Time to Flow

From time to time I share with you Ted Talks that are relevant to our work.  Recently I stumbled onto a Ted Talk by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.  Csikszentmihalyi says creativity is a central source of meaning in our lives.  He has devoted his life to studying what makes people truly happy.  From interviews with high-performing engineers, musicians, Navajo shepherds, nuns, athletes, and business people, he has concluded that when we are involved in a creative activity that we care deeply about, we enter into what he calls a state of "flow":

"There's this focus that once it becomes intense, leads to a sense of ecstasy, a sense of clarity, you know exactly what you want to do from one moment to the other, you get immediate feedback.  You know that what you need to do is possible to do, even though difficult, and sense of time disappears, you forget yourself, you feel part of something larger.  And once those conditions are present, what you are doing becomes worth doing for its own sake...".

"[There] is an interesting little quote from Masaru Ibuka, who was, at that time, starting out Sony without any money, without a product — they didn't have a product, they didn't have anything, but they had an idea.  And the idea he had was to establish a place of work where engineers can feel the joy of technological innovation, be aware of their mission to society and work to their heart's content.  I couldn't improve on this as a good example of how flow enters the workplace."

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