If friction creates the traction that keeps our tires on the road, why do we avoid the benefits of friction in our teams and organizations?
Why do we try to smooth things over?
In the workplace today, there’s so much emphasis on getting along that often-needed conversations and discussions that might hint at being a bit tricky or sticky get pushed under the rug. We avoid conversations that result in greater creativity, innovation, and success. We avoid the awkward and uncomfortable at the expense of moving our companies forward.
Lacking the skills to stay in conversations
We seem to have lost the art of having friction-full interactions, which lessens the possibility of fruitful outcomes.
In our daily interactions—whether in the workplace, at home, or in social settings—we will encounter friction. It shows up naturally as differing ideas, personalities, and expectations that surface and collide with other ideas, personalities, and expectations.
We come with different points of view and opinions. Because we haven’t been trained to remain in dialogue, we tend to either avoid or attack. Once we’re defensively or offensively attacking, we play into the hands of the billions of dollars that corporations have invested in conflict management and conflict resolution programs. Granted, we’ll always need these solutions for certain situations. Still, I strongly believe we’re missing out on the financial and outcome-based benefits when we either avoid or fail to navigate friction.
Fruitful Friction® skills allow for creativity and innovation while honoring the diverse workforce you’ve hired to be in a room or on a team. They also save wasted time and money on ensuing conflict.
Successfully navigating friction with skill is simply an essential business practice.
You might wonder what it looks like to navigate friction. How do we keep friction from sliding into conflict?
It’s called the Messy Middle.
The Messy Middle is the zone of friction between avoiding and attacking. Ironically, both avoiding and attacking are born out of fear and a need to feel safer. They are both ways of putting up walls in our communication. But the minute we put up walls to protect ourselves from others, we lose the possibility of building relationships and finding greater outcomes. A few possibilities that may trigger your wall are you wanting to shut down, avoid, counterattack, leave the room, or just flat out not listen to others, maybe because you don’t feel like they’re listening to you.
We need skills, techniques, tools, and mindset to stay in the Messy Middle, where creativity and collaboration are possible.
The ART of Friction
While friction is part of human interaction, conflict doesn’t have to be.
When friction is ignored or mishandled, it can escalate into full-blown conflict. But if we embrace it in the moment, friction can become a powerful catalyst for growth and progress.
So why do we often avoid it?
The Impact of Avoiding Friction
In a world increasingly focused on business outcomes and conflict avoidance, we risk missing out on the benefits of friction. When we shy away from friction, we shy away from the opportunity to explore new ideas, challenge our assumptions, and develop creative solutions to business problems.
Avoiding friction can lead to stagnation, lack of innovation, and a culture where vital conversations go unspoken. While we may invite diversity of thought, most of us lack the tools to stay in the conversations where diverse ways of thinking are present.
The real danger lies in our avoidance becoming a habit. Over time, it can foster environments where disagreements are ignored and replaced by polite and superficial interactions. In these scenarios, we lose the value that friction brings, and we create conditions where unresolved tension surprises us when it erupts into damaging conflict. And sometimes it becomes a personally fueled, passive-aggressive combat – where we’re attacked, directly or indirectly. We thought we had avoided that unfortunate Messy Middle, yet there it is, bigger than ever.
Turning Away or Placing Blame
The familiar avoid and attack options waste money, time, and the possibility of moving our work cultures forward. How many times have you felt the sting of an attack when you thought for sure you could have a conversation? I certainly have. Or when you were told it was no big deal, don’t worry about it. Then you find it blowing back on you when the project gets behind schedule or, even worse, fails. I certainly have, and many of our clients have as well.
Embracing Friction as a Benefit
The key to transforming friction into a positive force in our organizations and teams is how we respond to it. By welcoming friction, we open the door to richer, more meaningful exchanges. It invites diverse perspectives and pushes us to stretch beyond what one person alone can accomplish. When approached constructively, friction
- fuels problem-solving,
- enhances creativity, and
- fortifies relationships.
We can create pearls rather than dust.
Fruitful Friction® requires Dialogue and Openness
I was recently in a group where I felt the walls go up! A team member pointed out what others were doing wrong. Fruitful Friction® isn’t about being brave enough to point out what someone else is doing – that’s just blame. If this person could have shared with their wall down, it would have invited the group to join the Messy Middle© and move the project forward. This person definitely thought they were being bravely blunt. And they were – and that’s not Fruitful Friction®. Fruitful Friction® claims one’s own impact and self-awareness while engaging in a back-and-forth dialogue where each person stays present in the conversation and in relationship.
Tossing things from the safety of our walled-off zone doesn’t foster group growth; instead, it often zings others into silence. When we emerge from behind those walls and engage in the Messy Middle, we can turn friction into a force for growth, success, and forward movement.
Friction as Distinct from Conflict
Unlike conflict, which often manifests as combative or adversarial interactions (active or passive), friction doesn’t have to be a negative experience. It’s the rub that sharpens the blade, the tension that fine-tunes an instrument. When recognized and navigated effectively, friction can lead to breakthroughs rather than shutdowns.
Fruitful Friction® creates:
- Trust
- Relationship
- Accountability
What sets friction apart from traditional conflict resolution programs?
Its foundation is built on powerful communication tools rooted in self-awareness and presence. Presence is essential to navigating friction—it’s about choosing to stay in the relationship, even when things get uncomfortable. Successful leaders are the ones who have learned this distinction. They’re able to remain in dialogue even when the interaction gets rough.
Putting up walls is different from setting healthy boundaries. Boundaries are essential and proactive measures to maintain safety. Walls, on the other hand, are reactive. They go up as an instinct to separate ourselves from others, often under the guise of politeness and most definitely to protect ourselves. We can, however, have boundaries established and then work on keeping our reflexive walls down.
Undermining Trust
Sometimes, people appear polite while subtly undermining the situation through passive-aggressive behaviors. Several clients share stories of colleagues who they thought were backing off or backing out but later came on the attack. They tunneled under the walls, engaging in subterfuge and joining the fray without overtly acknowledging it. This undermines the very openness that friction requires to be effective. That lack of safety is why many attempts at establishing friction are abandoned without the proper tools and techniques.
Fruitful Friction® lies in the space between avoidance and attack. It’s a space that requires skills to show up with courage and commitment. Both sides need to come to this meeting or dialogue ready to explore the situation together without defensive or aggressive tactics. It’s about being in the middle ground—staying present, being open, and using the tension to bring creative solutions.
What Drives This Avoidance?
The aversion to friction often comes from needing more skills or confidence to navigate it. In many cases, people are unprepared to handle tension in a constructive way. Our current cultural and educational systems often fail to teach these essential skills. We’ve moved away from training students and young professionals in tough conversations, negotiation, and communication—skills that once were an integral part of education. It’s no wonder that many adults struggle to handle friction without escalating it to conflict. Ironically, conflict often feels safer because you are safe behind a wall of your creation.
Building the Communication Skills We’re Missing
To support and enhance existing conflict resolution skills, we must equip ourselves with tools that allow us to interact with friction productively. My journey through teaching, performing, and training has always revolved around these very skills. When I was involved in the Living History program at the theatre where I worked for 15 years, we practiced these techniques in schools—investing time in equipping young people to navigate tough conversations. Those skills changed my life and the dozens of teaching artists/actors with whom I was privileged to work. And I know it greatly impacted the students. The financial commitment to teaching students how to engage in hard conversations about their perceptions and experiences couldn’t compete with other budget priorities. It remains one of the most short-sighted cuts I witnessed. Those students are now employees of your companies.
Don’t Wait – Strengthen Your Friction Acumen
Navigating friction effectively isn’t just a useful skill; it’s an essential one. Like any skill, it requires acquiring tools and practice. Engage in conversations inviting various perspectives and ideas, stay alert, seek feedback, and continue refining your approach. The more you practice, the better equipped you’ll be to harness the power of friction and prevent it from spiraling into conflict.
We’re committed to this journey with you.
We have an in-depth program for companies and organizations. It involves workshops where we dive into the techniques and get in-the-moment feedback. We have keynotes and talks introducing the topic and planting the seeds of true creative change to allow for company and personal success. We also do 1:1 coaching to have more individualized support where needed.
This work builds on all the other programs you’ve invested in and maybe haven’t seen the return on investment. That’s because learning must be embodied. A team member can know how they communicate or how they need to communicate with someone else on the team. We’ve all learned this in the multiple behavioral assessments. But these don’t help us in the Messy Middle. They need skills to stay in the middle – regardless of who they are in conversation with.
As the The Coaching Podcast with Coach Em highlights, it’s about embracing the friction rather than trying to eliminate it. We don’t always have to have our walls pop up, even if it’s human nature. We can notice what’s happening in the moment and learn to lower them.
Call to Action: Embrace Friction
Reframe your organizational and personal relationship with friction by seeing it as an opportunity to deepen connections and fuel progress. Don’t eliminate it, but embrace it. Learn to dance with the tension and emerge stronger on the other side. By equipping yourselves with the right tools and practices, you can turn friction into a force that builds rather than destroys. It can keep us out of conflict and promote healthier interactions and conversations.
Let’s keep this dialogue going. Call us today! We’re ready to help you build your organization and team communication skills. This can unlock growth potential and make interactions more meaningful. The choice is yours to own the awkward™ —start practicing and see how it transforms the bottom line and the world at large.
Hilary Blair is a leadership keynote speaker based out of Denver, CO, and is the co-founder of ARTiculate: Real & Clear. She is also a highly regarded actor, improviser, facilitator, voice-over artist, and voice expert coach.
