Flow, or the psychological conditions of enjoyment

Years ago (1992?) I heard a lecture on Mihály Csíkszentmihályi's concept of "Flow" -- the conditions under which people are happy and productive.  Some of those conditions were:

1. person given a chance to complete the task


2.  person given the opportunity to concentrate on the task w/out distractions


3. task has clear goals, clearly presented to the person


4. the task provides immediate feedback


5. the person's involvement is deep, but effortless


6. the person has a sense of being in control


7. the concern for the self disappears (but when the task/job is finished, the sense of self is enhanced or raised)


8. the sense of time duration is altered (time slip away)

Flow has also been described as being "in the groove" or "in the zone."

Crucial is the balance between the work/task/job (the challenge) and the skills/progress of the person (the success).  There should be a challenge, but one that is met.  There should be obstacles, but ones that are overcome.

When a person works in that "sweet spot" -- the balance between the challenge and the success -- his/her sense of enjoyment and satisfaction is maximized.

Innovation at work

The March 2008 issue of Fast Company wrote about the most innovative companies in the world. A few quote caught my attention.

On page 74:

When you visit the Gooleplex in Mountain View, California, what's special is elusive. The company looks like the standard-issue, Wii-in-the-lounge, hieroglyphs-on-a-whiteboard, code-until-dawn tech shop. But the difference isn't tangible. It's in the air, in the spirit of the place.

Talk to more than a dozen Googlers at various levels and departments, and one powerful theme emerges: Whether they're designing search for the blind or preparing meals for their colleagues, these people feel that their work can change the world. That sense is nonexistent at most companies, or at best intermittent, inevitably becoming subsumed in the day-to-day quagmire of PowerPoints, org charts, and budgetary realities.

I don't think you always need to feel you are "changing the world," but you do need to feel that you are making a difference. Not just killing the hours or maintaining status quo, but building something better.

On page 84:

Google has a high tolerance for chaos and ambiguity.

From the online version of the article:

A PAYCHECK IS A LOUSY MANAGEMENT TOOL

"There's an old Peter Drucker line that goes, 'If you ever really want to learn how to be a manager, go work with volunteers.' Because when you manage volunteers, you realize that the paycheck is actually a lousy management tool. It has almost nothing to do with how you manage and motivate and organize and excite people. It can become a crutch, right? And in that sense, not in the financial sense, but in the 'build something great, change the world' sense, everyone at Google is a volunteer. So the trick in managing volunteers is get out of the way and clear the underbrush."

IMPOSSIBLE TO DUPLICATE

"You could not replicate this with a different set of people. There are management practices here that would break with different staffs, and vice versa; there's not one way to do it. We have a matched set of hiring and operations that go together. 'Culture' is a fine word for all that."

On page 85:

My impression early on was, 'Wow, you hire a guy who's an expert in food and let him run with it! You don't get in his way or micromanage.' After a year or so, I realized this is the way everything works here.

We came up with a values system. We said we want local. Then it was local, fresh, and sustainable. Then it was local, fresh, sustainable, and organic. We don't want genetically modified organisms or nitrates. We're the first company to go global with cage-free eggs.

Blogs, Women, and Science

Blogs, Women, and Science presentation by Annalee Newitz.

http://www.fairerscience.org/pages2/annalee_2_0.html

This blog retired; see new blog at NJIT

I am no longer blogging to this account. You can find my new blog at NJIT's WordPress MU installation at https://blogs.njit.edu/robertso

Update:  I left NJIT in 2011 and transferred my posts back over to this blog!  (Feb 2012)