It often takes more than a good idea to make things a success. All around us there are hidden forces which are making it difficult for us to reach our goals, close a sale or convince others to adopt new ideas. There’s a lot of human behaviour that we can explain in terms of two simple forces: friction and fuel. When organisations meet resistance, all too often they focus on adding fuel, for example, building better products, selling harder or marketing better. There is nothing inherently wrong with that, but there is something many organisations fail to do, they don’t subtract friction. Perhaps they could remove the obstacles to allow their audiences, customers, and clients to fully engage with them.

I think changes in behaviour can occur through changes in fuel and friction, where friction slows you down, and fuel pushes you forward. The job of fuel is to elevate and enhance the appeal of an idea using incentives, using an emotional appeal, giving data or evidence. All of this is designed to demonstrate the values the new idea or initiative. Friction on the other hand is the psychological force or set of forces that resist change. Frictions take different forms; we often don’t see them or talk about them. In essence frictions act and drag on innovations and change. When there are no changes in friction or fuel, you tend to stick to the status quo.