“The world is wide, and I will not waste my life in friction when it could be turned into momentum.
Frances E. Willard
I am Jerry Garrett once again, and this week I have a very interesting subject to share with you: friction. Having said that, what exactly is friction? The meaning of this word goes far beyond just its literal meaning; it can be something entirely different in the business world.
If you think about friction as a gust of wind holding you back, when it slows down your progress or product, it can be compared to friction. I can only imagine what it would be like to move a puck through a field of tall grass one mile away in order to reach a goal. The stick might only send the ball a few feet in the air at the most with a single swing of the wrist. If you wanted to reach the goal, you would have to spend ages doing so. In the short grass environment, the puck travels dozens of feet with each hit, which is a huge change compared to the long grass environment. To reach that distant goal, you would only have to hit a few times instead of a few hits if you were on ice rather than grass.
The concept of friction can be simply explained as a force or process that drains the energy from a system over time when it is applied. In order to keep things running smoothly, we must constantly add energy to maintain consistency and keep everything running smoothly. The removal of friction increases efficiency, but here is where the catch is: if there is no friction, then there will never be any efficiency. A lot or too little can lead to problems depending on how much or how little is needed.
As an example, let’s take a look at Amazon Prime. To reduce the number of returns without affecting customer satisfaction, they add small amounts of friction to the returns process, such as requiring receipts for returns and requiring returns, in order to reduce the number of returns. For a business to succeed, it is imperative that they strike the right balance.
Read the original one from Josh Kaufman here: https://personalmba.com/friction/
The topic for this week is done! That’s all that’s left to say! Catch you next week!