Robert SuttonEvery podcast appearance, updated as new ones drop

What if the biggest drain on your team's productivity isn't lack of effort, but the friction you've built into your systems? In this episode of World's Greatest Business Thinkers, host Nick Hague speaks with Robert Sutton, Organizational Psychologist, and Professor Emeritus at Stanford, about the hidden cost of organizational friction. Robert explains how leaders can act as "friction fixers," removing bureaucratic barriers, unnecessary meetings, and email overload while preserving productive constraints that improve decision-making. The conversation explores practical frameworks like the "subtraction game," strategies to combat performative leadership, and the importance of treating others' time as a sacred resource. With real-world examples from companies like Google, Sutton also unpacks how AI can either streamline or worsen broken systems depending on how thoughtfully it's applied. What You Will Learn: How to distinguish good friction from bad friction The "subtraction game" framework for identifying organizational waste Why treating others' time as a sacred trust is the foundation of leadership How to combat "peacocking" and the "smart talk trap" in your organization The power of constraint-based rules to eliminate bad friction at scale Why AI is a magnifying glass for both good and bad processes If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate, and review it on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , and YouTube Podcasts. Instructions on how to do this are here . About Guest: Robert Sutton is an organizational psychologist and Professor Emeritus at Stanford University's School of Engineering, where he has spent over 40 years studying how organizations function at scale. Known for his bestselling books, including *The No Asshole Rule* and *The Friction Project: How Smart Leaders Make the Right Things Easier and the Wrong Things Harder*, Robert bridges the gap between academic research and real-world organizational challenges. His work focuses on creating organizations that are both humane and financially viable, examining how leaders can intentionally design systems to eliminate bad friction while preserving good friction. Quotes: "Bad friction is stuff that gets in the way of doing the work you should be doing. But there are all these things that should be slower, difficult, or impossible; doing things that are unlawful should be impossible. We're interested in both good friction and bad friction, and I probably spend 80% of my time talking about bad friction." "Email is the killer app of the Internet in two ways: it was winning the Internet, and it was killing people. This is 2026, and there's all this software, all the AI, Slack, and all these different ways to communicate, but email remains the killer app in both senses." "The first step is having a leader who talks about and takes action to have people identify and tal

Robert Sutton: The Friction Project Robert Sutton is an organizational psychologist and professor of Management Science and Engineering in the Stanford Engineering School. He has given keynote speeches to more than 200 groups in 20 countries and served on numerous scholarly editorial boards. Bob's work has been featured in The New York Times, BusinessWeek, The Atlantic, Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, Vanity Fair, and The Washington Post. He is a frequent guest on various television and radio programs, and has written seven books and two edited volumes, including the bestsellers The No A-hole Rule, Good Boss, Bad Boss, and Scaling Up Excellence. He is the co-author with Huggy Rao of The Friction Project: How Smart Leaders Make the Right Things Easier and the Wrong Things Harder*. We’ve all worked with someone who seemed just a bit oblivious. None of us want to be that kind of leader. In this conversation, Bob and I discuss key strategies for how to stop it and also prevent it. Key Points Privilege may spare you from hassles, but it doesn’t come without cost. You risk being clueless about troubles in the organization. Power and prestige tend to influence leaders to focus more on themselves, less on others, and act like the rules don’t apply to them. An antidote to oblivious leadership is less transmission and more reception. Measure two behaviors: (1) how much the leader talks vs. others in interactions and (2) the ratio of questions the leader asks vs. statements the leader makes. Either manage by walking out of the room or get in the details with ride alongs, direct help, and doing the work with folks. Be cautious about “managing by walking around” getting ritualistic. Hierarchy is inevitable and useful. The most effective leaders flex it and know when to be collaborative and when to be direct. Find people who will speak truth. Resources Mentioned The Friction Project: How Smart Leaders Make the Right Things Easier and the Wrong Things Harder* by Robert Sutton and Huggy Rao Interview Notes Download my interview notes in PDF format (free membership required). Related Episodes Use Power for Good and Not Evil, with Dacher Keltner (episode 254) How to Ask Better Questions, with David Marquet (episode 454) How to Help People Speak Truth to Power, with Megan Reitz (episode 597) How to Prevent a Team From Repeating Mistakes, with Robert “Cujo” Teschner (episode 660) Discover More Activate your free membership for full access to the entire library of interviews since 2011, searchable by topic. To accelerate your learning, uncover more inside Coaching for Leaders Plus.

Why does there seem to be such a struggle to get things done in some organizations? How can you unlock the mystery behind the persistence of bad management practices? What is the problem of inaction, and how are workplaces impacted by the human tendency to add rather than subtract? Robert Sutton is a Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and the author and co-author of several books, including his latest book, The Asshole Survival Guide: How to Deal with People Who Treat You Like Dirt , and his upcoming book The Friction Project: How Smart Leaders Make the Right Things Easier and the Wrong Things Harder. Bob and Greg discuss practical examples of organizational friction, examining the story of Larry Page and Google, observing the transformative leadership of Satya Nadella at Microsoft, and even sharing his personal triumphs and trials. Greg questions the place of assholes in positions of power and the impact they have on organizations. Bob talks about time management and its crucial role in the daily operations of organizations, sharing stories from companies that have triumphed and those who stumbled. They also discuss the potential of AI and textual analysis in identifying bottlenecks within a company. Tune in, learn, and transform your workplace. *unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.* Episode Quotes: What are the factors that contribute to an individual being considered a workplace jerk? 21:58: So, what are some of the characteristics that lead people to turn into jerks? One is being in a hurry. The pressure to rush, rush, rush, even when it doesn't make any sense in many organizations, has increased, or at least stayed the same. Another one is sleep deprivation. I mean, if people are exhausted, they're tired. It's not like those things have gone away. And then the other thing that happens, in the other problem with assholeness is, and these are all things that can be produced in the lab easily, and it’s very contagious. Negative behaviors are more contagious than positive behaviors. And, by the way, when there are power differences in organizations, when people are powerful, objectively powerful, or feel powerful, they focus more on their own needs. They focus less on the needs of others, and they act like the rules don't apply to them. Does being a jerk help you get ahead? 13:28: On the whole, we can have some arguments about when being a jerk helps you get ahead. And it depends on the game: old Microsoft versus new Microsoft. I think that the jerks get ahead in the old system, but not in the new system. But when you're working for somebody like that, there's just no evidence that it helps the underlings or yelling at customers, except in some, maybe very rare, situations. Generalists vs. specialists 51:43: Everybody doesn't have to be a generalist. You just need enough generalists to glue the thing together. And actually, great specialists are absolutely fabulous, as long as there's somebody there who understands how the system fits together. So I'm not completely opposed to specialists who don't care about anybody else. I just want them to be in a system that glues their behavior together. Does gossip have a function in an organization? 55:11: Gossip actually has a function in an organization, and the function is that it brings out information that is not captured by formal systems and being in touch as a leader with the gossipers. It's Scuttlebutt. And, so one of the CEOs I know said what she used to always do—that she did

Why does there seem to be such a struggle to get things done in some organizations? How can you unlock the mystery behind the persistence of bad management practices? What is the problem of inaction, and how are workplaces impacted by the human tendency to add rather than subtract? Robert Sutton is a Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and the author and co-author of several books, including his latest book The Asshole Survival Guide: How to Deal with People Who Treat You Like Dirt , and his upcoming book The Friction Project: How Smart Leaders Make the Right Things Easier and the Wrong Things Harder. Bob and Greg discuss practical examples of organizational friction, examining the story of Larry Page and Google, observing the transformative leadership of Satya Nadella at Microsoft, and even sharing his personal triumphs and trials. Greg questions the place of assholes in positions of power and the impact they have on organizations. Bob talks about time management and its crucial role in the daily operations of organizations, sharing stories from companies that have triumphed and those who stumbled. They also discuss the potential of AI and textual analysis in identifying bottlenecks within a company. Tune in, learn, and transform your workplace. *unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.* Episode Quotes: What are the factors that contribute to an individual being considered a workplace jerk? 21:58: So, what are some of the characteristics that lead people to turn into jerks? One is being in a hurry. The pressure to rush, rush, rush, even when it doesn't make any sense in many organizations, has increased, or at least stayed the same. Another one is sleep deprivation. I mean, if people are exhausted, they're tired. It's not like those things have gone away. And then the other thing that happens, in the other problem with assholeness is, and these are all things that can be produced in the lab easily, and it’s very contagious. Negative behaviors are more contagious than positive behaviors. And, by the way, when there are power differences in organizations, when people are powerful, objectively powerful, or feel powerful, they focus more on their own needs. They focus less on the needs of others, and they act like the rules don't apply to them. Does being a jerk help you get ahead? 13:28: On the whole, we can have some arguments about when being a jerk helps you get ahead. And it depends on the game: old Microsoft versus new Microsoft. I think that the jerks get ahead in the old system, but not in the new system. But when you're working for somebody like that, there's just no evidence that it helps the underlings or yelling at customers, except in some, maybe very rare, situations. Generalists vs. specialists 51:43: Everybody doesn't have to be a generalist. You just need enough generalists to glue the thing together. And actually, great specialists are absolutely fabulous, as long as there's somebody there who understands how the system fits together. So I'm not completely opposed to specialists who don't care about anybody else. I just want them to be in a system that glues their behavior together. Does gossip have a function in an organization? 55:11: Gossip actually has a function in an organization, and the function is that it brings out information that is not captured by formal systems and being in touch as a leader with the gossipers. It's Scuttlebutt. And, so one of the CEOs I know said what she used to always do—that she did somebody who did very well getting ahead in situations where women didn't always get ahead—was try to make friends with the people who were known gossips and complainers. She said it for two reasons. One, they tend to give you the negative information first, and the second

William Nozak interviews Robert Sutton COO of Technology Solutions about IT philosophies. IT debt, what it is and how it is negatively effecting SMBs & enterprises. What happens when you ignore your IT, security & servers. Techsolutions

Robert Sutton shares his expertise on confronting, coping with, and forgiving the jerks at work. You'll Learn: Internal mind tricks to help you cope with jerks How to use The Benjamin Franklin Effect to win over jerks How and when to fight back About Robert: Robert Sutton is Professor of Management Science and Engineering at Stanford University. He co-founded the Stanford Technology Ventures Program (and the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (“the d school”). He is a Fellow at IDEO, Senior Scientist at Gallup, and an advisor to McKinsey & Company. Sutton studies organizational change, leadership, innovation, and workplace dynamics. He has published over 150 articles and chapters and written seven books . Sutton’s latest book is The “Jerk”hole Survival Guide: How to Deal With People Who Treat You Like Dirt .

Robert Sutton is Professor of Management science at the Stanford Engineering School and researcher in the field of Evidence-based management. Sutton is also the best-selling author of “The No Asshole Rule.” What does it mean to live in a “no asshole environment”? It means to weed out the people who demean and make you and others feel horrible. He gives the science and craft behind how to deal with assholes, how to prune these people from your life and get out of negative situations. But the question ever since that book has been: “Help, I’m dealing with an asshole! What can I do?” Sutton has heard that question asked in a thousand different ways. He answers the question in “The Asshole Survival Guide: How to Deal with People Who Treat You Like Dirt”. It shifts focus from building civilized workplaces to providing relief for anybody who feels plagued and pushed around by assholes. The Asshole Survival Guide delivers a cogent and methodical game plan. Sutton starts with diagnosis—what kind of asshole problem, exactly, are you dealing with? From there, he provides field-tested, evidence-based, and sometimes surprising strategies for dealing with assholes—avoiding them, outwitting them, disarming them, sending them packing, and developing protective psychological armor. Ultimately, this survival guide is about developing an outlook and personal plan that will help you preserve the sanity in your work life, and will prevent all those perfectly good days from being ruined by some jerk. In this episode of Trend Following Radio: The no asshole rule The role of assholes in entrepreneurship Steve Jobs Demeaned and de-energized Self-awareness Depression in relation to to workplace Weeding out nasty people from your life The asshole tax Avoiding “the crazy”