Friction: What Place Does It Have In Your Team?
Robert Snyder
Innovation Elegance | Change Leadership | Transcending Agile & Waterfall
Introduction
Speed: good.
Friction: bad.
End of story?
Of course not.
Thoughtful friction is valuable … instrumental … critical.
This article proposes approaches for healthy friction and unhealthy friction and prompts (AI pun intended) you to scrutinize your organization’s systemic, systematic – cultural – friction.
Corporate Values & Culture
The topic of friction might feel like it belongs in a conversation about psychology or engineering, but consider friction’s place in a conversation about corporate values.
Does your organization value friction? Does your organization anticipate and confront how your culture shapes or neglects friction? If you have friction problems, your stated corporate values neglect the topic of friction. If you fail to consciously manage and mentor friction, you will fail to optimize your speed.
Unhealthy Friction
To end the article on a high note, let’s start with unhealthy friction.
Personality conflict. Demonizing others. Paralysis. Gridlock.
It’s common for innovation teams to experience these culture traits. Excuses are everywhere.
"Oh, Susie and Johnny just don’t get along.”
“I assumed that we shouldn’t wait for them.”
“My last email on that topic is two months old. I didn’t hear back from you, so I moved on.”
“I couldn’t make the meeting, so I’ll listen to the recording.”
Resourceful, courageous teams don’t accept these excuses. They rethink what friction should look like.
Healthy friction
Task conflict. Safe disagreement. Micro-escalation. Pragmatic inspection.
Words that reflect healthy friction include …
• For divergent thinking, “I’ve taken this work as far as I can. I’m ready for other’s perspectives and contributions.”
• For convergent thinking, “Neither of us are persuading the other. Pat is assigned to be tiebreaker. Let’s share our recommendations with them and be at peace moving on.”
• For pivoting, “I know we had decided on ABC, but we learned some new things. The better decision is XYZ.”
• For blind spots, “What else should we consider? Who else should we consider?”
Two ways to optimize your friction
1. Minimize decisions that are too big or too small.
Decisions (a.k.a. expectations, agreements, deliverables) that are too big … risk bureaucracy, slowing down work. Decisions that are too small risk silos, high overhead, and narrow-mindedness.
From one project to another, many decisions are the same, and their sequence is the same. What changes are assignments, effort, and duration. Standardize what you can to reduce reinventing the wheel. Standardization reduces unhealthy friction (improving speed) and increases healthy friction (improving quality).
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2. Manage with simplicity and transparency.
Stop struggling about whether your team’s work is worth putting on paper for the next team – it is. Storing decisions in your head and in your mailbox is not transparent.
Stop exercising your impressive vocabulary in your project plans (“Verb Sprawl”). You are unnecessarily complicating the sequence of work, which increases unhealthy friction. Save your creativity for what is inside your deliverables, not for that you have the usual deliverables or dreamed up new stuff. Instead of governing with Four Adjectives (RACI = responsible, accountable, consulting, informed), govern with Five Verbs (Draft, Review, Revise, Approve, Distribute). RACI doesn’t provide healthy friction. Five Verbs enforce healthy friction.
Execution’s two best friends are simplicity and transparency.
Healthy friction has simplicity and transparency.
Five Verbs is Lubrication for Collaboration
Example: my team is ready to collaborate on decisions A, B, and C, bundled in document XYZ.
I’m assigned to draft it, and perhaps the project plan reserves 5 days to take the draft as far as I can. It's easy to detect stalled work.
5 days or otherwise, at some point, the team needs to get the draft out of my hands so others can Review and Revise.
Perhaps the project plan reserves 5 days to Review and Revise.
5 days or otherwise, at some point, the team needs to get the document into the hands of the Approver. It's easy to detect stalled work.
Perhaps the project plan reserves 5 days to Approve.
If no approval, change assignments or pause the project until the team has the right approvers, sponsors, and leaders. It's easy to detect stalled work.
Five verbs …
• keep work moving
• expose leadership voids
• are ruthless discipline and graceful empathy (for team members and impacted stakeholders)
• shape a culture of humility, self-confidence, and trust
A Culture of Thoughtful Friction
You want to optimize your innovation team’s speed and quality. If your corporate values, culture, and methodology don’t accomplish this, consider disguising impressive speed and quality as “re-imagined friction.”
Don’t avoid friction. Manage it so it’s your strength.
Thoughtless friction is chaos, cruelty, and VUCA.
Thoughtful friction is disciplined, empathetic, and elegant.
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Reflection: How do you see friction for your team? Could you re-imagine it?