Once, at a previous job, a colleague suggested our email-centric team try using chat software. Even though I’d been raised in the glory days of AOL Instant Messenger, I balked. All day long, my email was chirping at me, demanding my attention. I was supposed to pay attention to another thing—while trying to do my actual job?! Thanks, but no thanks.

The twist ending to this story is that today, like a lot of us, I essentially live in Slack, and I find it invaluable. In fact, I can’t imagine how I would get anything done without it.

Adapting to new technology can require overcoming what David Schonthal, a clinical professor of strategy at Kellogg, calls friction—that feeling of stubborn resistance when we encounter something new.

This week, we’ll share some of Schonthal’s tips for understanding and overcoming friction, as well as some new research on the psychology of social media pile-ons.

Fighting friction

In his book The Human Element, coauthored with fellow Kellogg professor Loran Nordgren, Schonthal explored how entrepreneurs can overcome the frictions that prevent others from adopting their innovative ideas.

But sometimes, as Schonthal wrote last week in Fast Company, friction lives within. A lot of us struggle with change at work, whether it’s a new boss or a new piece of software. “I believe a prime example of this dynamic is AI-based technologies, which are rapidly being incorporated across sectors but face widespread resistance from employees,” Schonthal wrote.

Fortunately, you can use the very same friction-fighting toolkit we’d try on others on yourself. And the most important thing you can do is identify the type of friction you’re experiencing.

For example: inertia, an instinctive aversion to anything outside the status quo. “To get past this negative initial reaction, try recalling other times you’ve successfully self-acclimated to something you resisted strongly at first, such as a new technology or organizational structure,” Schonthal counseled. “Remind yourself of the time it takes to warm to something new and give yourself a grace period to adapt.”

There’s also reactance, that feeling of “don’t tell me what to do!” that all of us remember from being 16 years old. Like inertia, Schonthal explained, reactance is perfectly natural:

[T]his is part of being human; we protect our autonomy. The way forward here is to reframe the friction-inducing directive as a question: “How might I use AI as part of my workflow?” This framing preserves our autonomy by making the change a challenge to address as opposed to a directive. Instead of resisting, you may now recognize the elements of control and creativity you can have as an author, rather than a victim, of change.

To read more about the types of friction, and how to combat them, you can read the whole article here. Or, for a deeper dive, Schonthal and Nordgren make their case in this webinar on why people are resistant to change—and how to change anyway.

See you next week!

Susie Allen, senior research editor
Kellogg Insight