[Sweet Process Series] Lessons From Unicorns: What to Make Hard and Easy in Your Business with Bob Sutton of Stanford University

Robert (Bob) Sutton is a Professor of Management Science and Engineering at Stanford University. He is the co-founder of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program (STVP) and the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (the D School). 

Bob is currently working with Huggy Rao on The Friction Project, where they focus on why companies make the right things too complicated and the wrong things too easy and what to do about it. He's published over 200 articles in academic and popular outlets, and seven of Bob's books have gotten accolades, including being part of the Top 100 Business Books list, New York Times Bestseller, The Wall Street Journal bestseller, and more.

His books include Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths, And Total Nonsense; The Knowing-Doing Gap; Weird Ideas That Work, The No Asshole Rule, and Good, Bad Boss. He also wrote The Asshole Survival Guide: How to Deal With People Who Treat You Like Dirt and Scaling-Up Excellence.

In this episode…

Many companies are doing the opposite of what they need to do in order to scale their business. They make bad things easy and faster to do, while good things pose more challenges and are accomplished at a slower pace. Bob Sutton says that many companies make this mistake in a variety of ways, from creating friction-laden processes to spending a ton of money on billable hours while doing mundane and unproductive tasks.

So what’s the alternative approach that is making unicorns like Facebook change their perspective? How are top CEOs like Patrick Collison of Stripe accomplishing massive things that would typically take months so quickly?

Listen to this episode of the Inspired Insider podcast with Dr. Jeremy Weisz as he talks to Stanford professor, best selling author, and in-demand speaker, Bob Sutton, about some of the exciting things he discovered through The Friction Project. They’ll be discussing how top brands like Uber, Google, and Facebook get things done so quickly, how companies can uncomplicate the process for easy tasks, how to avoid making bad things an effortless endeavour, and more. Stay tuned.