Good and Bad Friction
I have generally seen friction as a bad thing. Friction prevents us from moving fast, makes it harder to get things done efficiently and makes us slower.
Before we go any deeper let’s define what friction is.
Friction is anything that slows us down and prevents us from moving faster. This could take the form of approval process, an audit or a difference in perspectives.
However, I’ve recently come to appreciate the presence of friction in my life. I came to recognize that in some situations, friction is not only needed but should be encouraged.
The short video shows us that in the physical world, friction allows us to walk, perform everyday actions and keeps us from falling. Friction is necessary for us to actually live. In a frictionless world, we would probably be unable to perform simple actions like walking, grabbing an object or getting from point A to point B.
We can take the concept of friction from our physical world and apply it to decision making as well. Without friction in our decision making process, we are more prone to making bad decisions.
It’s important to differentiate good friction from bad friction.
Good friction helps us make better decisions by making us think through the details and our assumptions. It slows us down and prevents us from making rash or ill thought out decisions.
Friction is bad in situations where speed is more important and when it prevents us from reaching our goals.
Here are some ways in which friction can be good and when it can be bad.
Friction is good when:
You’re trying to understand your thoughts - it’s a good idea to develop a habit of writing when you are trying to gain more clarity. Writing inherently has friction built in as you have to think when you write. It exposes your assumptions and flaws in logic more clearly as opposed to just thinking or having a conversation.
You’re in an emotional situation - we tend to say things or make impulsive decisions that we later regret. A simple friction like taking a deep breathe or pausing for 5 seconds before you respond could make all the difference between a good and bad response.
You’re making Important, High Risk decisions - you should identify idecisions that are important and high risk, and make sure that there are good processes built in to make the best decision. Some of these decisions would be hiring, firing or company direction. At HeyOrca, before setting our annual direction, we have a process to make sure that we get all the relevant inputs and have the necessary discussions before finalizing on the direction. This process that we’ve built acts as a good friction so that we make the best decision.
You are trying to ensure quality - Friction is good when you are trying to ensure quality or accuracy. An example of this form of friction is the quality assurance (QA) process in product development. Although the QA process slows product development down, it is a critical friction that ensures the quality of the product for customers.
Friction is bad when
You are making Unimportant, Low risk decisions - In this case, the speed of making a decision outweighs the risk of getting it wrong or when the cost of getting it wrong is low and reversible. For example, picking where to go for a team lunch is relatively low risk, and you can always change your mind later on. The time it takes to make a decision is not worth it, as long as a decision is made.
You trying to encourage a behaviour - when trying to build a culture, you not only want to remove friction, you’d want to make it easy for people to do it. For example, coworker appreciation is something that is important to us at HeyOrca, so we created a channel called #podwins in Slack to make it easy for people to give each other virtual high fives and shout outs.
You are generating ideas - Ideas benefit from a frictionless environment, when people feel safe and are free to voice their opinions and ideas without being judged. Remember that all ideas are valid during an idea generating session as the point is to consider all viewpoints and not to make a decision.
You are trying to increase output - As managers, we are responsible for identifying barriers and roadblocks to our employees. For example, if I realized that a sales person is spending a bulk of their time doing manual data entry work, then I should identify those friction and work with engineering to automate that process so that they can focus on closing the deal.
There you have it - the two sides of the “friction coin”. Friction makes things more difficult, but without friction, we would be at greater risks of making mistakes.
What other areas in your life can you see friction being helpful?
I hope this helps! Talk soon 👋