Avoid Creating “Fatal Friction”
The worst thing you can ever do in a professional relationship—and in a personal relationship, for that matter, is introduce what I call “fatal friction”. I have seen more careers stalled, held back and even ruined by fatal friction than I can count. In addition, people create all sorts of social problems for themselves by introducing fatal friction into their social relationships.
What is fatal friction? It is anything you say or do that creates some sort of tension between you and another person, or an organization, which is so severe it is unlikely to ever go away. Once this fatal friction is there, your career, for the most part, will be permanently held back wherever you are working. You can create fatal friction by an inappropriate remark, an inappropriate action, by challenging a supervisor, by entering into an inappropriate relationship at work, and more.
Several years ago, I took a trip to Yosemite with a law firm I was working with. One Friday afternoon the law firm rented a bus, and a bunch of attorneys who managed to get away for the weekend all piled into the bus and left from Los Angeles. The bus ride itself was uneventful and on Saturday morning at 5:30 a.m. everyone got up to go on a long hike up Half Dome. The hike took nearly the entire day.
As we all prepared for the hike that morning, I noticed one of the older attorneys in the firm speaking with a very attractive woman who seemed to probably be in her late 30s. I recognized her from somewhere, but could not remember her name. I figured I had seen her pictures in a legal magazine of some sort at one time, but I was not sure. I couldn’t help noticing that the older attorneys around this woman seemed to be acting very deferential towards her. For example, it was quite cold and she had not brought any gloves. A very important attorney in our firm took off his nice leather gloves and said:
“Here, take my gloves. I do not need them. My hands have a lot of blood in them and will stay warm.”
I had no idea what “a lot of blood” meant, but this statement was very funny and I remembered it. The woman took his gloves and as we huffed up the mountain the man went without his gloves.
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