When Sludge Becomes CX Strategy: Bureaucratic Harm as a Leadership Communication Issue?

Last weekend, I was quoted in The Atlantic in an article exploring a now-familiar frustration: the soul-draining, time-sucking labyrinth of contemporary customer experiences. From dead-end phone trees to unresponsive reps, these experiences are not random.

My followers have likely heard me speak about it on podcasts or seen my previous posts. These are part of a pattern—called sludge, or what marketers and lawyers sometimes call "dark patterns." 

The term sludge, coined by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, refers to the friction that makes it harder for people to do what they need or are entitled to do. The Atlantic article captured this with alarming clarity—people endlessly repeating themselves, giving up in exhaustion, or worse, questioning whether their time and existence even matter in the eyes of the systems they’re trying to navigate.

Sludge is more than a nuisance. It’s a communication choice made by leadership. Sometimes it isn't intentional. And sometimes it is.

Appearing Out of Nowhere? Maybe Not.

But sludge doesn’t appear in a vacuum. It flows from policies, processes, and procedures that someone—usually a leader or leadership team—has potentially allowed to take shape.

In organizations, these systems are how power gets operationalized. When a company buries a refund request form four clicks deep or makes a cancellation line go in circles, it's not just bad UX. It's a form of communication. It says: We benefit from your silence, and we’re okay with that.

This is why sludge is a leadership communication issue. Every layer of friction sends a message. Every delay is a signal. And often, that message is a quiet reinforcement of power asymmetry.

Leaders who want to build trust can’t treat sludge as a peripheral, neutral operational concern. They need to treat it as a strategic, ethical, and human concern.

What’s the alternative?

Leaders can take a hard look at where sludge shows up in their systems—and why. They can commission “sludge audits” to examine where customers, clients, or citizens are likely to fall through the cracks or give up altogether. The New South Wales, Australia government has published a dynamite toolkit for taking action!

Sludge audits can prioritize clarity in choice architecture, accessibility, and plain language over legalese and obfuscation. And most of all, they can embed values of dignity and transparency into how policies are designed and communicated.

Sludge is not always intentional. But when it persists, it becomes a choice. And for leaders, that choice speaks volumes.

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