The Art of Friction

The Art of Friction

From If/Then by Stanford GSB

May 20, 2026 · 24 min · Season 3 · Episode 52

About this episode

Hayagreeva Rao discusses the concept of friction in organizations, exploring how to cultivate productive friction and manage team dynamics.

“Friction for us has to do with obstacles,” says Hayagreeva “Huggy” Rao, a professor of organizational behavior at Stanford Graduate School of Business. “Obstacles can disable you. Obstacles can enable you.” Rao compares friction to cholesterol: Some is good, but some is bad. “Good friction actually slows you down, gets you to pause, and most of all, gets you to reflect,” he explains. “But there’s also friction that overwhelms you, exhausts you, confuses you.”   On this episode of If/Then, Rao explores how to cultivate the productive kind of friction, reduce the unhelpful kind, and manage your team’s most precious resource. “Great leaders are people who think of themselves as trustees of other people's time,” he says.  Do you have any favorite examples of good or bad friction? Share one with us at ifthenpod@stanford.edu. Related Content: Huggy Rao faculty profile  The Friction Project How to become a friction fixe r Chapters: 00:00:00 Airport baggage claim, waiting, & good friction 00:03:20 Introduction 00:03:48 What friction means in organizations 00:05:42 Where friction comes from 00:07:52 Scaling through smart subtraction 00:08:24 DropBox’s approach to…

People in this episode

Guest: Hayagreeva Rao

Topics covered

  • friction
  • organizational behavior
  • leadership
  • team management
  • productivity

Keywords

  • friction
  • obstacles
  • leadership
  • team dynamics
  • organizational behavior
  • productivity

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Stanford Graduate School of Business, DropBox

More episodes of If/Then

Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the If/Then podcast page.