Friction Worth Keeping

Morning friend.

There is a small, plain handmade wooden box sitting next to me on the desk.

A weathered Royal Marines cap badge is set into the lid.

It was given to me yesterday by a friend as a thank you for inspecting the boat he and a friend rowed across the Atlantic at the start of this year.

The box keeps catching my attention.

Not because I need another reminder of that part of my life.

More because something crafted by a former Commando who lost his arm in battle carries lessons with it about service, friendship and the things we ought to be grateful for.

On Monday, I head back out to sea myself.

350 nautical miles remain to complete our circumnavigation of UK waters and, if we make it, join less than sixty people in history who have done it powered by oars alone.

The spare room is already filling with dry bags.

There are boxes of food stacked in the hallway.

Waterproofs, chargers, kit and various things I will probably pack, unpack and repack at least twice before we leave.

And yet, while the house slowly turns itself into an expedition base camp, I have spent most of this week doing something far less adventurous.

Sitting exactly where I am now.

Staring at a screen.

Going down rabbit holes.

AI.

Automation.

CRM systems.

WhatsApp integrations.

Software talking to software.

Software refusing to talk to software.

Then another piece of software promising that, for a scalable monthly fee, it could persuade the first two to become best friends.

At one point I had so many tabs open I genuinely lost track of which problem I was originally trying to solve.

Eventually I found it.

One small blockage in the system.

Remove that and everything behind it began moving.

It was one of those deeply satisfying moments that makes several days of unnecessary frustration feel almost worthwhile.

Almost.

But somewhere in the process I realised I was asking myself the wrong question.

I had spent the week asking:

What else can we automate?

The more interesting question was:

What shouldn’t we automate?

The work was for the academy.

Like most businesses, we are trying to use technology better.

To remove repetitive work.

Respond faster.

Build better systems.

Make life easier for the people who work with us.

All sensible.

And I’m certainly not anti-technology.

But there is a direction of travel in business right now that feels worth questioning.

Automate everything.

Outsource everything.

Reduce the number of human interactions.

Create efficiency.

Cut cost.

Scale.

It makes sense on a spreadsheet.

But people can do something machines cannot.

They can care.

At least the good ones can.

A parent enquiring about our three-to-four-year-old programme might ask what time the class starts.

But that might not be what they are really asking.

They might be wondering whether their child will cry.

Whether somebody will notice if they become overwhelmed.

Whether they will be looked after.

A man in his forties might ask which class is best for beginners.

But perhaps what he really wants to know is whether he will look ridiculous walking through the door.

Whether he is too old.

Too unfit.

Too far behind everybody else.

Those questions don't always need a more sophisticated funnel.

Sometimes they need James to send that man a personal message.

Sometimes Sara needs to pick up the phone and speak to a parent as a mum herself.

Because despite owning a martial arts academy, I have never really believed our business is only about martial arts.

Jiu-Jitsu is what happens on the mats.

The thing happening off the mats matters just as much.

Knowing names.

Remembering conversations.

Noticing when somebody hasn’t trained for a while.

A coach seeing that a child isn't quite themselves today.

A new member walking into a room full of strangers and, eventually, realising they are no longer strangers.

You can automate a booking.

You can automate a payment.

I’m not sure you can ever automate belonging.

And the more I thought about that this week, the more I realised this isn’t really a business question.

It’s a life question.

We are becoming too good at removing friction.

Food arrives without us leaving the house.

Entertainment starts instantly.

AI can write the email, summarise the meeting, plan the trip and increasingly suggest what we should do next.

Much of that is useful.

But some friction might be worth keeping.

The effort required to learn something properly.

The awkward first few weeks in a new room.

Writing to somebody rather than clicking a reaction beneath their post.

Getting something wrong.

Trying again.

Perhaps not everything that takes time is inefficient.

There is a strange irony in me writing that.

I use AI extensively.

And yet I still sit down every week and write this to you.

Sometimes I know exactly where it is going.

Other weeks I arrive here with almost nothing.

A thought.

Something that happened.

An object sitting on the desk.

And I follow it.

I could probably make that process far more efficient.

But efficiency isn’t the point.

I want these transmissions to feel as though a real person sat down and thought about something.

Because I did.

Maybe that becomes more important as technology gets better.

Perhaps the businesses that stand out in the future won’t be the ones that automate the most.

They might be the ones that know where to stop.

I suspect the same will be true of people.

On Monday, I’ll leave this desk behind.

The dry bags currently taking over the spare room will be aboard our boat.

And for a while my world will become much smaller.

And a whole lot simpler.

Let's take a moment to debrief together:

What in your life or work has become more efficient, but perhaps a little less human?

Your mission this week (if you choose to accept it):

Put the human bit back into one thing.

Make the call instead of sending the message.

Have the conversation rather than avoiding it.

Turn up in person when it would be easier not to.

Protect one piece of friction that still matters.

If you want to follow our progress, you can track us live at www.row4mnd.com.

There will be plenty of technology helping us along the way.

Navigation.

Weather forecasting.

Tracking.

Communications.

All of it useful.

The rowing itself remains reassuringly difficult to automate.

Just the four of us.

One stroke after another.

The Commando Spirit.

Some things are better left that way.

That’s enough for now.

More next Sunday.

Mike

Hold the Line · Do the Hard Things