Friction and Feedback

You've been told to remove friction. Speed everything up. Cut the steps. Automate the approvals. Make the whole thing frictionless. But what if the friction you're racing to delete is the exact thing keeping your business on the road?

In this episode, Jeff Pelliccio and Erin MacKenzie turn the mic on themselves and make a case most leaders never consider: friction isn't the enemy. It's the engineering.

Using a Formula 1 race car as the through line, they break down why a high-performance machine only works because of friction. Grip on the tires. Downforce in the corners. A constant feedback loop between the driver and the pit. Strip all of that out and the car doesn't go faster. It goes nowhere, or into a wall.

From there, they get specific. Erin names the difference between friction that creates traction and friction that creates damage. Jeff explains why your AI tools need human friction to stay useful, not just fast. And both of them get honest about the times they got this wrong, from Jeff cutting the internal review cycles that nearly buried his team to Erin's incentive program that only rewarded the extroverts in the room.

The takeaway isn't "add more friction." It's a better question: where does friction belong? Answer that, and you stop fighting the systems you're trying to build.

Key Takeaways

• Engineer friction on purpose: Most leaders plan for feedback and efficiency. Almost no one plans for friction as a strategy. Naming it is step one.
• Know the two types: Productive friction drives alignment and clarity. Destructive friction breeds chaos and confusion. Your job is to tell them apart in the room, in real time.
• Treat AI like the driver, not the whole pit crew: When you remove human review to go faster, you remove the alignment and accountability that made the work valuable. Human intervention is the friction.
• Build a system of friction, not a single point: One point of friction with no feedback becomes a stress point. Where there's heat with no release, things break.
• Add a challenge point to every major decision: Before you commit, ask what breaks if this scales, who it impacts downstream, and what assumptions you're making.
• Watch for the two killers: A room full of yes people leaves you fragile. A room full of devil's advocates never gets out of the pit. Know which one you're sitting in.
• Protect the friction that's working: Before you optimize a step out of existence, ask where it was quietly doing the work.

Sponsors

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🐙 All Things Staffing: More resources to help you build alignment instead of chaos across your teams. Expert Resources for the Staffing Community.