We coach leaders to cultivate, creativity, clarity, focus and trust in a full engagement culture.
Creating a State of Flow at Work
One of my CEO executive coaching clients is working with his executive leadership team to create an organizational culture that unleashes employees’ intrinsic motivation and state of flow. I am coaching him to become more effective at appealing to employees’ intrinsic motivation and core values, and helping leaders at all levels of the organization become more fully engaged in creating a culture that supports flow.
The CEO knows that for the organization to thrive depends on creating an organizational culture and climate that cultivates constant innovation. Human Resources is partnering with me in supporting senior leaders to motivate people by building authentic relationships.
Our current executive coaching and leadership consulting work is also focused on helping leaders throughout the organization increase their ability to motivate team members by tapping into their purpose and values.
The CEO and his senior leadership team members are each heading up two strategic initiatives to energize growth and increase revenues. The goals are clear and tap into each leader’s purpose and desire to be doing meaningful work.
In our executive coaching meetings, company leaders are reporting a significant increase in their energy, happiness and business results. Each senior leader has autonomy over what they’re doing and how they do it, including choosing their time, tasks, team and techniques. They have the opportunity to master their work and make progress through deliberate practice.
The executives have a sense of purpose in their work — to something higher and beyond their job, salary and company. They are empowering their direct reports and all company employees with the same opportunities and creative mindset cultivating flow.
Creating Flow
People are most productive and satisfied when their work puts them in a state of “flow” — more commonly recognized as being “in the zone.” In the flow state, one experiences a heightened sense of focus, happiness and joy.
What we know about flow is primarily based on the work of psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, whose seminal book, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, describes it as the moment in which “a person’s body or mind is stretched to the limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile.”
You can’t give people the opportunity to create “flow” experiences without providing autonomy, time to practice and improve mastery, and a sense of higher purpose.
Flow at Work
In the past few years, many leading companies, including Microsoft, Ericsson, Patagonia, and Toyota have realized that being able to cultivate work environments that cultivate “flow” helps create more productive and satisfying work experiences.
These companies are now using Csikszentmihalyi's ideas to learn how they can get best engage their workers and create more compelling connections with their customers. “Without flow, there's no creativity or innovation”, says Csikszentmihalyi. "To stay competitive, we have to lead the world in per-person creativity," says Jim Clifton, CEO of the Gallup Organization.
Csikszentmihalyi’s work on “flow” focuses on the positive states, the moments when human beings are at their absolute best. In the flow state, Csikszentmihalyi found, people engage so completely in what they are doing that they lose track of time. People emerge from each flow experience more self-confident, capable, and sensitive.
Csikszentmihalyi believes that flow has several necessary preconditions. These include having clear goals, and a reasonable expectation of completing the task at hand. People must also have the ability to concentrate, receive regular feedback on their progress, and actually possess the skills needed for that type of work.
Self-Reflection Questions
Reflect on the following questions.
What would happen if some of the best moments of your life happened at work? What needs to change for that practice to be possible?
What do you need to learn to realize your fullest potential? What shift in mindset would allow you to embody being open, connected and present cultivating a state of flow?
...About Dr. Maynard Brusman
Dr. Maynard Brusman
Consulting Psychologist and Executive Coach|
Trusted Advisor to Executive Leadership Teams
Mindfulness & Emotional Intelligence Workplace Expert
Dr. Maynard Brusman is a consulting psychologist and executive coach. He is the president of Working Resources, a leadership consulting and executive coaching firm. We specialize in helping San Francisco Bay Area companies select and develop emotionally intelligent leaders. Maynard is a highly sought-after speaker and workshop leader. He facilitates leadership retreats in Northern California and Costa Rica. The Society for Advancement of Consulting (SAC) awarded Dr. Maynard Brusman "Board Approved" designations in the specialties of Executive Coaching and Leadership Development.
“Maynard Brusman is one of the foremost coaches in the United States. He utilizes a wide variety of assessments in his work with senior executives and upper level managers, and is adept at helping his clients both develop higher levels of emotional intelligence and achieve breakthrough business results. As a senior leader in the executive coaching field, Dr. Brusman brings an exceptional level of wisdom, energy, and creativity to his work.” — Jeffrey E. Auerbach, Ph.D., President, College of Executive Coaching
For more information, please go to http://www.workingresources.com, write to [email protected], or call 415-546-1252.
Are you an executive leader who wants to be more effective at work and get better results?
Did you know that research has demonstrated, that the most effective leaders model high emotional intelligence, and that EQ can be learned? It takes self-awareness, empathy, and compassion to become a more emotionally intelligent leader.
Emotionally intelligent and mindful leaders inspire people to become fully engaged with the vision and mission of their company. Mindful leadership starts from within.
I am a consulting psychologist and executive coach. I believe coaching is a collaborative process of providing people with the resources and opportunities they need to self manage, develop change resiliency and become more effective. Utilizing instrumented assessments - clients set clear goals, make optimal use of their strengths, and take action to create desired changes aligned with personal values.
I have been chosen as an expert to appear on radio and TV, MSNBC, CBS Health Watch and in the San Francisco Chronicle, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Time and Fast Company.
Over the past thirty-five years, I have coached hundreds of leaders to improve their leadership effectiveness.
After only 6 months, one executive coaching client reported greater productivity, more stress resiliency, and helping her company improve revenues by 20%. While this may depend on many factors most of my clients report similar satisfaction in their EQ leadership competence leading to better business results.
You can choose to work with a highly seasoned executive coach to help facilitate your leadership development and executive presence awakening what’s possible.
For more information, please go to http://www.workingresources.com, write to [email protected], or call 415-546-1252.
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