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The Invisible Friction

The Invisible Friction

By: Anna Ahrenfelt
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The Invisible Friction is a podcast about the hidden patterns, habits and systems that quietly get in the way of healthy, high-performing organisations.

Hosted by Anna Ahrenfelt and Mårten Stenfors, the podcast brings together two complementary perspectives.

Mårten draws on more than 25 years of experience leading complex global organisations from the inside, with responsibility for performance, transformation and people. Anna brings more than 20 years of experience working alongside leaders and organisations from the outside, in change management, leadership and organisational development.

Together, they explore why good people, clear strategies and strong ambitions so often fail to create lasting movement — and why the same problems keep returning even after intelligent people have worked hard to solve them.

Through honest conversations, real stories and practical reflections, they look beneath the visible symptoms to understand the patterns shaping behaviour, decisions and results.

No quick fixes. No simple answers. Better questions.



Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Anna Ahrenfelt
Economics Leadership Management Management & Leadership
Episodes
  • Episode 2 — When Compliance Replaces the Desired Outcome
    Aug 14 2026

    What happens when the process designed to protect quality becomes more important than the outcome itself?

    Anna Ahrenfelt and Marten Stenfors explore customer value, compliance, trust and the danger of systems that make it easier to follow the manual than to think. The episode asks one simple question: Are you measuring quality – or merely whether people followed the process?



    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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    24 mins
  • Why Does the Same Problem Keep Coming Back?
    Aug 7 2026

    In the first episode of The Invisible Friction, Anna Ahrenfelt and Mårten Stenfors explore why organisations so often find themselves solving the same problems again and again.

    Mårten shares stories from more than 25 years of leading change inside complex global organisations — from recurring safety incidents to cultures where fear made people reluctant to speak up. Anna brings the outside perspective, asking what these visible problems might reveal about deeper patterns in the organisation.

    Together, they discuss why rules, instructions and quick fixes are rarely enough, what happens when people understand what to do but not why, and why leaders may need to ask more questions instead of having all the answers.

    The episode also introduces the inside-and-outside perspective behind The Invisible Friction — and the idea that recurring problems may be signals of something deeper in the system.

    A question to take with you:

    Which recurring problem have you been trying to solve that might actually point toward something deeper in the system?



    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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    25 mins
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