Hayagreeva "Huggy" Rao
About Hayagreeva "Huggy" Rao
Speech topics
Leaders as Friction Fixers
Friction is like cholesterol: just as bad cholesterol destroys arteries, bad friction weakens initiative and collaboration. Just as good cholesterol cleans arteries, good friction can be a source of commitment building and also a speed break in decision making. We discuss how leaders ought to be trustees of time, and think of their organization as a product that is malleable and flexible. We discuss how bad friction can be eliminated, and good friction be harnessed so that the right things become easier to do, the wrong things hard, and no one is driven crazy. Learn how to:
- Use Friction Forensics
- Ramps to bad friction
- A suite of subtraction tools
- Adding good friction to improve decision making and commitment
- Above all, be a trustee of your employee’s time.
Speaking videos
Books by Hayagreeva "Huggy" Rao
“HBR's 10 Must Reads 2025” (2024)
We've reviewed the ideas, insights, and best practices from the past year of Harvard Business Review to keep you up to date on the most cutting-edge, influential thinking driving business today. With authors from Ginni Rometty to Robert I. Sutton and company examples from Maersk to Nvidia, this volume brings the most current and important management conversations right to your fingertips. This book will inspire you to: Reskill your organization in the age of AI Rid your company of the obstacles that infuriate everyone Understand what today's rainmakers do differently Market sustainable products effectively Choose the right sources of demand to grow your company at the right speed Use strategic thinking to create the life you want This collection of articles includes "Reskilling in the Age of AI," by Jorge Tamayo, Leila Doumi, Sagar Goel, Orsolya Kovacs-Ondrejkovic, and Raffaella Sadun; "How Fast Should Your Company Really Grow?," by Gary P. Pisano; "How to Sustain Your Empathy in Difficult Times," by Jamil Zaki; "The New-Collar Workforce," by Colleen Ammerman, Boris Groysberg, and Ginni Rometty; "Rid Your Organization of Obstacles That Infuriate Everyone," by Robert I. Sutton and Huggy Rao; "Where Does DEI Go from Here?," by Laura Morgan Roberts; "What Today's Rainmakers Do Differently," by Matthew Dixon, Ted McKenna, Rory Channer, and Karen Freeman; "The New Era of Industrial Policy Is Here," by Willy C. Shih; "How to Market Sustainable Products," by Frederic Dalsace and Goutam Challagalla; "What Does 'Stakeholder Capitalism' Mean to You?," by Lynn S. Paine; and "Use Strategic Thinking to Create the Life You Want," by Rainer Strack, Susanne Dyrchs, and Allison Bailey.
“Scaling Up Excellence: Getting to More Without Settling For Less” (2014)
In Scaling Up Excellence, bestselling author Robert Sutton and Stanford colleague Huggy Rao tackle a challenge that determines every organization’s success: scaling up farther, faster, and more effectively as a program or an organization creates a larger footprint. Sutton and Rao have devoted much of the last decade to uncovering what it takes to build and uncover pockets of exemplary performance, to help spread them, and to keep recharging organizations with ever better work practices. Drawing on inside accounts and case studies and academic research from a wealth of industries – including start-ups, pharmaceuticals, airlines, retail, financial services, high-tech, education, non-profits, government, and healthcare -- Sutton and Rao identify the key scaling challenges that confront every organization. They tackle the difficult trade-offs that organizations must make between “Buddhism” versus “Catholicism” -- whether to encourage individualized approaches tailored to local needs or to replicate the same practices and customs as an organization or program expands. They reveal how the best leaders and teams develop, spread, and instill the right mindsets in their people -- rather than ruining or watering down the very things that have fueled successful growth in the past. They unpack the principles that help to cascade excellence throughout an organization, as well as show how to eliminate destructive beliefs and behaviors that will hold them back. Scaling Up Excellence is the first major business book devoted to this universal and vexing challenge. It is destined to become the standard bearer in the field.
“The Friction Project: How Smart Leaders Make the Right Things Easier and the Wrong Things Harder” (2024)
No organization is totally free from destructive friction; the forces that make it harder, more complicated and sometimes downright impossible to get things done. Drawing on years of research and featuring case studies on the likes of Uber, Netflix and Boeing, The Friction Project teaches readers how to become 'friction fixers'. Stanford professors Sutton and Rao unpack how we should think and act like trustees of others' time. They provide friction forensics to help readers identify where to avert and repair bad friction, and where to maintain and inject good friction. Their help pyramid shows how friction fixers do their work, which ranges from reframing issues they can't fix in the short term, to ultimately redesigning and repairing organizations. The Friction Project is the essential guide to understanding and resolving workplace difficulties, and establishing a thriving culture of positivity and productivity in their place.
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