Helping people direct their creativity toward solving the right problems
Friktion exists to help humanity direct its creativity toward solving the right problems. That sentence is what brand people refer to as our purpose statement and what we like to think of as our reason for getting out of bed in the morning. But what does it mean, really?
Well, every day, people, teams, and organizations waste time, resources, and creativity to solve problems that are not worth solving. We want to help them solve problems that make a difference instead., on all levels.
At a personal level
You only have one life – stop wasting it on meetings that could have been emails, documentation that will never be read, internal power struggles, and other tasks that don't create value for anyone.
At team level
Solving the right problem at any given time is what agile is all about. Reduce waste, maximize work not done, and prioritize the work that creates the most possible value for business and customers with the least possible effort. All while continuously improving the team's ability to do so, one bottleneck at a time.
At organizational level
If you don't know what your organization should be awesome at, figuring that out is the right problem to solve. If you know that but not why you’ve still not achieved this awesomeness, finding out what’s standing in your way is the right problem to solve.
At shareholder level
What is your organization's excuse for consuming resources, human creativity, and time? Deciding what value you bring to the world should be the first order of business for any organization, the most important problem of all.
At community level
While one organization can be strong, unions and alliances can be unbeatable. That's why solving the right problems at the community or ecosystem level is crucial. Building cartels and killing competition to drain ecosystems or control supply chains = bad. Cross-community collaboration, where companies, cities, institutions, non-profits, and individuals come together to create a better society = awesome.
At humanity level
In times like these, when we face unprecedented challenges, too much human creativity is wasted on figuring out excuses for sticking to the behaviors that put us in this situation instead of being directed toward solving the right problems. We’re not claiming to work on humanity's most important problems ourselves (yet), but we do try to be part of the solution and not the problem in everything we do.
At universe level
Our mission might be “to help humanity direct its creativity toward solving the right problems” but deciding that was preceded by a long and at times weird conversation about whether or not we were right in excluding all other sapient beings. Were we thinking too small on that day? And, more importantly, were we directing our own creativity toward solving the right problem?
How about you? Are you and your organization directing your creativity toward solving the right problems right now? If not, what could you do differently?
Emelie Rydén
Communication and Brand Strategist
