Viscosity: Why Some Things Will Never Win

Imagine you are swimming laps in an Olympic pool. Up till now, it was filled with water as usual. Suddenly, the water is switched out for honey. Enjoy your laps. Viscosity is the measure of a fluid’s rate of resistance. For liquids, it’s what we refer to as thickness. Syrup is more viscous than oil, and oil is more viscous than water. Viscosity quantifies how much friction there is between layers of fluid in motion. The “thicker” or “stickier” a liquid is, the harder it will be for this to flow through the system.

The same mental lens can be employed to describe the conditions that create friction when you try to move forward. Go back to that pool example. Think of how much more difficult it is to swim in thick honey than water. Every movement requires extra effort because the medium itself resists your motion. In life or business, high viscosity situations are environments filled with friction: bureaucracy, rigid processes, dumb laws, cumbersome systems. They slow progress and require additional effort to overcome. Just as honey slows your swimming, obstacles such as excessive red tape or resistant cultural norms act as friction.

Innovative ideas, for example, struggle to gain traction in bureaucratic companies where they are sifted through multiple layers of approval before reaching the decision-maker. In viscous environments, achieving any goal requires significantly more effort and resources. This is why changing a long-standing company policy or tradition feels like trying to swim in honey. The established inertia makes rapid change impossible. Internal resistance is high. Even small shifts require disproportionate effort. Such firms and individuals suffocate and die in our fast-evolving, digital age.

Real-world instances of viscosity:

• Business Operations: a company with many hierarchical layers and rigid procedures find its innovation stifled and decisions taking much longer than necessary. The organization is like a viscous fluid where every new idea has to push through layers of friction.

• Government: a citizen trying to navigate public sectors encounters long waiting times, multiple question forms, complex surveys, and convoluted procedures. The bureaucratic system behaves like honey — each stride requires extra effort and time, discouraging progress.

• Personal Life: when you’re feeling overwhelmed by external pressures — personal setbacks, stressful environments, excessive responsibilities, that to-do list — it can seem as if every task is harder and harder to accomplish. Your personal progress is viscous, since moving forward demands more energy than usual.

• Technology and Software: upgrading or integrating new software in a large organization can be a challenging ordeal due to legacy systems and inflexible processes. The existing infrastructure acts as a viscous environment which discourages change.

How you might use viscosity as a mental model: (1) find the thickener — identify where the friction is coming from, like bottlenecks, unnecessary tasks, outdated systems, or needless hierarchies for decisions that make your workflow viscous; (2) boil it out — streamline and simplify, eliminating those unnecessary steps, automating repetitive tasks, cutting red tape; (3) cut the fat, build the muscle — find where additional energy, time, and investment is needed to overcome viscosity, plan for when you’ll need to “power through” the challenges; (4) honey won’t go extinct — understand that high-viscosity environments exist and progress will be slower there, so adjust your deadlines accordingly; (5) tell everyone else — encourage a culture that values lean processes, eliminating the unnecessary and maximizing efficiency and effectiveness.