The Hidden Tax on Human Performance

Why cognitive friction is quietly undermining workplace performance

Over the weekend, one of my clients called me. 

He wasn't calling to celebrate a breakthrough, or to reschedule his regular weekly session coming up. 

He called to tell me he needed to pause our coaching for a while.

His family had just received some devastating health news.

There was little I could say or do that would make the conversation easier, other than to let him know that they would be in my thoughts, and we agreed that coaching could wait. As we hung up, I found myself sitting quietly, thinking about something I've been exploring in my work for some time.

There is so much noise bombarding us on how we should be improving human performance. 

We are encouraged to invest in leadership development, strategic learning programmes, productivity tools and artificial intelligence. We encourage people to become more resilient, more efficient and better at managing their time.

I have decided that we are looking at this from the wrong angle. 

Instead of launching straight into asking:

"how can we increase human performance?".

Wouldn't it make more sense to ask:

"what is making human performance harder?".

 You see, before my client opens up his laptop, before he answers an email, before he makes a decision related to his work, he is already carrying around a pretty heavy cognitive backpack, which is invisible to those around him at work. 

This example reminded me that every workplace contains two kinds of invisible weight. 

The weight people bring with them, and the weight organisations unknowingly place upon them.

When those two collide, performance doesn't simply decline, it becomes harder to think.

Key Takeaways

• Human performance is influenced by both workplace systems and personal circumstances. 
• Cognitive friction refers to the unnecessary mental effort created by interruptions, meetings, competing priorities and poorly designed work.
• Research suggests it takes an average of 23 minutes to regain focus after an interruption, reducing the time available for meaningful, concentrated work.
• Leaders cannot remove life's inevitable challenges, but they can reduce unnecessary workplace friction.
• Designing work around how people actually think - not how we assume they think - is becoming one of the defining leadership capabilities of the future.

Performance Begins With Capacity 

One of the greatest misconceptions in modern workplaces is that performance is primarily driven by motivation. 

When someone misses a deadline, struggles to focus or seems disengaged, we often assume they need to become more organised, more productive or more resilient.

But after years of coaching leaders, professionals and neurodivergent adults, I've come to believe that human performance is much less about motivation than it is about capacity.

Every morning, we wake up with a finite amount of cognitive and emotional capacity. 

So many different factors come into play which directly impact these capacities, such as:

• How much sleep are we getting on average per night?
• What is the quality of that sleep?
• What does our daily nutrition look like?
• How often are we exercising?
• Do we practice mindfulness, and if so, how often?

We draw on that capacity to make decisions, solve problems, regulate our emotions, remember important information, communicate effectively and adapt to change.

These mental processes are collectively supported by our executive functioning - the cognitive skills responsible for planning, prioritising, organising, focusing attention, managing working memory and exercising self-control.

When our available capacity is high, these executive skills can feel almost effortless. 

We can make decisions with confidence, rather than over thinking them.

We solve problems creatively, rather than feeling stuck, or mentally blocked. 

We communicate with patience and steadiness.

We think clearly, with purpose. 

But when that capacity is gradually diluted, even seemingly simple tasks can begin to feel disproportionately difficult.

What fascinates me is that organisations rarely measure what consumes that capacity before meaningful work even begins.

The Hidden Tax We Rarely Talk About

I believe one of the greatest hidden costs to organisational performance is something I call cognitive friction. 

Not challenge.

Challenge helps us grow.

Not complexity.

Complex work can be deeply rewarding.

Cognitive friction is different, and can include the following:

1. the unnecessary mental effort required navigate systems
2. the constant stream of interruptions
3. the back-to-back meetings
4. the multiple communication platforms
5. the competing priorities
6. the unclear expectations
7. the endless notifications asking for our attention

Individually, these different parts of our daily work design seem insignificant. 

Collectively, they quietly consume our cognitive capacity before we've even started our most important work.

Research has been highlighting this for years.

Professor Gloria Mark, from the University of California, Irvine, found that after an interruption it takes, on average, approximately 23 minutes for people to fully return to their original task. Think about that for a moment.

Not twenty-three seconds.

Twenty-three minutes.

Now multiply that by the number of interruptions many knowledge workers experience each day.

Every email notification. 

Every Microsoft Teams message.

Every "quick question."

Every unnecessary meeting.

Every request to switch attention asks the brain to disengage from one mental model, build another, and then later reconstruct the original one.

This constant context switching isn't simply frustrating.

It is cognitively expensive.

Laboratory research by Rubinstein, Meyer and Evans demonstrated more than two decades ago that switching between tasks significantly reduces efficiency and increases errors. More recent neuroscience continues to reinforce that our brains are not designed to perform multiple cognitively demanding tasks simultaneously. What we commonly call "multitasking" is, in reality, rapid task switching - and it comes at a measurable cost. 

Yet many workplaces continue to celebrate responsiveness over reflection.

Availability over attention.

Busyness over deep thinking.

So, is it really that surprising that we are quietly taxing the very cognitive resources that high-quality work depends upon?

A Workplace Designed for Interruption

The way we work has changed dramatically over the past decade. 

Hybrid work has increased flexibility for many people, but it has also introduced new forms of cognitive friction.

Microsoft's Work Trend Index has consistently reported increases in meetings, collaboration time and after-hours communication since hybrid work became widespread. At the same time, uninterrupted periods of focused work have become increasingly rare.

McKinsey Global Institute estimates that knowledge workers spend approximately 28% of their working week managing email alone, not including instant messaging platforms, collaboration tools or informal communication.

When we step back and look at the bigger picture, a different story begins to emerge. 

Perhaps people aren't struggling simply because they may have poor time management.

Perhaps they're struggling because the modern workplace has become extraordinarily difficult to think in.

The Friction We Bring. The Friction We Create.

Since the weekend, and reflecting on the conversation with my client, I have landed on an important concept, which relates to workplace performance. 

Organisations spend enormous amounts of time trying to improve performance.

But performance doesn't exist in isolation.

It is influenced by everything people are carrying in their cognitive back packs, before they even begin their work.

Some of that weight comes from life, such as illness, grief, or relationship breakdowns.

Some of it comes from work itself, for example, clunky messaging platforms, never ending meetings or even noisy, open plan offices for many of us. 

The challenge for leaders is recognising the difference.

Whilst organisations can't control every challenge people experience outside of work, they have enormous influence over the way work is designed.

That distinction matters, because it changes the questions we ask.

Instead of asking, 

"How do we make people perform better?"

we begin asking,

"What unnecessary friction are people already carrying?"

and

"What additional friction are we creating?"

That shift, in my experience, is powerful.

Introducing The Four Sources of Human Friction™

Over time, I've come to think about human performance through four interconnected sources of friction. 

Each draws on the same finite pool of cognitive and emotional capacity.

When multiple sources of friction combine, even the most capable people begin to struggle - not because they've become less capable, but because they have less capacity available for thinking, learning and decision-making.

Cognitive Friction

Cognitive friction is the unnecessary mental effort required simply to get work done. 

It includes:

• constant interruptions
• context switching
• information overload
• unclear priorities
• excessive decision-making
• poorly organised workflows

Every one of these takes a toll on our executive function, forcing it to work harder than it needs to.

Over time, this reduces the capacity available for strategic thinking, creativity and problem-solving.

Emotional Friction

My conversation with my client on the weekend reminded me that not all friction originates inside the workplace. 

Some arrives with us.

Illness.

Grief.

Financial pressure.

Relationship breakdowns.

Caring responsibilities.

Uncertainty.

Emotional friction consumes attention because our brains are trying to process experiences that matter deeply to us. 

No amount of productivity advice can compete with that.

When my client called, he was thinking about his family, not his workplace performance. 

His cognitive resources were already being directed somewhere infinitely more important than work.

This is why compassion isn't simply a leadership quality.

It is a human performance strategy.

When leaders recognise that people are carrying invisible emotional loads, they create workplaces that support people rather than simply expecting more from them.

Relational Friction

Relationships can either conserve cognitive energy or quietly chew it up.

Poor communication.

Low trust.

Unresolved conflict.

Unclear expectations.

Psychological safety isn't simply about creating happier teams.

It reduces the cognitive effort required for people to participate, ask questions, admit mistakes and share ideas.

When people feel psychologically safe, they spend less energy protecting themselves and more energy contributing openly and confidently to the work.

Structural Friction

Finally, there is the friction built into organisational systems, for example:

• Meeting overload.
• Duplicated processes.
• Poor technology.
• Too many approval layers.
• Conflicting priorities.
• Multiple communication platforms.

This is perhaps the most overlooked form of friction because it often becomes normalised.

People stop questioning it and simply resign to the fact that:

"We've always done it this way." 

Yet Microsoft's Work Trend Index continues to show that knowledge workers are spending increasing amounts of time in meetings and collaborative activity, leaving fewer uninterrupted periods for focused work.

Meanwhile, artificial intelligence - while offering enormous potential - has also introduced new challenges:

• More tools.
• More notifications.
• More platforms.
• More decisions.

Technology has the capacity to reduce cognitive effort. 

But without thoughtful, nuanced implementation, it can just as easily increase it. 

Technology should remove friction, not multiply it. 

The Capacity Equation

One of the simplest ways I explain this to leaders is through a very different way of thinking about performance. 

Traditionally, we assume that better performance comes from asking people to do more, therefore, resulting in greater output, correct?

We ask them to:

• Work harder.
• Become more resilient.
• Learn another productivity technique.
• Adopt another digital tool.

Here is where I believe we are getting things wrong. 

Rather than focusing solely on capability..what if human performance was is just as equally determined by available capacity?

A simple way of describing this approach is via a simple equation:

Human Performance = Capacity − Friction

Every day, we begin with a certain amount of cognitive and emotional capacity. Or if we are using the cognitive backpack concept - we usually start the day off with a relatively light load. 

Every source of friction draws from that capacity, or, adds to the weight of our cognitive load. 

Sometimes it is an unexpected phone call from the hospital.

Sometimes it is six consecutive meetings.

Sometimes it is caring for an ageing parent.

Sometimes it is navigating five different software systems before 10 a.m.

Our brains don't distinguish between "work stress" and "life stress."

They simply respond to the total accumulative load.

Which means that by the time someone sits down to complete an important piece of work, they may already have spent a significant proportion of their available cognitive capacity simply managing everything else. 

This is why two people can have exactly the same capability yet perform very differently on a given day.

Their capability hasn't changed, however, their capacity has. 

 Leadership Begins Where Capacity Ends

This, I believe, is one of the most important leadership questions of our time. 

We cannot remove every challenge from people's lives, nor should we pretend we can.

Life continues to bring uncertainty, illness, grief, caregiving responsibilities and moments that fundamentally reshape a person's world.

But organisations have a choice.

They can continue adding unnecessary cognitive and structural demands to people who are already carrying heavy emotional loads. 

Or they can intentionally design work that protects the limited cognitive resources people need to think clearly, make good decisions and contribute meaningfully. 

The future of leadership isn't asking people to carry more.

It's becoming more thoughtful about what we ask them to carry in the first place.

Five Ways Leaders Can Reduce Human Friction

The good news is that while leaders can't remove every source of friction from people's lives, they can make intentional decisions about the environments they create. 

We know that every meeting, every communication, every system and every workflow can either add friction - or remove it.

Even small changes, repeated consistently, start to create workplaces where people have more cognitive capacity available for the work that matters most.

Here are five ways leaders can start to make positive change:

 

1. Protect Attention Like the Valuable Resource It Is 

Attention has become one of the most valuable - and most interrupted - human resources in today's workplace.

Many organisations unknowingly design environments that reward constant responsiveness rather than thoughtful work.

Emails arrive every few minutes.

Notifications compete for attention.

Calendars become filled with back-to-back meetings.

The result isn't simply busyness. It is fragmented thinking.

Research from Gloria Mark demonstrates that after an interruption, it takes an average of approximately 23 minutes to regain full focus on the original task. Every interruption asks the brain to rebuild its mental context, quietly reducing the time available for deep thinking. 

Great leaders recognise that protecting attention isn't a luxury. It is a human performance strategy.

Ask yourself:

• Which meetings genuinely require everyone to attend?
• Can updates be shared asynchronously?
• Does every notification need an immediate response?
• Are people given permission to protect uninterrupted thinking time?

We are now starting to realise that the best productivity gains are seen not through adding on more productivity hacks - they are seen through removing interruptions.

2. Reduce Decision Fatigue Through Greater Clarity 

Every decision we make consumes our mental energy.

Some decisions are meaningful. Others are entirely unnecessary.

Having unclear priorities, conflicting requests, constantly changing expectations and duplicated approval processes all create cognitive friction, and frustration. 

 

When people spend their day trying to determine what matters most, they have less mental capacity available to solve problems, think creatively and make high-quality decisions. 

One of the simplest leadership practices is also one of the most powerful:

Create clarity.

This can be achieved by clarifying priorities, reducing ambiguity and simplifying processes, wherever possible. 

 

When people know what matters most, executive function can be directed towards meaningful work rather than navigating unnecessary complexity. 

3. Create Psychological Safety Before Expecting Performance 

High-performing teams are not simply technically capable.

They are psychologically safe.

Psychological safety allows people to ask questions, admit mistakes, challenge ideas and seek support without fear of embarrassment or judgement.

When people feel they must constantly monitor how they appear, hide uncertainty or avoid asking for help, valuable cognitive resources are redirected towards self-protection.

This is reducing the amount of energy teams have available for learning, collaboration or innovation.

As Harvard professor Amy Edmondson's research has consistently demonstrated, psychologically safe teams are better positioned to learn, adapt and improve because people feel safe enough to contribute honestly.

Human performance isn't only shaped by how people think. It is shaped by how safe they feel to think out loud.

 

4. Design Work Around Human Capacity—Not Endless Availability 

One of the unintended consequences of modern technology is the expectation of being constantly available.

Hybrid work, mobile devices and collaboration platforms have made it easier than ever to connect.

They have also made it harder to disconnect.

Microsoft's Work Trend Index has repeatedly highlighted the increasing volume of meetings, messages and after-hours collaboration experienced by knowledge workers.

Technology is an extraordinary enabler, but without thoughtful boundaries, it becomes another source of friction.

Instead of asking, 

"How quickly can people respond?"

perhaps leaders should ask,

"How can we help people protect their capacity to think?"

Designing sustainable work means recognising that human attention is finite.

Protecting that attention is no longer simply an individual responsibility.

It is an organisational one.

5. Replace Judgement With Curiosity 

This may be the most important leadership practice of all.

When someone misses a deadline, becomes unusually quiet, appears distracted or is struggling to engage, our instinct is often to evaluate the behaviour. 

 

 

What would happen if we instead, became curious?

Conversations with my clients often remind me that we rarely know what people are carrying. 

Some friction is visible, however, most of it is not. 

Perhaps the colleague who seems disengaged has just become a carer for an ageing parent.

Perhaps the manager who appears impatient spent the night in an emergency department.

Perhaps the employee who forgot an important task is quietly navigating burnout.

Curiosity doesn't lower standards. It improves understanding, which is where better leadership begins.

Human Performance Begins With Understanding

We never really know what someone is carrying.

Every workplace is filled with invisible stories.

Stories of illness, grief, anxiety, recovery, parenthood, financial pressure, burnout, hope and courage. 

These stories shape the way people think long before they influence the way people perform. 

Perhaps that is why I believe so strongly that human performance cannot be separated from human experience.

Organisations often invest enormous resources into helping people become more productive.

But productivity is rarely the starting point. Understanding is.

When leaders understand how executive function, emotional load, workplace systems and relationships interact, they stop asking, 

"How do we get people to do more?"

Instead, they begin asking,

"What unnecessary friction can we remove?"

We cannot prevent every challenge life will bring, but we can create workplaces that don't add unnecessary weight to people who are already carrying a heavy load. 

That is the future of leadership. Not asking people to become endlessly resilient, but designing workplaces where people can think more clearly, contribute more confidently and perform more sustainably.

When we reduce friction, we don't simply improve performance, we create the conditions for people to do their best thinking.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is cognitive friction?

Cognitive friction is the unnecessary mental effort required to complete everyday work because of the way work is designed. It includes frequent interruptions, excessive meetings, constant notifications, unclear priorities, information overload and switching between multiple tasks or systems. Unlike productive challenge, cognitive friction doesn't improve performance - it quietly consumes attention and executive function, making it harder to think clearly, make decisions and complete meaningful work.

What is the difference between cognitive friction and human friction?

 

Cognitive friction is one form of human friction. It relates specifically to the mental demands created by work, such as interruptions, context switching and excessive cognitive load. 

Human friction is a broader concept. It recognises that people experience multiple sources of friction simultaneously, including cognitive, emotional, relational and structural factors. Together, these influence our available capacity to think, learn, communicate and perform effectively.

 

What is executive function, and why does it matter at work?

 

Executive function refers to the cognitive skills that help us plan, organise, prioritise, regulate attention, remember information, manage emotions and make decisions. These skills are essential for almost every aspect of work. 

When executive function is supported through clear systems, realistic workloads and psychologically safe environments, people are better able to solve problems, collaborate effectively and adapt to change. When executive function is overloaded, performance often declines - not because people lack capability, but because they lack cognitive capacity.

How do interruptions affect workplace performance?

Interruptions significantly reduce our ability to perform deep, focused work. Research by Professor Gloria Mark found that after an interruption, it takes an average of around 23 minutes to fully return to the original task. Frequent interruptions increase cognitive load, reduce attention, increase the likelihood of errors and contribute to mental fatigue. While some interruptions are unavoidable, many are created by poor workplace design and can be reduced through better communication practices and protected focus time.

Why is multitasking bad for productivity?

Despite common belief, the brain does not truly multitask when performing complex cognitive work. Instead, it rapidly switches attention between tasks. Research has shown that task switching reduces efficiency, increases mistakes and places additional demands on working memory and executive function. Protecting uninterrupted periods of focused work is far more effective than expecting people to manage multiple competing tasks simultaneously.

What is emotional friction in the workplace?

Emotional friction refers to the cognitive and emotional load people carry because of life's challenges, including illness, grief, caring responsibilities, financial stress, relationship changes or burnout. These experiences consume mental capacity long before someone begins their workday. While organisations cannot eliminate emotional friction, compassionate leadership and thoughtful workplace design can reduce additional workplace demands, allowing people to navigate difficult periods with greater support.

How does psychological safety improve performance?

Psychological safety creates an environment where people feel comfortable asking questions, admitting mistakes, sharing ideas and seeking help without fear of judgement or embarrassment. Research has consistently shown that psychologically safe teams learn faster, collaborate more effectively and perform better because people spend less energy protecting themselves and more energy contributing to meaningful work.

What can leaders do to reduce workplace friction?

Leaders can improve human performance by reducing unnecessary sources of friction. Practical strategies include protecting uninterrupted focus time, reducing unnecessary meetings, simplifying communication, clarifying priorities, improving workplace systems and fostering psychologically safe teams. Rather than asking people to become more resilient, effective leaders design workplaces that make good thinking easier. 

Why is reducing workplace friction important for wellbeing?

Workplace friction increases cognitive load and contributes to stress, mental fatigue and burnout. The World Health Organization recognises burnout as an occupational phenomenon resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed. By reducing unnecessary friction, organisations not only improve productivity but also support employee wellbeing, engagement and sustainable performance.

Research Spotlight

 

What the evidence tells us 

• 23 minutes- the average time it takes to regain focus after an interruption (Mark, 2023).
• 28% of the average workweek is spent managing email and internal communication (McKinsey Global Institute, 2012).
• Task switching reduces efficiency and increases errors, particularly during cognitively demanding work (Rubinstein et al., 2001).
• Burnout is recognised by the World Health Organization as an occupational phenomenon resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed (WHO, 2019).
• Meeting load and after-hours collaboration have increased significantly since hybrid work became widespread, reducing uninterrupted focus time (Microsoft Work Trend Index, 2023).

References

 

Edmondson, A. C. (2019). The fearless organization: Creating psychological safety in the workplace for learning, innovation, and growth. John Wiley & Sons. 

Gallup. (2024). State of the Global Workplace 2024 Report. https://www.gallup.com/workplace/state-of-the-global-workplace

Mark, G. (2023). Attention span: A groundbreaking way to restore balance, happiness and productivity. Hanover Square Press.

McKinsey Global Institute. (2012). The social economy: Unlocking value and productivity through social technologies. https://www.mckinsey.com

Microsoft. (2023). Work Trend Index Annual Report: Will AI fix work? https://www.microsoft.com/worklab/work-trend-index

 

Rubinstein, J. S., Meyer, D. E., & Evans, J. E. (2001). Executive control of cognitive processes in task switching. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 27(4), 763–797. https://doi.org/10.1037/0096-1523.27.4.763 

World Health Organization. (2019). Burn-out an "occupational phenomenon": International Classification of Diseases. https://www.who.int