Every organization has talented people who want to deliver, yet they struggle with delays they cannot quite explain. Work moves, then suddenly stalls. Decisions stretch longer than they should. Meetings multiply. Teams get blamed for being “too slow,” even when the real issue has nothing to do with effort. The truth is that most organizations underestimate how much friction exists in their system, and friction is often what determines whether work accelerates or quietly burns out.

Friction shows up in predictable ways. It appears in the unclear handoffs where no one is entirely sure who owns the next step. It shows up in review cycles that seem small individually but compound into weeks of lost time. It hides in ambiguous priorities that force teams to guess which work matters most, then get penalized when their guess was wrong. It lives inside overloaded decision makers who cannot keep pace with the number of approvals coming their way, even though every project depends on them.

High performers do not lose efficiency because they lack skill. They lose it because the environment creates drag. When teams must fight the system just to do their jobs, even strong ideas slow to a crawl. Leaders often assume the solution is improved communication or stronger accountability, but friction does not disappear because someone “tries harder.” It disappears when organizations intentionally remove the barriers that slow the work in the first place.

Reducing friction does not require restructuring your entire operating model. It starts with clarity about ownership, sequence, and decision flow. It continues with aligning priorities so teams do not run twelve races at the same time. And it gets stronger when leaders create decision environments where approvals, escalations, and direction are not bottlenecked behind a handful of overextended people. When friction is removed, momentum increases naturally without demanding more from people who are already giving everything they have.

If your teams feel capable but stuck, or if work seems to move slower than your talent should allow, these patterns are usually the reason. And if you want to explore how to turn this into a system that improves speed, clarity, and delivery without burning your people out, I help organizations design the structures that make momentum the default instead of the exception.