FRICTION with Bob Sutton
Part organizational design. Part therapy. Organizational psychologist and Stanford Professor Bob Sutton is back to tackle friction, the phenomenon that frustrates employees, fatigues teams and causes organizations to flounder and fail. Loaded with raw stories of time pressure, courage under ridiculous odds and emotional processing, FRICTION distills research insights and practical tactics to improve the way we work. Listen up as we take you into the friction and velocity of producing made-for-TV movies, scaling up design thinking, leading through crisis and more. Guests include Harvard Business School historian Nancy Koehn, Eric Ries of Lean Startup fame, and restaurateurs Craig and Annie Stoll; as well as academic leaders from Stanford University and beyond. FRICTION is a Stanford eCorner original series.
Latest episodes
Jul 12, 2017 • 27min
Constructive Chaos vs. Clusterf***s
They look and smell alike, but there is a difference between the two types of messiness in the workplace. That difference is intention. In this episode, Stanford management expert Bob Sutton discusses how organizations achieve a balance between structure and anarchy, like allowing for heated debates within constraints designed to fuel creativity. He speaks with Dom Price, head of R&D and “work futurist” at Atlassian, a leading provider of product-development and team-collaboration software, which has a globally distributed workforce of about 2,000 people.
Jul 5, 2017 • 25min
The Basic Hygiene of Management
Management expert Michael Dearing discusses the timeless truths of good management, rules of engagement for creative tension, and the importance of velocity in startups. The podcast also explores intentional friction in retail design, enhancing communication in organizations, and the role of capitalism in advancing civilization.
Jun 28, 2017 • 23min
Don't Sugar Coat Your Culture
Startups may want to downplay the free food, beer and haircuts and start hiring and treating workers like the adults they need to thrive long term, according to acclaimed leadership consultant Patty McCord. In this episode, the former chief talent officer of Netflix speaks bluntly with host Bob Sutton about how backstabbing, passive-aggressive behavior and overall coddling of employees are all bad for businesses — and how actual grown-ups can hear and handle the truth, even when they disagree.
Jun 19, 2017 • 18min
Agile is a State of Being
In this podcast, they discuss the role of friction in slowing down progress in workplaces, how to identify and eliminate sources of friction, and the importance of speed for entrepreneurs. They also touch on ways to navigate organizational frictions for better project management, the impact of belief misalignment, and the benefits of embracing agility in entrepreneurship. Additionally, they explore interventions to reduce friction in hiring processes and preview upcoming episodes on hiring and firing strategies.
