--- title: How Process Friction & Legacy Habits Destroy SME Margins description: 'We’ve always done it this way.' Killing your profit? Stop relying on outdated habits and start clearing the friction stalling your performance. image: https://www.clearthefriction.co.uk/hubfs/RW%20Blog%20Always%20this%20way%20(1).png --- [Skip to content](https://www.clearthefriction.co.uk/blog/how-process-friction-legacy-habits-destroy-sme-margins#main-content) [![Clear the Friction](https://www.clearthefriction.co.uk/hubfs/White%20800%20x%20300%20(1).svg)Homepage](https://www.clearthefriction.co.uk/) - [What We Do](https://www.clearthefriction.co.uk/what-we-do) - [Our Work](https://www.clearthefriction.co.uk/ourwork) - [Blog](https://www.clearthefriction.co.uk/blog) - [Resources](https://www.clearthefriction.co.uk/tools-and-resources) - [About Us](https://www.clearthefriction.co.uk/about-us) [Contact Us](https://www.clearthefriction.co.uk/contact) - [What We Do](https://www.clearthefriction.co.uk/what-we-do) - [Our Work](https://www.clearthefriction.co.uk/ourwork) - [Blog](https://www.clearthefriction.co.uk/blog) - [Resources](https://www.clearthefriction.co.uk/tools-and-resources) - [About Us](https://www.clearthefriction.co.uk/about-us) [Contact Us](https://www.clearthefriction.co.uk/contact) ![Light bulb with one illuminated to show a better way](https://www.clearthefriction.co.uk/hs-fs/hubfs/RW%20Blog%20Always%20this%20way%20(1).png?width=1920&height=1080&name=RW%20Blog%20Always%20this%20way%20(1).png) Right Way # How Process Friction & Legacy Habits Destroy SME Margins ![Ricky](https://www.clearthefriction.co.uk/hs-fs/hubfs/Ricky.png?width=48&height=48&name=Ricky.png) Ricky October 13, 2026 It sounds like wisdom. It feels like an experience. Most of the time, it’s just a habit—and it’s quietly eroding your margins, your team’s focus, and your sanity. I learned to stop trusting it the hard way. Early in my career, I was sent in to turn around a call centre for a building society. The "received wisdom" at the time was clear: the cross-sell metrics that mattered were harder to hit over the phone than face-to-face. Everyone "knew" it. You couldn’t build rapport over a phone line. Yet, my call centre—with a fraction of the staff—crushed the branch network on exactly those metrics. The branches weren’t failing for lack of effort. They were failing because they were running on decades of "we’ve always done it this way." We didn't have magic phones; we had a deliberate, tested method. They had a habit. The method won, and it wasn’t even close. ## The "Right Way" isn't the established way This is the uncomfortable truth every owner eventually faces: the "Right Way" isn't the traditional way, the obvious way, or the way that’s easiest to defend in a meeting. The "Right Way" is simply the way that produces the result—built on purpose, tested, and held. Most businesses aren't being held back by a lack of strategy; they’re being held back by friction. Every time a problem lands back on the Senior Leadership Team because "that's just how we do it," that’s friction. Every time a customer complains about a delivery delay due to a handoff between departments that hasn't been reviewed in years, that’s friction. If your business feels harder to run than it should, you’ve likely got a lot of "proven process" that is actually just an old habit, surviving simply because no one has dared to compare it to an alternative. [![FREE SELF-HELP TOOLS](https://hubspot-no-cache-eu1-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/cta/default/148600294/interactive-465305006307.png)](https://www.clearthefriction.co.uk/hs/cta/wi/redirect?encryptedPayload=AVxigLKMt%2Fxpxv9ArU1QApSgJSZEfRcWtiC0Jvogu7wME3Di5UlGoRHeQ26L37nZkryWZDR9t10PRdiSD%2FZY85uaRft8SugOAp6By10yiI%2Bzi0uveWS9gG1Cr9wpx97YT2mlaGe3eaH1QNss4WQUorsdfh%2BXHi1RKPHx7tQdHLN13iuqQU4ylGJMtmKYevUy%2Fyv64EbA1BmHADpYF1zJpxvJaKDg5RCF0m2W3H2PQ3BAhw%3D%3D&webInteractiveContentId=465305006307&portalId=148600294) ## Find the friction, Focus the team, Fix what matters You don’t need to torch your entire operation, and you shouldn’t try. You just need to stop treating "how we’ve always done it" as an unchallengeable fact. If you’re ready to move from "busy" to "effective," follow these three steps: 1. Find the friction: List the tasks where your team says, "That’s just how it works here." Ask: If we were starting from scratch today, would we build it like this? The honest "no"s are your performance leaks. 2. Focus the team: Pick the one leak that matters most and define exactly what "good" looks like. Inconsistency is what habit produces; a shared, deliberate method is what beats it. 3. Fix what matters: Build that method once, make it simple enough to teach, and hold it. A way that lives in your head isn't a method; it's a liability. A deliberate method beats inherited habit every time. The only question for you is: how much of your business is actually a real, designed method—and how much is just a habit you’ve never dared to challenge? Where is performance leaking in your business? Don't wait for the cracks to widen. The first step is to name the friction. *Get a clear, honest look at where friction is quietly costing you time, money, and momentum. See where your business is losing ground and get practical guidance on how to fix it.* *[![Friction Diagnostic Flag 1920 x 540](https://www.clearthefriction.co.uk/hs-fs/hubfs/Friction%20Diagnostic%20Flag%201920%20x%20540.png?width=1920&height=540&name=Friction%20Diagnostic%20Flag%201920%20x%20540.png)](https://ricky-jsnesoj0.scoreapp.com)*   ## Share this post [mailto:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.clearthefriction.co.uk%2Fblog%2Fhow-process-friction-legacy-habits-destroy-sme-margins](mailto:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.clearthefriction.co.uk%2Fblog%2Fhow-process-friction-legacy-habits-destroy-sme-margins) ## Keep reading ### [![](https://www.clearthefriction.co.uk/hs-fs/hubfs/right-things-feature-CROP-PREVIEW.png?width=1200&height=530&name=right-things-feature-CROP-PREVIEW.png) Right Things Leadership Productivity Why busy teams keep doing work everyone quietly knows adds no value](https://www.clearthefriction.co.uk/blog/stop-low-value-work) ### [![Redundancy due to company failure due to poor choices](https://www.clearthefriction.co.uk/hs-fs/hubfs/6.png?width=1920&height=800&name=6.png) Right Things The Wrong Things, Done Brilliantly, Will Still Sink You: SME Capital Allocation](https://www.clearthefriction.co.uk/blog/wrong-investments-sink-good-businesses) [![Trans - navy - 800 x 300](https://www.clearthefriction.co.uk/hubfs/Trans%20-%20navy%20-%20800%20x%20300.svg "Trans - navy - 800 x 300")](https://www.clearthefriction.co.uk) - [Home](https://www.clearthefriction.co.uk) - [What We Do](https://www.clearthefriction.co.uk/what-we-do) - [Our Work](https://www.clearthefriction.co.uk/ourwork) - [Blog](https://www.clearthefriction.co.uk/blog) - [About Us](https://www.clearthefriction.co.uk/about-us) - [Resources](https://www.clearthefriction.co.uk/tools-and-resources) - [Contact Us](https://www.clearthefriction.co.uk/contact) --- [Privacy Policy](https://www.clearthefriction.co.uk/privacy-policy-clear-the-friction) · © 2026 Clear the Friction Ltd. 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