The Friction Project: How Smart Leaders Make the Right Things Easier and the Wrong Things Harder
Written by Robert I. Sutton and Huggy Rao
Narrated by Sean Patrick Hopkins
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About this audiobook
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.
Editor's Note
No more unnecessary meetings…
Everyone in the workforce experiences friction — the big and small obstacles that make achieving our goals more time-consuming (like unnecessary meetings, for example). After studying friction for nearly a decade, Sutton and Rao lay the groundwork for leaders to become “friction fixers.” Real-world case studies bring these insights to life and prove how a few strategic improvements can make organizations run smoother and become more humane.
Robert I. Sutton
ROBERT SUTTON is a Stanford University professor and author of six management books, including the New York Times bestsellers The No Asshole Rule and Good Boss, Bad Boss. He is an IDEO Fellow and cofounder of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program and the Stanford Design Institute (known as the d.school). He lives in Menlo Park, California.
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