Happy Friction

Hi! I’m Molly. I write about what it actually takes to lead inside growing, changing companies: the frameworks that help, the honest truth about what it feels like, and the messy work of shaping a career that actually fits.

Lessons is where those ideas live — both the writing and the conversations around it. (If you want to learn more about how Lessons and the community work, you can read more here.)

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One of the myths we tell ourselves in startups is that speed is everything. Move fast, make decisions, unblock, unblock, unblock. But sometimes — when the stakes are high or the tradeoffs are invisible — great leadership means slowing things down on purpose.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge believer in minimizing process unless it’s necessary and running as lean and as fast as you can in most cases. But I’ve also learned that there are times when you want to make things a little hard — when you want people to stop and think before they hit that button, spend that money, or hire that person.

That’s what I call happy friction. (Yes, I know “happy friction” sounds a little smutty. We’re rolling with it.)

Happy friction is like a speed bump. It’s something you add on purpose to make people pause. Ideally, not because you’re afraid to delegate, but because the cost of getting it wrong is higher than the cost of going slow. It’s friction that sends a message: this matters.

Here’s a simple example: Hiring.