Bob Sutton

"The Friction Project" has been my main mission for 8 years The key lesson from my book with Huggy Rao: The best leaders are TRUSTEES OF OTHERS TIME, friction fixers with the will and skill to make the right things easier and the wrong things harder for others www.amazon.com/dp/125028441...

We are losing our humanity. I am searching for an antidote -- and I need your help. My column about my new @washingtonpost.com column. Gift link. wapo.st/472i9Gz

"When you throw shit at other people, some always end up on you in the process." Advice I got from a wise lawyer long ago. I am reminding myself of it more and more these days, as the vicious circle of angry times and ease of insulting and demeaning others on social media is so tempting to join.

Scam alert to friends. If you get an email from a Hotmail address "from" me, it is a scam. I do not have a Hotmail email, do not have cancer, and did not get 250K from the "The Administration of Federal Benefits." I am fine. Delete the email--and don't give them any personal information.

🎙️ NEW CASBS PODCAST EPISODE Colin Camerer: Econ's Neurovisionary @sweiwang.bsky.social chats w/@cfcamerer.bsky.social on his work on the neuroeconomics of habit formation, building & scaling behavioral models, & neuroscience as a wide-open field for economists 🎧 casbs.stanford.edu/podcast#coli...

I was delighted to be interviewed by Dan McGinn, Harvard Business Review's editor, for this retrospective on my 2009 HBR piece "How to Be a Good Boss in a Bad Economy" (2009). My evidence-based advice for making painful workplace changes humanely-- in good times and bad. hbr.org/2025/07/qa-p...

Great to see this new research Fabrizio...that stars often aren't as "portable" as it seems. Your findings also remind me of related research that, for leaders, shows promoting from within results in better performance than hiring those (often dazzling) external candidates.

Some advice from the late great Warren Bennis: "Don't take a job at a place where the best you can be is a perfect imitation of those who came before you." He said that to me 40+ years ago, seems as pertinent as ever.

Check out this nuanced argument on why our institutions are under siege and options for repairing them. I was surprised to learn Marshall McLuhan believed that becoming a global village would unleash unprecedented tribalism and violence. He might have been right! digitaltonto.com/2025/the-end...

“Interdependence is the reason why nothing comes out quite the way one wants it to.” I was thinking of this wonderful old line by Jeff Pfeffer and the late Jerry Salancik as I declined an invite to join an interesting group.

I love talking with @ericries.bsky.social. Eric wrote the blockbuster "The Lean Startup", launched Long-Term Stock Exchange , and so much more. We both believe companies can thrive financially and innovate, and treat employees and customers well, at the same time. www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_Zc...

Most amusing take I've seen on the on the tit-for-tat spat between Elon and Trump.

The most important part of an apology is not saying sorry. It's taking responsibility for what you did wrong and taking action to make it right. Admitting mistakes doesn’t mean you're a bad person. It's an effort to be a better person—and a display of care for another person. link.chtbl.com/RTAdam

Thanks to the multi-talented VR Ferose for his kind summary of the gathering that my friends including @sarahsoule.bsky.social and @decelles.bsky.social organized for me at @casbsstanford.bsky.social a few weeks ago ferosevr.medium.com/the-asshole-...

Awesome hosting CASBS fellow @decelles.bsky.social for a CASBS podcast recording. Fmr fellow & Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist @johnmarkoff.bsky.social chatted w/Katy on topics engaging her research on organizational design, human interactions & behavior We'll publish the episode in a few months!

My friend Ferose just taught me a phrase, a goal, that I keep rolling over in my mind. That much good can be done for the human spirit by striving to make things "Unnecessarily Beautiful." Makes me think of Steve Jobs, Enzo Ferrari, Joni Mitchell, and the late Bill Moggridge (IDEO co-founder).

Ah. Love the science of assholes. There is a lot of serious research on bullshit too.

Ah, the roach motels are still open. Checking in is easy, checking out mighty hard. An ordeal of many clicks and trick questions. Why I won’t try a trial subscription to @economist.com. Last time, it was so hard to end. Note @netflix.com does this right. #frictionproject

Yes U.S. Govt has much sludge + waste. No cruelty, impatience, incompetence, opaqueness ain’t the way to do it The @financialtimes.com unpacks DOGE’s ineffectiveness, damage, + excessive claims by children’s crusade that powers it Seems it will cost more than it saves—and destroy vital capacity

Question for organizational scholars: Does the fast, deep, & scary impact of Trump's reign undermine arguments "the impact of leadership on performance overrated?" Or, as Jim March speculated, perhaps leaders are like light bulbs: They all work pretty much the same unless you pick a broken one!

After battling some ugly jargon monoxide, this Hemmingway quote popped in my head: “The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shockproof, shit detector. This is the writer's radar and all great writers have had it.”

I wrote a letter to the editor replying to a JAMA viewpoint that said we shouldn’t experiment with being more generous to nondirected donors of kidneys for transplant. JAMA readers won’t see my letter, but you can see it below. #econsky #lawsky #medicine marketdesigner.blogspot.com/2025/04/jama...

RFK Jr. says there are no autistic poets, so we interviewed one. Hear from Elizabeth McClellan, @popelizbet.bsky.social, an award-winning poet, attorney, and legal educator based in Memphis, Tennessee.

I wrote this little love letter to David Kelley, the "lead" founder of IDEO and the Stanford d school. As I said, David has probably influenced me more than any other colleague during my 40+ years at Stanford. www.linkedin.com/feed/update/...

A government lawyer's absurd effort to justify a $200 bottled water expense @pahlkadot.bsky.social: "an enormous amount of the waste in government (and what some might call abuse) comes from people trying very hard to avoid the perception of waste and abuse" www.eatingpolicy.com/p/the-water-...

The public colleges of New York, Texas, and California are great engines of social mobility in America. They move many born in the lower 20% of income to the top 20%. Our most elite universities move smaller numbers from the bottom 20% income to the top 1%. Paper: www.nber.org/system/files...

The rhetoric and action by the DOGE gang remind me of something my late dissertation advisor, Bob Kahn, once said to me about architects of organizational change: "The descent from theory to practice is often painful."

In 2011, the first time Trump threatened to run for U.S. President, Garry Trudeau used ideas from my book "The No Asshole Rule" to portray Trump as a "certified asshole" in this Doonesbury Sunday cartoon. Unfortunately, this strip has aged well. www.gocomics.com/doonesbury/2...

All you need to know about Twitter

Leidy is MR. SUBTRACTION. Right now I am looking out the window of my San Francisco hotel at a beautiful view of The Ferry Building. Because of some bold subtraction—Mayor Willie Brown led the charge to tear down the ugly Embarcadero Freeway after the 1989 quake. A story in Leidy’s book!

Much has changed since a small group of us joined David Kelley in 2004 or so to start Stanford's d. School. Part of David's genius was playing off "b.schools" to clarify our mission. I stumbled across this graphic from "Creating Infectious Action," which @metacool.bsky.social and I taught in 2006.