Most teams we work with aren’t short on effort, talent or commitment. They’re busy. They care. They’re trying. And yet, work can sometimes feel harder than it should.Deadlines slip. Decisions slow down. Leaders feel pulled into everything, while teams wait for clarity before moving forward. This is rarely a motivation problem. More often, it’s a friction problem.

What do we mean by ‘friction’?

Friction is anything that makes progress harder than it needs to be. It’s not always obvious. Have you ever heard anyone say ‘it’s just how things are done around here’?

Friction shows up as:

• Decisions that require unnecessary approval

• Meetings that end with actions, but little movement

• Messages sent to avoid direct conversations

• Leaders acting as bottlenecks without realising it

Individually, these moments feel small. Collectively, they accumulate, slowing work down and exhausting people in the process. As Huggy Rao describes it in his book “The Friction Project”: Smart leaders make the right things easier and the wrong things harder. Friction fixing is about challenging and redesigning what we do, so that things run more smoothly.

When progress stalls, the instinct is often to apply more pressure:

• Work harder

• Move faster

• Check in more frequently

But pressure applied to a poorly designed system doesn’t create momentum, it creates exhaustion.

We see this most clearly with leaders who feel indispensable. Work moves quickly when they’re present and slows down when they’re not. This is rarely because their teams lack capability, but because decision guardrails aren’t clear. Without clarity, people hesitate. Removing friction doesn’t mean lowering standards. It means raising clarity.

Three common friction patterns we see in teams

1. Decision paralysis

When someone believes that a decision needs senior sign‑off (whether this is a process or a perception), progress slows and confidence reduces.

A simple question you can ask your teams:

Could an important piece of work move forward if I (the leader) was offline for 48 hours? If not, what would need to happen?

Clarity around decision thresholds, whether it’s budget, risk or client decisions, gives teams permission to act with confidence.

2. Communication fog

Meetings end with actions but work still stalls. Follow‑ups revisit old ground. Ownership feels blurred. Time is wasted. This isn’t a communication problem. It’s a clarity problem.

A simple change you can try to lift the fog: 

Finish meetings slightly early and ask each person to state, out loud, what they own and what happens next. Clarity lives in what people leave the room carrying, not what’s written in the minutes.

3. Relationship avoidance

Sometimes friction isn’t about process at all, it’s about people.

When messaging becomes a buffer to avoid direct interaction, vital work slows down or drops in quality. Silos form. Small tensions grow quietly. Strong working relationships reduce friction because they make honest, timely conversations easier. Avoidance makes everything heavier.

Becoming a trustee of your team’s time

At Borderless, we often talk about leaders becoming trustees of their team’s time.This means:

• Protecting people from unnecessary work

• Removing obstacles that drain energy

• Designing systems that support good judgement

When friction is reduced, teams don’t need to be pushed. People focus on what matters. Leaders regain capacity. Work starts to flow.

A practical place to start

To help leaders spot friction early, we’ve created a simple 1‑page Friction Audit. 

It’s designed to:

• Highlight where work gets stuck

• Surface patterns that slow momentum

• Prompt better conversations about how work is designed

Email info@borderlessperformance.com to get a copy of our free Friction Audit.

Final thought

High performance isn’t about asking people to do more.

It’s about making it easier to do the right things, and harder to do the wrong ones.