Death by a thousand edits: the real threat to brand messaging

Friction in communications

Every organisation wants clear, compelling, strategically aligned communication. But very few make it easy.

In our world (communications, media, brand strategy) we talk a lot about tone, messaging frameworks, storytelling, reputation, and clarity. Yet the biggest barrier to all of that is something far less glamorous: friction.

Bob Sutton and Huggy Rao’s work on good and bad friction is essential reading across leadership circles, but in communications, we’ve been wrestling with these dynamics for decades. We’ve seen how the right kind of friction sharpens a message, and the wrong kind completely destroys it.

So here are our thoughts on friction, from people who spend their days helping organisations make impact, and make sense.

Sutton and Rao describe friction as anything that slows or complicates progress. In communications, friction is everywhere:

• The email thread that becomes a spiral of ideas and suggestions

• The approval queue of 40 people that never ends

• The “quick review” that adds 12 subjective edits

• The well-intentioned stakeholder who swoops in late with “thoughts”

• The strategic brief no one fully read

• The priorities that dramatically shift mid-draft

• The leadership expectation that everyone has an equal say and should have an input into comms

  
  

None of these feel catastrophic in the moment. But collectively, they erode clarity, dilute direction, and drag messages away from strategy.

It is what we often call “death by a thousand edits” or Sutton and Rao’s version: addition sickness. Everyone adds. But communication, at its core, is a pretty serious exercise in subtraction.

Bad friction weakens messages. Good friction strengthens them. Knowing the difference is important.

Bad friction:

• Bureaucracy

• Vague suggestions or thoughts as feedback

• Endless reviews

• Competing opinions

• Comments for the sake of it

  
  

This is the friction that burns time, energy and clarity. It’s how a message that started out sharp becomes relatively useless, generic, and forgettable by the time it’s approved.

Good friction however, includes:

• Strategic questioning

• Purposeful edits

• Pausing to ensure alignment to the outcome

• Considering audience needs

• Pressure-testing assumptions

• Challenging whether something should be said

  
  

This is the friction that strengthens the work. It slows you down just enough to make sure the message is smart, intentional, and audience-ready.

Brands that understand the difference between the two and create systems that favour good friction over bad communicate with dramatically more impact. They probably have happier, more productive communications teams too!

The biggest communications problem inside organisations: too many reviewers, not enough decision-makers, or one single decision-maker who isn’t a comms professional.

Sutton and Rao remind us that organisations accidentally create friction by defaulting to adding, be that more opinions, more steps, more signatures.

In practice, this shows up as:

• The belief that “more eyes = better message”

• The assumption that every leader must contribute

• The fear of sending something imperfect

• The expectation that comms should incorporate every preference

Underlined, because that part is so frustrating.

Here’s the truth, from professionals who do this every day:

When everyone becomes an editor, the message stops serving the audience and starts serving the egos of the leadership team instead.

That’s when comms drift off strategy not from one big deviation, but from dozens of micro-edits with no shared north star.

The antidote?

Let your comms team own their comms. We are strategists, translators, pattern recognisers, audience advocates.

This is exactly what Sutton and Rao mean when they talk about leaders becoming friction fixers, people who empower experts, remove obstacles, and act as trustees of their team’s time and attention.

Great organisations don’t drown their communicators in edits. They trust them to communicate.

If you want stronger communications, we suggest you examine your workflow.

To improve your communication outputs, ask:

1. Where is bad friction slowing us down or watering us down? (Too many opinions? Too many steps? Too much fear?)

2. Where do we need more good friction? (More strategic alignment? Better briefs? Stronger audience context?)

3. Who actually has decision rights? (And who is simply adding friction without adding value?)

4. Do we trust our communicators to do their jobs? (Or do we unintentionally ignore or overrule their expertise for our opinions?)

5. What can we subtract? (Tools, steps, meetings, reviewers, jargon.)

   
   

As Sutton and Rao put it: Make the right things easier. Make the wrong things harder.

Final thought: smooth communication isn’t effortless. It’s actually quite difficult.

It requires discipline, systems that protect clarity, empower experts, and thoughtfully use friction.

The real mark of a mature and professional organisation is how confidently it trusts the people who shape its voice.

And that, is where your competitive advantage lives.