Bob Sutton will discuss key insights that have emerged from the “organizational friction project” that he and Stanford colleague Huggy Rao have been working on for the past five years. He will dig into causes (and cures) for destructive friction including clueless leaders, punitive structures, broken pecking orders, collaborative overload, jargon monoxide, and gunk people. Sutton will also discuss the virtues of friction, how leaders can harness it to make better decisions, spark creativity, bolster commitment, and scale more effectively.

Our Speaker 

Dr. Bob Sutton

Professor of Management Science and Engineering     

Dr. Robert Sutton is Professor of Management Science and Engineering and a Professor of Organizational Behavior (by courtesy) at Stanford. Sutton has been teaching classes on the psychology of business and management at Stanford since 1983. He is co-founder of the Center for Work, Technology and Organization, which he co-directed from 1996 to 2006.  He is also co-founder of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program and the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (which everyone calls “the d school”). Some of his popular books include The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t  and Good Boss, Bad Boss: How to Be the Best…. and Survive the Worst, both of which are New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestsellers. www.bobsutton.net

The Friction Project started by Stanford professor Bob Sutton is a partnership between Stanford faculty, students and business leaders in the non-for-profit and for-profit world. Their mission is to help leaders and teams change their organizations for the better by understanding the causes of and cures for dysfunctional organizational friction—and when it is wise to make things harder to do.

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