“A bad system will beat a good person every time." – W. Edwards Deming
An important initiative isn’t moving as quickly as expected. Participation is lower than anticipated. A deadline slips. The same problems show up again. We want an explanation. So we create one. People aren’t making this a priority. We’ve communicated this repeatedly. They just don’t want to change. Sound familiar?
Any of those stories might be true. But before we act on them, there is a more important question: What do we actually know?
Key Idea: When progress slows, leaders often respond by increasing effort, urgency, or accountability. But slow progress may be evidence of friction in the system rather than insufficient commitment from the people doing the work. Before asking people to push harder, effective leaders examine what may be making the work harder than it needs to be.
Here are three ways to better understand what may be getting in the way:
1. Notice: Where Is the Work Getting Hard?
Key Idea: Slow progress is information. When something isn’t moving, our first instinct may be to focus on the people closest to the work. Who hasn’t followed through? Who missed the deadline? Those questions may eventually matter. Starting there can lead us to confuse what we observe with the story we tell ourselves about why it is happening.
Low participation is a fact. People don’t care is an interpretation. A missed deadline is a fact. They aren’t making this a priority is an interpretation. Leadership requires us to know the difference.
Try This: Choose one important initiative where progress has slowed and ask…
What is actually happening?
Where specifically is progress slowing?
What facts do we have?
What assumptions are we making about why?
What story are we telling ourselves?
The goal isn’t to eliminate interpretation. Leaders have to make sense of incomplete information. The goal is to make sure we don’t mistake our interpretation for reality for reality itself.
Example:
A committee responsible for implementing a new initiative misses an important milestone. The immediate story might be that members aren’t making the work a priority. But the facts are more limited: the milestone was missed, several decisions remain unresolved, and the committee has met only twice during a particularly busy period.
Before increasing accountability, the leader first separates what is known from what is assumed. That changes the starting question from Why aren't they doing the work? to What is making the work difficult to move?
2. Look: What Might Be Creating the Friction?
Key Idea: Sometimes capable, committed people are working inside conditions that make progress unnecessarily difficult. Once we separate what we know from what we assume, we can look more closely at the conditions surrounding work.
Consider clarity. Do people understand what success looks like and who owns which decisions? Consider capacity. Do they actually have the time and resources required? Capability matters too, as do coordination and competing priorities. The point isn’t to search for an organizational excuse. It is to understand the conditions before deciding what intervention is warranted.
Try This: When you encounter resistance or slow progress, examine five areas:
Clarity: Do people understand the priority, outcome, roles?
Capacity: Do they actually have the time and resources required?
Capability: Do they have the knowledge, skills, and support?
Coordination: Are handoffs, dependencies, or approvals getting in the way?
Competing Priorities: Are we asking people to treat too many things as equally important?
Then ask yourself:
Am I interpreting slow progress as a lack of commitment before understanding what may be getting in the way?
Example:
A college launches a faculty-development initiative. The need is clear, leadership supports it, and faculty helped shape the concept. Yet participation is lower than expected.
One explanation is that faculty simply don’t value professional development. But a closer look reveals something different. Sessions are scheduled during crowded teaching periods. Topics are announced too late for faculty to protect the time. Registration requires several steps. Chairs encourage participation, but competing expectations haven’t changed.
The issue may not be commitment. The organization may have unintentionally made participation harder than it needs to be.
3. Remove: What Can We Make Easier?
Key Idea: The best leadership response isn’t always to add more. Sometimes it is to remove what is getting in the way.
Before adding another intervention, consider what could be stopped, simplified, clarified, sequenced differently, or made easier.
Try This: Conduct a Friction Check
Choose one priority that isn’t moving as expected:
NOTICE: Where specifically is progress slowing?
LOOK: What conditions may be making the work harder?
REMOVE: What could we stop, simplify, clarify, or make easier?
TEST: Make one targeted change, watch what happens, and use what you learn to determine the next move?
Example:
A leadership team is frustrated by how long routine decisions take on an important initiative. Rather than adding another meeting or checkpoint, they discover that several decisions are moving through unnecessary levels of approval. Clarifying who has decision authority removes a barrier without asking anyone to work harder.
Final Thoughts:
When progress slows, accountability still matters. So do expectations, effort, and individual responsibility. But systems matter too. Systems thinking shouldn't become an excuse to avoid individual accountability any more than accountability should become an excuse to ignore a poorly designed system. Some friction can also be valuable when it protects thoughtful deliberation, quality, or sound judgment. Before assuming people need to work harder, check the facts, question the story you are telling yourself, and look at the conditions surrounding the work. Sometimes the most important leadership question isn’t “How do we get people to do more?” It’s “What’s really getting in the way?”
Next Steps to Reduce Organizational Friction
Is an important priority struggling to gain traction despite continued effort? EduLead-Rx works with academic pharmacy leaders to better understand organizational challenges, strengthen the conditions for execution, and turn leadership insight into meaningful action and results.
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