The goal isn’t to eliminate friction. The goal is to lead through it, better.

Every leader feels it — the moment you react before you mean to, the conversation that keeps going sideways, the team that’s talented but stuck. That tension has a name, and most of us have never been taught what to do with it.

In Friction, organizational psychologists Maggie Sass, PhD and Ross Blankenship, PhD make the case that friction isn’t random, isn’t weakness, and isn’t just “bad communication.” It’s a predictable force that shows up in three places — inside you, between people, and in the systems and structures around you — and it’s shaping everything from your relationships to your team’s performance.

Drawing on their National Emotions Survey of U.S. working adults, Sass and Blankenship offer 45 practical experiments across all three types of friction — concrete strategies to build stronger trust, have better conversations, create more alignment, and sustain performance when things get hard.