Newton's second law of motion explains that the acceleration of an object as produced by a net force is directly proportional to the magnitude of the net force, in the same direction as the net force, and inversely proportional to the mass of the object.
A corollary of sorts is that “friction” is an uncorrelated or unbalanced force. In other words, friction always acts in the direction opposing motion.
If friction is present, it counteracts and cancels some of the force causing the motion when any object is being accelerated. That means a reduced net force and a smaller acceleration.
In this illustration Fa is the intended force, but faces uncorrelated forces including gravity and friction that essentially resist the applied force.
And that is a similar concept to the idea of friction in business and life. No matter what resources are mobilized in pursuit of some objective, friction will reduce yield, effectiveness and impact. All organizational effort therefore must overcome friction. That is true for capital investment, competition, operating procedures, product development and production, distribution channels and customer support and service, plus marketing and legal or regulatory tasks.
Virtually every business activity therefore involves some element of overcoming friction, which is the resistance to desired change or outcomes.
As an energy conversion is somewhat inefficient, producing unwanted heat in addition to desired energy output, so friction prevents full and complete application of resources to any process.
Friction is akin to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which states that disorder (entropy) increases over time. In other words, order proceeds to disorder. So much organizational effort must be devoted to preventing entropy (decay).
That is why all efforts to create a more frictionless business is an unstated objective of virtually all organizational activities.
No comments:
Post a Comment