Can you remeber a time when you were highly productive and gained enourmous satisfaction from work, when you had seemingly limitless amounts of energy? Well if you’ve ever been there, what you were experiencing is called flow.
Mihàly Csìkszentmihàlyi, the psychologist studied thousands of people, and observed that people who were working at their full potential were experiencing what he called “flow”.
So how do you generate that feeling in others? How do you create a work environment that enables people to work at their full potential.
McKinsey suggests a few ways in this article . The article pinpoints the conditions that made this level of performance possible:
- The first thing is role clarity: People know know what is expected of them and the resources needed to get the job done.
- The second factor is the quality of interactions: Trust, respect, creative conflict, a sense of humour and teamwork.
- Finally there is vision: People get in the flow when there are high stakes, a challenge, and doing something that matters, will make a difference.
I keep running into the same set of factors when looking at what creates magic in the workplace. So what are you doing to create flow in those with whom you work?
I’ve also called it “being in the groove” (much like a golf swing or car racing, when you get on the right “line” – its magic….