Hey, it’s Collin. Welcome to Engineering Echelons, a newsletter full of ideas and insights to help engineers excel at management.

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In professional organizations, friction is a bit of a dirty word. We strive for frictionless workflows, communication, and relationships. After all, friction slows us down, which makes us less efficient.

I like looking for examples in one part of life and thinking about how they can apply to other parts. By doing that, I get a fresh, useful perspective on a common topic.

Friction, taken literally, is a concept in physics that describes the force that resists the sliding or rolling of one object over another. That by itself is fairly innocuous. In order for us to understand the net benefit, we need context.

Too much and there would be no movement. Too little and there would be no stopping.

Same goes for organizations. Eliminating friction does improve efficiency, but at the cost of effectiveness. Friction, in the right dose, provides the opportunity to reevaluate the validity of ideas and reassess direction.

Like most things, it’s a balancing act. And that’s part of your job as a leader: fostering an environment where there’s the right amount of friction, in the right way, at the right times.

Peter Diamandis (engineer and entrepreneur) on scarcity:

“When seen through the lens of technology, few resources are truly scarce; they’re mainly inaccessible. Yet the threat of scarcity still dominates our worldview.”

—

William Zeckendorf (real estate executive) on becoming a difficult target:

“If you show hesitancy or fear, you may already be half-defeated. If you put on a bold front, and fight it with everything you have, you can win. Moreover, once you have won a few battles, you are usually left alone: in the jungle, no animal thoughtlessly attacks the lion.”

—

Dan Sullivan (author) on how leaders leverage people:

“A core aspect of leadership is being explicit about the vision. The more explicit you are in what you want, the faster you’ll attract the right ‘Whos’ to help you achieve that vision. The leader explains the ‘What’ and ‘Why’ and then allows the ‘Who’ to execute the ‘How’.”

In a world full of information, this article helps you distinguish those who know their stuff from the charlatans.

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Looking forward to hearing from you. See you next time.

Collin