Picture your workplace filled with people as immersed in their work as Beethoven was in the middle of composing his Moonlight Sonata. Imagine your intern being as committed as Einstein when he was working out his theory of relativity. Envision your most “bored” team member as “in the zone” as Minnesota Vikings player Randy Moss was on Thanksgiving Day, 1998 as he caught three touchdown passes leading his team to victory against the powerful Dallas Cowboys.
Think it can’t happen? Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced as “chick-SENT-me-high”), a leading researcher on positive psychology, says it can happen and he calls it flow. He describes flow as:
“being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you’re using your skills to the utmost.”
In most of his works, including his popular book, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience , Csikszentmihalyi outlines seven elements essential to achieving flow in the workplace. These are:
clear goals
immediate and unambiguous feedback
challenges that match the worker’s skills
a sense of control
few distractions
intrinsic motivation
feeling a part of something larger than the self
Begin acquiring these elements and you’ll soon find the balance between boredom and excess stress in your workplace.
Getting “In the Zone”
Review job descriptions. As a leader, it’s easy for you to fall into the pattern of assigning the same tasks to the same person over and over or relying too heavily on one person on your team. Review the job descriptions of each team member to help you keep your talent inventory on the radar and assign tasks equally. In so doing, you can help decrease stress for one team member while giving a much-sought after challenge to another member.
Remove distractions. Meetings can certainly help jumpstart creativity but, if scheduled often enough, they can soon become a distraction and serve as “flow” interrupters rather than motivators. Schedule sparingly and monitor other distractions eating away at your employees well being potential.
Fine tune your feedback process. If your idea of feedback is a quarterly employee evaluation, it’s time to rethink. Explore new feedback processes that allow your team members to receive regular (daily if possible) feedback on their work. Understanding exactly where they are at in their job will help them make frequent improvements and maintain motivation and momentum.
Keep balanced. If your idea of a good work day correlates directly to the number of checkmarks on your “to do” list, you’re off-balance. To get back on balance, focus on employee well being, too, and not just the work itself.
Connect the dots Strive to give each employee a clear idea of the “big picture” and explain why you need the work done and not just what to do or how to do it. When a team member fully understands where she fits in your company, she is empowered to take control and get in the “flow.”