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In this TPOV, I'm suggesting that when
and where people are spending time and investing efforts
appropriate to enter and remain in FLOW, both from their own
happiness design and through the design of living, working,
and relationships, which are externally controlled by
requirements of success, is important to consider as part of
living and working well.
There are several important contributors
to FLOW and the context for FLOW--one direct, and the other
indirect; M. Csikszentmihalyi and E. Jaques, each of which
creates serious lynchpins to consider of the quality of life
and the quality of work, respectively.
Csikszentmihalyi defines flow as “a
state in which people are so involved in an activity that
nothing else seems to matter; the experience is so enjoyable
that people will continue to do it even at great cost, for the
sheer sake of doing it”. (Csikszentmihalyi
1990, p.4) He identifies a number of
different elements involved in achieving flow:
·There are clear goals
every step of the way.
·There is immediate
feedback to one’s actions.
·There is a balance
between challenges and skills.
·Action and awareness are
merged.
·Distractions are
excluded from consciousness.
·There is no worry of
failure.
·Self-consciousness
disappears.
·The sense of time
becomes distorted.
·The activity becomes an
end in itself.
"There are two main strategies we
can adopt to improve the quality of life. The first is
to try making external conditions match our goals. The
second is to change how we experience external conditions to
make them fit our goals better.” - Mihaly
Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal
Experience, 1990
Another important starting point
for setting the context for FLOW is Elliott Jaques and his
contention that people when matched well to their capability,
doing work that is also matched to their capability...where
rewards are commensurate, approach conditions of FLOW where
they are enabled through the fit between who they are and what
they do.
I couldn't find any quotes
attributed to Jaques where he discussed FLOW specifically, but
rather FLOW was the outcome from the practice of his
principles of Requisite Organization.
“Leaders create an environment which
everyone has the opportunity to do work which matches his
potential capability and for which an equitable differential
reward is provided.” - Elliott Jaques
Jaques is well known, where he is known,
for how to:
“how to design organizations – or
systems of roles – whose nature is such that they can be
occupied by people who are enabled to collaborate in pursuing
the objectives for which the organization has been
established, and which provides a setting for those people to
be able to relate to each other with mutual trust, personal
dignity, and the opportunity to continue their life long
working-through of paranoid anxieties in constructive working
rather than acting them out.” Jaques, E.
(1995). Reply to Dr Gilles Amado.
Human Relations , 48(4), 359-366.
...and FLOW emerges from that.
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