In the business world we so often talk about the need to be frictionless in the sense that our clients and stakeholders can interact with us and navigate our services or products with the minimum of disturbance and effort. A worthy goal surely. Any of us who have tried to procure services from some organisations will testify readily about the frustrations we encounter and why, as a result, we are often former clients.
At the same time, companies discuss the need to establish traction with their clients. In other words, how do we create a bond with clients that will foster a stickiness and lead to an enduring relationship with some depth.
At a surface level, these concepts are at odds with each other. Friction, surely, is required to generate traction. Being frictionless, thereby produces stasis – or perpetual motion.
The limitations of language. Each use in its own context makes sense – taken together they are incongruent.
This technical incongruity is manageable. More problematic, perhaps is the way in which we might appropriate such language in a personal context.
For example, there is an ever-increasing tendency to avoid conflict via the creation of a frictionless environment. Such avoidance may dodge conflict in the short term, but it doesn’t necessarily lead to fruitfulness in the long term. Avoidance might lead to a hollow harmony, but it rarely leads to flourishing – personal or organisational.
Good disagreement is essential to good function and high performance. Friction can be catalytic and generative.
Disagreement might be uncomfortable. As high-performing professionals, we must learn to be comfortable with that discomfort.
Insulation from the challenges of rubbing against differing viewpoints might create an easy peace. As mature adults, we grow through such challenges and often find a more holistic self-understanding when that is illuminated by the insights of others – insights into the world, and us.
The Cambridge philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein was deeply concerned about the the philosophical search for ideal, unambiguous language. He offered an apposite warning which speaks eloquently to this desire for a friction-free environment. “We have got on to slippery ice where there is no friction and so in a certain sense the conditions are ideal, but also, just because of that, we are unable to walk. We want to walk: so we need friction. Back to the rough ground!”
