Finding "Flow"

Lately as you have probably noticed I have been talking and blogging a lot about things like sprezzatura and congruency. I think perhaps as the title of this piece implies I am pining to find my "flow".

Seth Godin, Daniel Pink and others talk about flow, that place where everything is clicking and hours just seem to disappear. It may happen at work, when you are enjoying an athletic activity, or the company of others. We have all experienced it and it is what "brings us back".

I kind of like to think of engagement as flow on an organizational level. Groups of people who become immersed in what we are doing and enjoying it to the point that the processes and the results blur. We see the value and the values alignment and so we provide our discretionary effort, that last bit that puts us over the top.

I don't think that organizations or individuals can maintain a state of flow constantly, but I think we can provide environments where we see it and experience it frequently. As I allude to I think it is much more about providing an environment than "direction".

Godin describes that each of us has our "art" embedded" in us somewhere. It doesn't mean we were born to paint or make music or even be a crafts person of some kind, but there is something we were born to do.

I think I like like Godin because of two primary reasons above others:

• Like me he feels like Frederick W. Taylor, the "father" of scientific management, contributed to a model that has repressed the human spirit for multiple generations
• He is one of the only other authors I have read of late that actually draws upon and and mentions Monty Roberts, the original "horse whisperer", and his concept of "joining up" rather than compliance as a model for interpersonal and organizational relationships.

As you know I feel like concepts like lean manufacturing, six sigma, and others are inherently self limiting because they do not take into account the "human" dimension. You don't see anywhere in those models where they talk about art or flow or sprezzatura. It is about consistency and numbers and process. Probably makes my friend Frederick Taylor orgasmic in his grave!

I am pleased when I see that the younger generations are demanding more of the opportunity to find "flow". They call it different things like work life balance, and autonomy, or others; but at the root they are seeking if not demanding environments that provide them with at least that opportunity.

So I guess at the end of the day whether you want to call it "flow", or sprezzatura, or congruency, or engagement why are we so afraid of it? The "numbers" show that how ever you label it the results in key performance areas are vastly superior to the "old" ways of doing things.

Isn't it time to embrace a new model- especially when we can see the "proof in the pudding"?