THE CONCEPT OF FLOW

Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi

Viewed through the lens of flow, living a full life is living "without waste of time and potential, and expressing one's uniqueness, while participating intimately in the complexity of the cosmos."

PATAGONIA MISSION STATEMENT

"Build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis." "challenging conventional wisdom, leading a simpler and more examined life, and making a living without losing your soul."

STARBUCKS BARISTA

"My job is all about the human connection. I just happen to serve really good coffee and tea. People are hard-wired for connection; it's why we're here. I'm lucky, at my job I make connections every minute with all types of people. I have the privilege of starting hundreds of people's days simply with a recipe for their favorite cup of coffee. I have the honor of seeing families journey through different stages of their lives. Whether graduation, birthdays, weddings, funerals, holidays...I get to share a tiny glimpse...Sometimes I have the delicate responsibility of listening as they tell me their dog has passed away, other times I get to join in the excitement as they take their wedding party the caffeine that will take them through a night of celebration. There's nothing like the surprise on a customer's face when you remember their drink after not having seen them for eight years. Because it's not just about the drink, it's about the relationship."

FLOW

-What is common to all experiences is the total involvement of body and mind with a feasible task which validates the competence, indeed the very existence, of the actor. It is this that makes the activity worthwhile, despite the absence of utilitarian rewards. -Optimal subjective experiences of full involvement in life -The state experienced when a person in an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity.

FLOW: ELEMENTS

Based on interviews with over 10,000 people 8 Elements of Flow: Goals are clear Feedback is immediate A balance between opportunity and capacity Concentration deepens The present is what matters A sense of control The sense of time is altered The loss of ego

ZAPPO'S SHOES CORE VALUES

Deliver WOW through service Embrace and Drive Change Create Fun and a Little Weirdness Be Adventurous, Creative, and Open-Minded Pursue Growth and Learning Build Open and Honest Relationships with Communication Build a Positive Team and Family Spirit Do More with Less Be Passionate and Determined Be Humble

WORK AS A CALLING: EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT

Engaged (29%)- "Work as a Calling" Engaged employees work with passion and feel a profound connection to their company. They drive innovation and move the organization forward. Not-engaged (56%) Non-engaged employees are essentially "checked out." They're sleepwalking through their workday, putting in time- but not energy or passion- into their work. Actively Disengaged (15%) Actively disengaged employees aren't just unhappy at work; they're busy acting out their unhappiness. Every day, these workers undermine what their engaged coworkers accomplish.

MODEL OF FLOW (CSIKSZENTMIHALYI, 1997)

Interactional Model Dynamic exchange between person and environment Balance between: Perceived skills (internal) Perceived challenges (external) Eight experiential channels Importance of knowing strengths What happens when: Challenges > Skills ? Skills > Challenges ?

WORK AS A CALLING

Motivated by sense of contributing Recommends the work Thinks about work even when off the job Intrinsically motivated Works hard because the job is rewarding "Calling" associated with better health, higher life and work satisfaction and frequent experiences of flow during the work day This distinction is not necessarily dependent on occupation

NEUROBIOLOGY OF IMPROVISATION

Neurobiology of flow- the science of improvisation -Charles Limb, Johns Hopkins -Life long serious musician (sax, piano, bass) who contemplated a music career but chose science fMRI studies of musicians improvising jazz while in the scanner show: -Medial prefrontal cortex (semi-autobiographical area that's linked to processes like self-expression) turns "on" -Dorsolateral cortex (related to inhibition) turns "off" -Creative playing linked to a combination of self-expression with the absence of conscious self-monitoring -During shared playing, areas related to language (Wernicke's area) and speaking (Broca's area) are activated -When musicians are communicating, they're invoking language areas of the brain even though they're not speaking -The angular gyrus (involved in semantics) activity decreases during the back and forth, i.e., the amount of energy spent deriving meaning from words drops off sharply

FLOW: HISTORY

Research on the creative process for painters (Getzels & Csikszentmihalyi, 1976) When painting going well, artist persisted single-mindedly Disregard for hunger, fatigue, discomfort Also found in dancers, chess players, surgeons, pilots Termed this autotelic, or intrinsically motivated, behavior: accomplished in itself Worth doing for its own sake; rewarding in and of itself

EMERGING TOPICS IN FLOW RESEARCH

Shared Flow Flow in group activities Jam sessions Team sports Animated Neurobiology of Flow Applying Flow principles Increasing flow in individuals, educational settings, workplace

FLOW: MEASUREMENT

The Flow State Scale (Fogarty et al., 1999) Experience Sampling Method (ESM) (Larson & Csikszentmihalyi, 1983) Uses pagers/iphones to randomly sample everyday experience Individual's prompted to complete survey at various times

CONDITIONS FOR CALLING/ENGAGEMENT

You enjoy the work You're good at the work You believe the work stands for something and makes a difference

MIHALYI CSIKSZENTMIHALYI

books: "finding flow" and "good business"