Happy Friction
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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.
It would be faster if hiring managers could open new roles or send out offers on their own. Often, startups let that happen. You know what happens when you let hiring managers open roles and run point with recruiters? You get an unchecked number of open roles, no clear priorities, no headcount discipline, and offers that are way out of band. I call these “desperation offers” — when someone wants to close the candidate and is willing to break all the rules to do it.
Adding a check — for example, adding an approval step through someone senior — slows it down just enough to force alignment. It gives the company a moment to ask, “Do we really need this role? Is this the right person? Is this candidate really so special that we should break all the rules?”
One of the best and fastest ways to control headcount growth is to put a CEO, CFO, or COO approval in front of opening a role. It might seem draconian, but it can actually lead to very healthy discussions and a sense of “slowness”, particularly when things are changing rapidly. Larry and Sergey famously reviewed every offer at Google for years. It wasn’t efficient. It also wasn’t a mistake. It told the entire company: hiring is our most important decision, and we’re going to treat it that way.
Another great example in hiring land is letting recruiters make all offers that are “in-band” but requiring very senior approval for an offer that is “out of band”. This sends a signal that if you want to move fast, you simply have to follow the guidelines. And if you believe your candidate is worth bending those same guidelines, then you will have to move a little slower to get what you want.
All of these are examples of happy friction.
Product reviews can work the same way. I’ve worked at companies that required design review from a small group of trusted leaders before anything went out the door. It added steps. It created tension. It also happened at a company that really valued cohesive product design, and it prevented a lot of bad product decisions; it helped preserve the company’s DNA as it scaled. I’ve also worked at places that will basically let interns ship live code to the site. These are all choices — cultural choices — about when and whether you want something to be a little bit hard or to ask people to slow down a little. One is building a design culture. The other is optimizing for velocity. Neither is wrong. But if you don’t choose, you get mush.
Not all friction is happy. Lots of friction inside companies is just bad process — bureaucracy, someone trying to exert control, a downstream effect of founder trust issues, slowness because someone’s afraid to make a decision. Happy friction feels different. It’s intentional and thoughtful. It’s tied to the parts of the business that deserve precision or moments when deliberation is important.
Here’s the trick: you have to be honest about what you're doing. You don’t get to pretend that it’s still fast. You say the quiet part out loud: “Yes, this is going to slow us down a little, and that’s the point.”
So, how do you know where to add friction?
Ask yourself:
Where are we moving fast and breaking things we shouldn’t?
What decisions, if made poorly, are hard to unwind?
Are there signals I want to send about what matters here?
What messages are people taking from how we currently make decisions?
And maybe the hardest one:
Is this friction about precision, or am I just afraid to let go?
That last one is the difference between happy friction and micromanagement. You don’t need friction everywhere. Most decisions benefit from speed, delegation, and trust. But the most thoughtful leaders I know are unapologetic about adding weight to the places that need it.
Clarity builds trust, and sometimes clarity requires a little drag.