Good Business: Leadership, Flow, and the Making of Meaning

Good Business is about enjoyment of work and productivity. It is based on the author’s research on flow, the psychology of optimal experience.Flow is “a deep sense of enjoyment.” To be fully engaged in a state of flow, one must be skilled and challenged.“Adults who are more often in flow are not only happier, but they spend significantly more time at work actually working instead of gossiping, reading the papers, or surfing the Web… If flow is absent, work turns into drudgery, and the worker loses his or her creative initiative.”“Money, security and comfort may be necessary to make us happy, but they are definitely not sufficient. A person must also feel that his or her talents are fully employed, that he is able to develop his potentialities, and that his everyday life is not stressful or boring, but holds deeply enjoyable experiences.”Prof. Csikszentmihalyi and his colleagues determined eight conditions of flow experience:1. Clear Goals2. Immediate Feedback3. Balance Between Opportunity and Capacity4. Deep Concentration5. Present Moment6. Control7. Sense of Altered Time8. Loss of Ego“When a task produces flow, it is worth doing for its own sake… Another way to term such activities is intrinsically rewarding.”The author writes about “the importance of what in creativity research is called ‘incubation’—the subliminal parallel-processing activity that takes place in the mind when we are not consciously trying to solve a problem.” On a related note, he observed from his interviews that “the most frequently mentioned personal trait the managers wished they could change was ‘impatience.’”He makes another interesting point about the speed of the brain’s processing power and why multitasking doesn’t work. “The brain can process on the order of 110 bits of information each second. To understand what another person is saying to us, for example, requires about forty bits, which explains why we cannot understand more than two people talking at the same time.”From a management perspective, flow is important because an “organization whose employees are happy is more productive, has a higher morale, and has a lower turnover… An ideal organization is one in which each worker’s potentialities find room for expression.”“To summarize briefly the essential conditions for flow to occur, they are: clear goals that can be adapted to meet changing conditions; immediate feedback to one’s actions; and a matching of the challenges of the job with the worker’s skills.” Additional “ways of improving the business environment involve setting policies that allow people to move and act with freedom, to have control over their tasks, and to have input in decisions affecting their work.”

The premise of the book is that our jobs are a primary component in our life and that when we are happy in our work we are the most productive and of the most value to our business.Mihaly reviews the concept of "flow" from his earlier studies which is a state where we fully utilize our skills and capabilities and how we are able to reach that state and what inhibits us from reaching it. We also learn about our own development stages and how we improve through the combination ofrealizing our uniqueness and by valuing human relationships.This book teaches us about good leadership qualities and how we (being led) can find satisfaction in our work.Organizational leaders must clarify the goals of a business and ensure it is well communicated.Three levers are available to managers to enable flow and create a great organization: make the environment attractive and comfortable; imbuing jobs with meaning and value; and by rewarding individuals who find satisfaction in their work.Flow presents opportunity (such as finding more satisfaction) and challenge (as in the case of changing a job that sucks the life out of people).Innovation is seen as repeatable through flow - but certain practices must be met such as: stay away from micro managing people; let people know the problems that need to be solved; and how to set and achieve performance goals (prioritizing tasks throughout a company has the effect of ensuring a companywon't meet its goals).An outline of the conditions for flow:1) Clear goals - you know your tasks and have the appropriate skill2) Immediate feedback - you understand the effect of your efforts3) Balance opportunity with capacity - you always learn to seek opportunity4) Concentration - don't over think (remember the old 'Inner Tennis' books?)5) The present is what matters - you exist in the 'now'6) Control is no problem - you become immersed in the work7) Time is altered - you 'slip through the cracks in time'8) Loss of ego - you focus on giving not taking or defendingThis book is a quick first read and will inspire thought, take the opportunity to read it.It is more than a great business book - it is also a book about life.

Should be read across corporate and non corporate citizensAlthough some facts about Indian history and philosophy is little mixed up, overall an excellent read

This book is amazing. It is the concepts that if we put it to use will transform the world.

As expected, wonderful !!

Excellent concepts, not an easy to read book.

Typical US book with endless repeating of the same message in different ways, ad tedium, with the occasional good piece of advice thrown in. You have to sit through a lot of repetitive anecdotes to get the message, which in itself, is interesting.