sunnysardine's blog: Creativity, Fulfillment and Flow

星期三, 12月 23, 2009

Creativity, Fulfillment and Flow

It happened to be I just need to tidy up my files in my Download Folder, I found this piece of video, which is good to share. After having a look at the wikipedia site, I find it interesting in this "FLOW" theory, especially when I try to implied it into the role of workers or so called employee, including managers' experience. And yes, he does talk about work as well. Enjoy.

For those who wanna know more about optimal experience in work and leisure, article written by Csíkszentmihályi, can be reach by the link provided.

Abstract
Followed 78 adult workers for 1 week with the experience sampling method. (This method randomly samples self-reports throughout the day). The main question was whether the quality of experience was more influenced by whether a person was at work or at leisure or more influenced by whether a person was in flow (i.e., in a condition of high challenges and skills). Results showed that all the variables measuring the quality of experience, except for relaxation and motivation, are more affected by flow than by whether the respondent is working or in leisure. Moreover, the great majority of flow experiences are reported when working, not when in leisure. Regardless of the quality of experience, however, respondents are more motivated in leisure than in work. But individuals more motivated in flow than in apathy reported more positive experiences in work. Results suggest implications for improving the quality of everyday life. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2009 APA, all rights reserved)

Csíkszentmihályi suggests several ways in which a group could work together so that each individual member could achieve flow. The characteristics of such a group include:

Creative spatial arrangements: Chairs, pin walls, charts, but no tables; thus work primarily standing and moving.

Playground design: Charts for information inputs, flow graphs, project summary, craziness (here also craziness has a place), safe place (here all may say what is otherwise only thought), result wall, open topics

Parallel, organized working

Target group focus

Advancement of existing one (prototyping)

Increase in efficiency through visualization

Existence of differences among participants represents an opportunity, rather than an obstacle.