All too often, getting important things done at work is hard, soul crushing and convoluted. Too much precious time is spent wading through corporate gunk.

Friction eats away at our energy, creativity and productivity and makes business slow and unproductive. And yet so frequently, organisations make the wrong things easier to do, taking down guardrails when they should in fact hit the brakes. Over the past decade, Stanford professors Robert Sutton and Huggy Rao have made it their mission to understand this phenomenon.

Now, in this no-nonsense guide, they have assembled the very best of their collective wisdom. They show how to cut down unnecessary bureaucracy, overcome obstacles and banish the unhelpful systems that avert real progress. The Friction Project is essential reading, whether you're the CEO of a multinational, an employee dealing with difficult colleagues, or a freelancer seeking to streamline the way you operate.