Friction: Fuel of Inspiration

Geopolitical instability, technological advancements, economic constraints and workforce changes, shifting markets . . . Leadership teams are under pressure. Often this results in fast, ‘unified’ decisions.

You might believe this signals a healthy team.

Disagreement that has been suppressed will undoubtedly surface again at a greater cost than if it had been allowed to breathe the first time.

The instinct to suppress it is understandable. Who likes conflict? Surely, disagreement in a leadership meeting is a problem to be solved: It’s a threat to the timeline, the relationships, or the appearance of alignment.

The moment friction shows up, someone dutifully moves to close it down: a compromise is proposed. The senior voice in the room settles it. The meeting moves on. The team leaves comfortable and aligned.

What lingers beneath the surface?

Friction is the fuel of inspiration

Imagine two planes rubbing against each other. That contact generates heat. Keep it up and sparks erupt.

What happens next depends entirely on what you do at the point of first heat: Cool it or smother it immediately? Let it get hot enough to throw something worth catching? Let it erupt into a wildfire?

That first moment of discomfort in a meeting, when two people are looking at the same problem and seeing it differently, or something is said that doesn’t resonate, is that point of contact.

Friction isn’t a warning sign: It's an opening for opportunity. It's the evidence that two real, differently-informed views are in the room. And that’s where something new can be created.

A team that never generates that heat suggests a different problem: Not enough distinct, voiced perspectives in the room for sparks to be possible? Or maybe, not enough psychological safety to voice them.

Friction used well

Friction that gets suppressed the moment it is felt produces that fast, false-unity decision described above.

Friction that's left to run unmanaged produces the wildfire: a fight, a stalemate that thickens silos, or a relationship cost nobody wants.

Catching, and utilizing the sparks of friction requires a disciplined approach: treating the disagreement as material to explore rather than a dispute to settle or debating who's right.

And that requires curiosity: Exploring perspectives, encouraging subsequent sparks of inspiration that arise, examining each, keeping what's useful, combining pieces that weren't paired before, and building toward something new.

This is not compromise. This is synthesis, with the potential to produce solutions better than the original positions.

Recognizing that opening for opportunity, and realizing it’s power requires resolve, maybe a little courage, and practice.

Did it work?

Did anyone's position change because of what they heard?

If everyone leaves holding the same opinion they arrived with, the "alignment" in the room might have been speed or pressure, not synthesis.

Why this matters, now especially

Geopolitical and trade pressures, cost shocks, market shifts all compress the time a team has to make a decision, and that makes suppression tempting: there's no time to "indulge" disagreement when a decision is needed today.

But. . . any team facing decisions with incomplete surfacing of observations or information will hit this same fork: Smother the friction for speed, or use it for a better answer. The teams that get good at the second option aren't slower, and walking back decisions decreases.

Fast and unified isn't the same as ‘best’.

The friction in the room isn't the obstacle to the decision. It's usually the best material available for making one.