Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about friction — and how much it shapes whether things actually get done.
I recently replaced my road bike with a gravel bike, mostly to scratch the itch of getting back out on the roads and trails. But getting out the door still takes effort: checking tire pressure, finding the right gear, staying hydrated. So I made one small change — everything I need lives in one spot. Bike shoes stay with the bike, not tangled up with my running or hiking gear. Small fix, but it removes just enough friction that I actually get out there more.
It got me thinking about compliance and risk management. Policies and procedures often stretch across dense volumes that are hard to navigate and harder to apply in the moment. So I’ll ask the question I keep coming back to: what are we doing to make compliance easy? Is there a real focus on reducing the friction to do the right thing — not just writing the rules, but designing the experience around following them?
My take: it starts with the interface. The way people actually interact with compliance and risk day to day. If we want better adherence, we have to make the easy path and the compliant path the same path.
A few ideas on how to get there:
1. Design for the moment of decision, not the policy binder. Surface the one relevant rule at the point someone needs it, instead of expecting them to go find it in a 200-page document.
2. Explain the “why,” not just the “what.” Pair each rule with the concept or risk it’s actually protecting against. People follow principles they understand far more consistently than instructions they don’t.
3. Turn policy into a checklist, not prose. A five-step checklist gets followed. A dense paragraph gets skimmed, or skipped entirely.
4. Make the compliant option the default option. If the system is pre-configured to do the right thing, people don’t have to remember to choose it.
5. Give real-time, plain-language feedback. Tell people when something’s off before they submit, not weeks later in an audit finding.
6. Keep everything in one place. Just like my bike gear — if the forms, guidance, and approvals someone needs are scattered across five systems, they’ll find a workaround. One home for the task removes the excuse to skip it.
Reducing friction isn’t about lowering the bar. It’s about making sure the bar is easy to clear.
Why Post
I post because these challenges deserve more conversation, not less. What you read here comes from my own experience, the experiences of others, and what I continue to learn through research and literature.
My goal is to help close the gap between corporate governance and risk/compliance management — work I’ve focused on for years and don’t believe happens in isolation. If this resonates, or doesn’t match your own experience, I’d like to hear about it. Leave a comment, or send me a direct message if you’re working through a governance or compliance challenge of your own.