Get in the zone with Flow

One of the leading positive psychology proponents and founding thinker of Flow, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is one of the greatest living psychologists of our age. This short video introduces us to the man and his idea. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjliwSJGDiU 

Wikipedia tells us that "according to Csíkszentmihályi, flow is completely focused motivation. It is a single-minded immersion and represents perhaps the ultimate in harnessing the emotions in the service of performing and learning. In flow, the emotions are not just contained and channelled, but positive, energised, and aligned with the task at hand. To be caught in the ennui of depression or the agitation of anxiety is to be barred from flow. The hallmark of flow is a feeling of spontaneous joy, even rapture, while performing a task although flow is also described as a deep focus on nothing but the activity – not even oneself or ones emotions."

For many, this idea will have sporting analogies. For others, particularly those interested in strengths-focused approaches to individual and team performance and development, the notion and feeling of flow happens when we are using our talents on activities that turn those talents into true strengths. Strengths that are visible to others, felt by us through the ease with which we carry out a function, role or activity time and again with high quality, positive outcomes. 

We are told that we cannot force ourselves to enter a flow state. It is something that just seems to happen. The state can be entered performing any activity and most likely to occur when we are wholeheartedly performing a task or activity for intrinsic purposes. Again, from a strengths perspective, we are more likely to find activities of this nature, i.e. where we wholeheartedly engage, with some understanding of our talents and strengths and how to seek opportunities to optimise the deployment of those talents.

There are several conditions necessary to achieve the flow state:

• There must be clear goals for the activity, thus adding direction and structure to the task
• We must perceive there to be a good balance between the challenge of the task and our own perceived skills (or in Strengths terms, the task and our talents rather than learned skills) 
• We need to have confidence that we are capable of doing the task

It also helps if there is clear and immediate feedback relating to the task. This helps us to negotiate any changing demands and allows us to adjust our performance to maintain the flow state. From an appreciative perspective, the feedback sought and provided is better when it concentrates on what works well, what is progressive and what we can learn to promote doing more of something - essential in a sporting context and arguably not less important in an organisational context - rather than too often seeking evidence of where we are weak or failing.    

European Appreciative Inquiry Network

Last week, I spent almost four days in Manchester participating in the AI Network. This self-organising network of appreciative and strengths-focused advisers, facilitators and practitioners of all descriptions, has met 12 times across Europe over the last five years. The event is structured around Open Space and World Cafe technology, which provides highly engaging ways for groups to connect, combine and co-create. 


Across a series of short yet intensive sessions we covered a wide range of themes and subjects, including imagining a new Europe through the use of AI, case studies of successful change across all sectors using appreciative and strengths-focused methods, on-site visits to community projects using AI in live action for the benefit for the community, sharing ideas to create commercial markets for these approaches and to improve our practice plus so many more.


The power of the network event lies in the knowledge and wisdom colleagues' bring to the sessions and of course in the time we spend together between the sessions. The experiences we share are based in the practical, hard-edged, real-time world, helping individuals,teams, groups, organisations and whole communities to develop, grow and change. This change has to be sustainable, repeatable and maintainable, yet unique to every situation. That's why the approaches we use in the appreciative world are not the simplistic, formulaic, 'four-box' models as promoted by some consultants. These are ethical, principle and science-based approaches, concentrating on facilitating the knowledge and skills of the client-community, not on the 'expert' knowledge of the consultant that often create a dependency culture in the client. 


Our goal is to help our clients create insights, build knowledge and develop capacity as rapidly as practicable. Our work frees the client to identify their talents, build on their strengths, dream their futures and create their own destinies. The examples we have from practice span all sectors, countries, cultures and interests; they are both energising and real.


Check out the networkplace.eu for the latest in the news of AI in Europe and beyond. There are regional AI networks gradually starting to emerge in the UKand the UK AI network has been flourishing for several years. All can be accessed by this link:  http://www.networkplace.eu/web/page.aspx?sid=736      

Mark Cavendish makes the point about talents and strengths

I've facilitated dozens of workshops around the twin themes of appreciative inquiry and strengths-focused change. Particularly in the strengths-based workshops I have concentrated on positing the notion, which is counter-intuitive for many, that time spent on improving weaknesses is never as well spent as time on optimising your talents and turning them into true strengths.


Part of the joy of the work with groups is seeing how they deal with and challenge the counter I put to the predominant paradigm of failure and deficit search they are so used to working within, i.e. the model that demands we search out failure and weakness, (over) concentrate on it to achieve some personal or organisational improvement and then create programmes to eradicate those weaknesses. Nothing against sorting out obvious problems, but the balance in many places is all wrong - an over-concentration on deficit and little or no attention to what works well, what individuals are great at doing and how we can do more of these things.


I frequently use the HTC cycling team as an example of strengths-based management, sharing quotes from their team managers that show clearly they engage riders for their strengths and ask them to make the most use of their talents to create true strengths, as in the case of Mark Cavendish and his sprinting ability.  


In one event I was challenged by a participant who almost triumphantly announced that of course Mark was a great sprinter but "he would never win the Tour De France", and of course in a moment the full impact of his own insight created his deeper learning. Indeed, Cavendish never will win the Tour, and he neither wants to nor will ever attempt to - he can't climb the highest mountains fast enough. He will though become the greatest ever sprinter to have graced the world's finest single-sport event; he will win more stages than any other sprinter and might well win the highest number of stages by the time he ends his career. His is already only the second British rider to have won of the Tour's three leading jerseys and has 20 stage wins to his name in 5 years. 


And there it was - the realisation that optimising strengths is about recognising what you are good at, i.e. those things that really energise, motivate and give you that sense of achievement, and working to make the best of those. Sometimes too it's not only about what's within ourselves, what we also see with Cavendish is that he has a team around him who work tirelessly to place him in the best position to launch his sprint. (He has shown though he can win without his lead-out train as well). Teamwork is a feature of optimising the talents of each other.


Our public and commercial organisations really must get the message. Ignoring talents and strengths can cost you output, productivity, energy and commitment. Those organisations who build the engagement of their employees through recognising their talents and turning them into strengths can achieve productivity levels up to 2-3 times greater than those that don't. 


The research is there; the evidence before our eyes, the test is to believe in our talents and of those around us in our teams to release the energy and passion and go on to be the best we can.