How friction arises in teams

At the 2024 session of Harvard Business School's FIELD Global Immersion program, nearly 1,000 MBA students spent 10 days working on real-time business challenges in one of 16 countries in small teams. The program mirrored the pressures many corporate teams face daily, including ambiguous data, unfamiliar markets, cross-cultural dynamics, and tight timelines.

Although members of the teams were highly talented, there were still conflicts, some of them serious. By the end of the program, 45 out of 158 teams experienced communication breakdowns that were serious enough to require faculty intervention.

According to the authors, the conflicts weren't caused by "lack of intelligence or motivation, but for lack of a shared way to work through cognitive and communication differences."

"Modern teams often consist of highly capable people with very different ways of processing information, approaching decisions, and communicating under stress," the authors write. Although these differences may be manageable under normal circumstances, they become amplified under stress — which can escalate friction, erode trust, and slow execution.

4 ways to reduce friction on your teams

Most team members start out motivated and are willing to collaborate, but they don't recognize how differently people may interpret the same situation, how others perceive their behaviors, or how differences can quickly compound when stakes are increased.

To reduce friction on teams and navigate conflicts more effectively, the authors emphasized the importance of interpersonal competence, or "the ability to identify how others process information, anticipate where misalignments may occur, and modify one's approach in real time."

"Interpersonal competence helps teams work through differences before friction turns into dysfunction," the authors write. However, it "isn't an instinct or nebulous talent to 'read the room.' It is a set of skills that can be learned, practiced, and strengthened over time."

The training helped teams operate more effectively under pressure, tackling tension earlier, adjusting to each other's working styles, and maintaining momentum in situations that might have previously stalled or required intervention.

"The 2025 teams entered the immersion experience with stronger interpersonal competence," the authors write. "They shared a clearer understanding of how different teammates were likely to communicate, respond under pressure, and approach decisions. They also had practical tools that helped them respond more effectively in real time rather than defaulting to defensive reactions or inaccurate assumptions."

As AI becomes more prominent in the workplace, the authors underscored the importance of interpersonal competence as a competitive advantage. "[O]rganizations whose leaders and teams develop the skill of adaptive communication will collaborate faster, execute more effectively, and sustain stronger performance under pressure," the authors write.

Overall, "[o]rganizations that develop interpersonal competence reduce friction, move faster through complexity, and sustain stronger performance across teams," the authors write.