Friction is a weird thing. We need friction in our lives to maintain our health, our muscles, and our sanity. People who live in tropical areas where the weather is “perfect” too much, get depressed when the weather gets bad. Exercise is necessary friction so our muscles don’t get atrophied. A little friction in our relationships makes life interesting. A lot of friction in our relationships leads to damage. Physical friction is what makes our cars stay on the roads. Friction in decision-making can help us make better decisions and prevent us from jumping into something too quickly.
Friction in Business Relationships
It’s really good in some business situations and not so good in others. Unfortunately, some leaders don’t seem to know the difference. If you are old enough to remember buying software, these were times with not much friction. You bought the software once and waited until a new version had a feature you couldn’t live without before buying an upgrade. Now everything is a subscription. Depending on how important a product is to your business, how customized it is, and how many other options are available in the market, discontinuing or switching can be a difficult process. They have added friction to keep you from leaving.
Unless you are a farmer, you might not think of tractors as having much friction to them. Growing up on the farm, we had several tractors. As long as you had some degree of mechanical skills they lasted more or less forever. Not anymore. Most new tractors have electronics that prevent you from servicing them yourselves. There have been several lawsuits that resulted in John Deere finally letting farmers fix their own tractors beginning in 2023. Tractors aren’t the only areas of friction hitting farmers. Monsanto regularly sues farmers for patent infringement for replanting their seeds. For centuries farmers have kept some of their crop for next year’s seeds. They have added friction to the process, by forcing farmers to buy from them. It’s a largely one-sided relationship.
Years ago I worked for a bank that had a very nice online banking system which I managed for a short period. Someone decided it needed a little friction in the form of changing from real-time to batch transactions. This was a giant step backward from a customer’s perspective. But it made the bank lots of money because they could change the way transactions were processed. When all debits are done before credits (and not in the order they happen), you get lots of overdraft situations where people make deposits and write checks on the same day. It was one of the reasons I left, and the practice has been largely discontinued, it’s a typical example of how management tries to use friction to get some result.
If you are a bank, Microsoft, John Deere, or Monsanto, friction can be great for your bottom line. Depending on the experience as a customer, it can be really good, or a nightmare.
Reducing Friction
Except for things like the tax code, the government is usually about trying to reduce friction in their interaction with the public. It’s in everyone’s best interest to try and be efficient. I do lots of work with benefits-based programs like Unemployment, SNAP (formerly food stamps), and WIC. Over the years these programs have gone from clunky paper check-based systems that no one liked, the relatively efficient card-based programs. We have developed standards so that most modern point-of-sale systems can take SNAP and WIC, and participants can make appointments via phone/video in many communities. This can be a great benefit to families with transportation challenges.
The poster child for friction in government tends to be the Department of Motor Vehicles. For whatever reason, this function seems to have more challenges than most in reducing friction. When I lived in Connecticut, the last time I went to the DMV, rather than adding more staff to handle the volume of clients, they added extra security guards to keep people from getting out of hand. I’m not sure why they haven’t made more progress but there is still hope.
When Covid hit, other than a few months of chaos trying to deal with the new reality, most government agencies and companies, in general, were able to reduce friction in many areas through remote work and remote services. Going remote removed friction points like the commute, provider responsibilities (child, parent, pet, etc.), and other areas. Typically productivity went up 1-4% (depending on the study), worker satisfaction typically went up around 11%, and resignations went down (more so for women, minorities, and disabled workers.). What could go wrong?
Unnecessary Friction
Between return-to-office (RTO) mandates and political antics, certain individuals and groups are adding friction to influence a particular agenda. A lot of unnecessary friction items seem to come from fear and a desire to control. Steering clear of political topics, here are some red flags to look for in the business setting;
- Commuting – this was the first friction point that was removed for most workers during the pandemic. Once you realize you can do your job from somewhere other than the office, requiring you to come back to the office becomes a huge point of friction. You might as well tell people they have to walk everywhere backward. Everyone seems to know it is unnecessary except someone in charge. And for whatever reason, they ignore the research that says that adding it back in when there isn’t a compelling business case the workers believe, results in lower productivity, higher turnover, and ultimately high costs for everyone.
- Excessive Meetings – Whenever something changes, a common response is to schedule more meetings to get on top of things. Scheduling too many meetings takes away time from focused work. If meetings lack clear agendas or include too many people, they can become unproductive and interrupt workflows.
- Micromanagement – This often goes hand in hand with excessive meetings. Many managers did not know how to manage when people were not in the office. So rather than focus on outcomes, they started tracking online time, key clicks, and other digital presenteeism-oriented measures. Constantly overseeing and controlling small aspects of employees’ tasks limits autonomy and slows down progress. It can also hurt morale and hinder employees’ confidence in their skills.
- Overly Complex Approval Processes – I once got into trouble for showing how an approval process went from 4 hours to 7 days. When there is a lack of trust in organizations it leads to unnecessary practices. Then, as management changes, the policies are left in place and people don’t change them because they don’t know why they were done that way in the first place. Requiring multiple layers of approval for simple tasks or decisions can cause delays and frustration. Streamlined decision-making often enables faster action.
- Unnecessary Tools or Software – Software to track key clicks, geofencing, and other tracking tools can be demoralizing and rarely captures what is really going on. Adding tools or platforms without clear benefits can lead to confusion and inefficiency.
- Frequent Policy Changes – RTO policies specifically often reflect a backtracking of previous policies. Many times people make life changes about where they live based on past policies. It’s not just a matter of returning to the office, it may mean longer commutes or even moving again. Regularly changing procedures, rules, or goals without adequate communication can disrupt routines and force employees to constantly adapt, reducing productivity.
- Rigid Work Hours or Inflexibility—Asynchronous communication and work, in general, are part of what makes remote and hybrid work possible. Imposing strict schedules or limiting flexibility (like remote work options) can stifle productivity, especially if employees perform better during non-standard hours or prefer working from a specific location.
- Complicated Reporting Requirements – With remote work came the death of counting butts in seats. Or did it? Since many managers never learned to manage based on outcomes, or the metrics were never in place to start with, they simply created more reports to track time in, time out, and daily activities at a level of detail they never did before, and probably don’t have time to read anyway. But they’ve got the data just in case anyone asks. Requiring excessive or repetitive reporting can create a burden that diverts time from productive tasks. Streamlining these requirements helps employees focus more on their core responsibilities.
I originally had a longer list, but I got depressed writing it. You get the idea. Just one of these can make a work environment difficult, but where there’s one, chances are there are many of these.
Take a Look at Your Friction
We clearly have a love-hate relationship with friction in our lives and our work. We don’t always take time to look at those things we are dealing with in terms of friction. Is it good or bad? What does it make possible? What does it prevent? Remember, things are the way they are because they got that way. Yes, it’s sort of hyperbole but we tend to live with those types of explanations. In almost every aspect of what we do, adding or removing friction can make a difference. It could be good, or really bad (Even if it sounds good). Take the time to think it through. If more people had more friction in their decision-making, they might make better decisions about friction. Think about it.
