Bob Sutton]

So that's savoring. Some things, you know, they ought to be slower.

[Ann Morris]

So what's the biggest thing that you hope listeners take away from this conversation? Huggy, why don't we start with you?

[Huggy Rao]

I've come to slowly realize that the people with the most power in any organization are people who can waste your time and you can't do a darn thing about it.

[Ann Morris]

That's what real power is, the modern definition of power.

[Huggy Rao]

Yeah, you have no recourse whatsoever. But the other thing that I walk away with is it's really kind of made me realize how to put good friction in my life and how to take bad friction out of my life. So I ask myself, do I really need to be in this meeting that's going to take like one and a half hours and not result in anything? No, thanks. I don't need to be there, so I'm going to be there wherever I feel. The test for me is my curiosity and generosity are recruited. And so I think injecting curiosity and generosity into daily life as important as doing it at work.

[Ann Morris]

Bob, what about you? What do you want people to take away from this?

[Bob Sutton]

Mine's a little bit more, I guess, narrow, but this general notion which all of us know life would be better for all of us if we did what we could from where we are. My favorite example in the book is one of the best experiences I had was going to the Department of Motor Vehicles in California. There was 60 people in line in front of me. It was 7:30 in the morning and I and my mother had passed away and I had to like do this title stuff and I figured I was going to be there all day in this wonderful DMV employee at like 7:40 starts walking down the line and asking each person why they were there. He did triage and he gave me my form to fill out and I thought I was going to be there all morning. I was out by 8:15 and they opened today and we had a zoom with the senior executives who run the California DMV and they are doing all the stuff with technology, with culture, with old fashioned process sort of design to improve the quality. And one transaction which is called getting real ID, they've cut it from an average of 28 minutes to eight minutes for people who visit the DMV. And and so to me is if this guy at the Department of Motor Vehicles can be a trustee of other people's time then almost anybody else can.

[Ann Morris]

Wow, what a powerful example. All right, well you both are extraordinary and we're so grateful that you joined us for this conversation.

[Huggy Rao]

You made it so much easier for us. Thank you both.

[Bob Sutton]

Thank you.

[Ann Morris]

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[Ann Morris]

Capital One's tech team isn't just talking about multi agentic AI.

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[Ann Morris]

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[Ann Morris]

That's how they stack. That's technology at Capital One. This is Kat and Nat from Catnat Unfiltered and this episode is sponsored by Michaels. Your destination for all things birthday parties. If you've ever planned a birthday celebration, you know it goes from cute idea to full on chaos real fast. The party shop at Michael's makes life easier. With over 4500 party supplies in 60 plus themes like Bluey, rodeo, soccer, rainbow and more. Starting at just 99 cents you can shop same day delivery or order online for pickup in store. And they even do free helium inflation on select balloon styles and Michael's everything. To celebrate anything, visit Michaels in store or shop online now. Frances, what did you learn from Bob and Huggy?

[Frances Frey]

Oh, so much. So much about bad friction and good friction. You know, I'm predisposed to get rid of the bad, to savor the good. That is new. And I find that each of us can be the person in the DMV line, like, do what we can from our position.

[Ann Morris]

As Bob said, I love the DMV example because that's not a person who has extraordinary power in this system, but had a huge impact on the experience of the people in that line. I also really loved this idea of designing jobs that solve for curiosity and generosity. And right now, in many organizations, we're doing the opposite. You know, we're creating jobs where I can't show up generously and I can't show up with curiosity because there's all of these other, you know, miserable tasks that I have, conditions that I have to do. And what if we took real responsibility for that as leaders and as organizations?

[Frances Frey]

I'm so inspired.

[Ann Morris]

The other thing I loved is picturing Huggy deciding whether or not to attend a meeting. I mean, we do live at the tyranny of other people's relationship with our time at kind of a high level, but at a micro level, we probably can make some more decisions about whether this meeting is worth my time, this phone call is worth my time. And it's sobering for me because I don't always solve for my own generosity and curiosity, you know.

[Frances Frey]

No, you're very dutiful.

[Ann Morris]

Yeah. You know, I will do things out of obligation or are feeling a sense of responsibility for people, but I don't do the full calculus. What am I giving up when I have that kind of a relationship with my time? And the idea that I have some more control over this than I'm asserting. Is exciting. Is exciting. Yeah, it's exciting. Our challenge to listeners is to take that rule of halves into your lives and see if there's a work burden that you can reduce by 50%. Number of meetings, how long the email is, you and I will join in the challenge. What can we reduce by 50%?

[Frances Frey]

I love it, and I can't wait to re listen to this. I think I will listen to it again and again and learn more and more. And I hope everyone that's listening gets that as well.

[Ann Morris]

Fortunately, with the technology of podcasting, we can savor it. We can savor it.

[Frances Frey]

Thanks for listening everyone. We want to hear from you. If you want to figure out a workplace problem together, send us a [e-mail] or call us at 234- FIXABLE. That's 234-349-2253.

[Ann Morris]

Fixable is brought to you by the TED Audio Collective. It's hosted by me, Anne Morris and me, Frances Fry. Our team includes Isabel Carter, Constanza Gallardo, Lydia Jean Kot, Grace Rubenstein, Sarah Nix, Michelle Quint, Corey Hajim, Alejandra Salazar, Banban Chang, and Roxanne Hylash. This episode was mixed by louisoryyard.

[Frances Frey]

If you're enjoying the show, make sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and share this episode with a friend or a boss who's looking for ways to reduce friction in their organization.

[Ann Morris]

And one more thing, if you can please take a second to leave us a review. It really helps us make a great

[Frances Frey]

show and it totally helps the search algorithm.

[Sponsor Voice]

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[Ann Morris]

This year's girls trip to Telluride was the best. We one upped ourselves with my Sapphire Preferred card and with 5 times points on Chase Travel plus 3 times points on vacation homes with top brands, we got this incredible cabin. It was a mansion and with three times the points on dining, we ordered a Wagyu steak dinner and that pistachio gelato was too good. So where should we go next year? I've got ideas. Chase Sapphire preferred the card that's preferred for a reason. Cards issued by JP Morgan, Chase bank and a member FDIC subject to credit approval terms apply.

[Nick and Jack]

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[Huggy Rao]

You need one solution.

[Nick and Jack]

And that is why Paylocity built a single platform to connect HR finance and IT with AI driven insights and automated workflows that simplify the complex and power what's next. Or as we call it, a delicious operational burrito. Yes, we do experience a one place for all your HCM needs besties. So start now at paylocity.com1paylocity.com

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[Bob Sutton]

all he talks about.

[Sponsor Voice]

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