The dilemma is that when the challenges facing an organization are not about repeatable execution, but about innovation or responding to complexity, the idea of breaking things down into well-understood parts is not only unhelpful, it can also be a dangerous trap.

The Friction Project

Introduction

“Sometimes, it seems as if Peter Drucker was right when he said, “Most of what we call management consists of making it difficult for people to get their work done.

Parting Thought: Expect and Embrace the Mess

Our last lesson, then, is that smart friction fixers expect organizational life to be messy, try to clean up what they can, and embrace (or at least endure) the rest. That means accepting that, as those lawyers did, no matter where you are, there will always be unavoidable and aggravating friction.

That’s the advice we’ve heard from David Kelley again and again over the past twenty-five years about the organizations he’s founded and led. He tells frustrated and confused people (including us) at IDEO and the Stanford d.school, “Life is messy sometimes. Sometimes the best you can do is to accept that it is a mess, try to love it as much as you can, and move forward.

Why it works at IDEO — and what allows the company to churn out excellence at a regular clip — are what Schein calls the "shared basic assumptions" that drive all of these seemingly odd choices. If you want to change culture, then you have to start there, by influencing the thought patterns that drive your employees to act.

Why it works at IDEO — and what allows the company to churn out excellence at a regular clip — are what Schein calls the "shared basic assumptions" that drive all of these seemingly odd choices. If you want to change culture, then you have to start there, by influencing the thought patterns that drive your employees to act.