Flow in the workplace

You may be familiar with the thoroughly unpronounceable - but fascinating nonetheless - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, author of Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. "Flow" is that place where you are so engaged in what you are doing that time seems to disappear.

He also wrote the book Good Business: Leadership, Flow, and the Making of Meaning. An article in The Hindu Business Line summarizes some of his ideas from the book about creating flow in the workplace.

There are three options, says the author, for a manager who wants to build an organisation that will last, one in which people are motivated to contribute and to stay. "First, make the objective conditions of the workplace as attractive as possible. Second, find ways to imbue the job with meaning and value. Third, select and reward individuals who find satisfaction in their work."

I love this next bit. It's so true. Part of the secret to bringing that passion into one's career - or enabling employees to do it - is being able to recognize it when the opportunities present themselves.

What, among human talents, is the most precious one? "The ability to discern opportunities around oneself, when others do not," answers the author. "The individual who is truly engaged with the world — interested, curious, excited — is never at a loss for opportunities to experience flow."

He goes on to talk about some common barriers to flow.

In a chapter titled "why flow doesn't happen on the job", the author mentions that the first reason is that few jobs have clear goals. "Much of what modern workers are required to do on the job is dictated by demands that make sense at some higher organisational level but are obscure to the worker."

Next, "contemporary jobs seldom provide adequate feedback." There is no expression of skills, and with increasing rationalisation of jobs, "it is hard to get deeply involved in an activity where one's performance is a minor factor, where a good job is scarcely noticed, and where even the worker can't determine whether his work was well done."

--

Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst (sm)

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Comments

[Bev Cornish]

great site found it by accident.............on a MSc in Organisational Psychology and Psychiatry at present,have an Occ Health background and have some training in life coaching.
Once again great site ,useful info

[Bev Cornish]

great site found it by accident.............on a MSc in Organisational Psychology and Psychiatry at present,have an Occ Health background and have some training in life coaching.
Once again great site ,useful info