Our Mission: To help leaders and teams change their organizations for the better.
Designing Organizational Change develops solutions that spur constructive beliefs and actions (and that squelch destructive ones). We bring together students, faculty, and leaders from a host of for-profit and non-profit organizations — we work with people bent on learning why and how effective change happens despite the inevitable countervailing forces. We uncover, tinker with, and test promising solutions in our classes, studies, and projects with organizations; we do basic and applied research to understand why and when approaches are (and are not) useful; and we capture and communicate these lessons in academic and applied reports, case studies, and change tools.Designing Organizational Change is an initiative of the department of Management Science & Engineering and the Stanford Technology Ventures Program (STVP), – the Stanford Engineering Entrepreneurship Center, in collaboration with the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford.

Building organizations that make the right things easy to do and don’t drive people crazy
Through the Friction Project, we are seeking to understand the causes of and cures for dysfunctional organizational friction—and when it is wise to make things harder to do.
Beleaguered executives, front-line employees and even customers have been sending us stories often with disturbing details of frustrating and fatiguing experiences. Their stories illustrate how getting smart and necessary things done requires convoluted, time-consuming and soul-crushing gyrations—which get worse as organizations grow, age and become more complex.Philosophy
- We consider both rational and emotional elements of organizational friction — solutions include redesigning organizations, changing leaders’ deeds and words, and, at times, providing therapy to overwhelmed, frustrated, and exhausted people.
- We’ve designed our journey to encourage suggestions and critiques. We are sharing our unfinished ideas — hunches, explanations and solutions—with all kinds of people. That way, we hope our ideas about friction will keep getting better.
Articles About Friction
- How Do You End a Meeting? Netflix’s HR Rebel Asks Two Simple Questions by Bob Sutton (LinkedIn)
- Dropbox’s Secret for Saving Time in Meetings by Rebecca Hinds and Bob Sutton (Inc.)
- Better Service, Faster: A Design Thinking Case Study by Bob Sutton and David Hoyt (Harvard Business Review)
- The Pop-Up Employer: Build a Team, Do the Job, Say Goodbye by Noam Scheiber (New York Times)
The FRICTION Podcast
Work is packed with wicked and messy problems. Listen up for a double dose of therapy and leadership coaching as Stanford Engineering Professor Bob Sutton and guests laugh in the face of petty office tyrants, challenge worst practices and share helpful tactics to make smart work easier to do and organizations less infuriating.Team









Perry Klebahn
Consulting Associate Professor and Director of Executive Education, Stanford d.school
Bio





Those interested in learning more about Designing Organizational Change may contact Professor Robert Sutton.
The Kitchen Cabinet
Smart people we like to talk to about organizational change
Shona Brown
Independent AdvisorAnthony S. Bryk
President, Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of TeachingJack Chorowsky
President, KIPPMichael Dearing
Founder, Harrison MetalKaye Foster
Senior Advisor, The Boston Consulting GroupChris Fry
Angel InvestorElizabeth Gerber
Associate Professor, Northwestern UniversityAdam Grant
Professor, Wharton Business SchoolRebecca Hinds
Inc. Columnist and Organizational ResearcherJacob Jaber
CEO, Philz CoffeeBob Johansen
Distinguished Fellow, Institute for the FutureJohn Lilly
Partner, Greylock PartnersBecky Kanis Margiotta
Co-Founder, Billions InstituteJoe McCannon
Co-Founder, Billions InstitutePatty McCord
Principal, Patty McCord ConsultingLenny Mendonca
Director Emeritus, McKinsey & CompanyDonna Morris
Executive Vice President, Customer and Employee Experience, AdobeDan Pink
AuthorJoe Porac
Professor, New York UniversityDiego Rodriguez
Executive Vice President, Chief Product and Design Officer, IntuitPrasad Setty
Vice President, People Analytics & Compensation, GoogleBonny Simi
President, JetBlue Technology VenturesAffiliated Courses
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MS&E 280Instructor(s): Robert Sutton, Rosanne Siino
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MS&E 284Instructor(s): Melissa Valentine
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ME 368Instructor(s): Perry Klebahn, Kathryn Segovia, Jeremy Utley
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MS&E 487Instructor(s): Perry Klebahn, Kathryn Segovia, Bob Sutton, Jeremy Utley
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MS&E 488Instructor(s): Pamela Hinds, Julie Stanford
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STRAMGT 544Instructor(s): Huggy Rao, Shantanu Narayen
Case Studies
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Rebecca Hinds, Huggy Rao, Bob Sutton, 2014
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Dave Hoyt, Huggy Rao, 2008
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Huggy Rao, Bob Sutton, Isaac Waisberg, 2009
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Dave Hoyt, Charles O’Reilly, Huggy Rao, Bob Sutton, 2010
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Davina Drabkin, Jon Jamieson, Huggy Rao, Sarah Soule, Bob Sutton, 2016
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Ryan Kissick, Huggy Rao, Bob Sutton, 2015