One of the things that a company can control in any market is operational excellence by

removing waste in a system,” notes Jeff Booth, co-founder and CEO of BuildDirect. In doing so, Booth has dramatically sped up the time it takes to get a new vendor up on his building materials website.

Eric, who went on to serve as chief algorithm officer at online fashion retailer Stitch Fix, added that companies that make it easy to quit get better data about how to keep customers satisfied and loyal. That’s because the “time to feedback” is faster for the company and the evidence is less noisy because most customers are keeping the service because they want it, not because they are trapped in a roach motel.

Second, building on chapter 5, friction fixers who battle jargon monoxide embrace venture capitalist Michael Dearing’s advice to embrace the “editor in chief” role.

Appendix

“We wrote a friction article for Gallup.com, “Too Many Teams, Too Many Bosses,” and for Times Higher Education, “Our To-Do Lists Can’t Grow Forever. It’s Time to Try Subtraction.

To optimize opportunities for leaders it wants to bring in and retain in its fold, Blackstone has pioneered by actually creating a company for two standout talents. The firm perceived an opportunity to build a company for Thomas Staggs and Kevin Mayer to lead. Both men had been passed over to succeed Bob Iger at Disney. First, the firm bought Reese Witherspoon’s company, Hello Sunshine, and then they added children’s entertainment Moonbug and Exile Content Studio, creating Candle Media, with Staggs and Mayer as cofounders and co-CEOs.