Have you ever felt like you were “in the zone”? This is when you feel hyper-focused and relaxed at the same time, and when time seems to go by slowly or stop altogether. It is a feeling of complete control and performing at your peak. This is also referred to as being in “FLOW”.
It was the psychologist Mikaly Csikszentmilahalyi who first introduced the concept of FLOW. He describes FLOW as an optimal human experience in which a person is completely and happily absorbed in what he or she is doing. We may have felt this happen while playing sports, playing an instrument, or even in the office.
Around the time I began learning about FLOW, I attended a performance driving class at the Circuit of the Americas F1 track in Austin, Texas. I had the opportunity to drive four high-performance jaguars around the track. The night before we drove the cars, I attended a dinner with some of the professional drivers who were putting on the course. I ended up spending a lot of time talking with one of the drivers, Roberto Guerrero. During our conversation, we landed on the topic of “FLOW”. I asked him if he had ever experienced FLOW, to which he replied, “every time I get behind the wheel, I am in the zone!” I found this surprising since I couldn’t say the same thing for myself. I didn’t feel like I was in the zone every time I played a football game or worked on an assignment. But as I learned more about FLOW, it made perfect sense. There are two factors to be considered; how much skill is being brought to the table and the challenges presented. There is a chart that explains the concept very well. It is a simple x/y axis chart with “Skills” as the x and “Challenge” as they.
If your skill level is low and your challenges are also low, you would find yourself feeling apathetic. If your skill level is high, and challenges are low, one might experience relaxation or boredom. If your skill level is low and your challenges are high, there may be feelings of anxiety. And when our skill level is high, and our challenges are also high, that is when we find ourselves in the FLOW quadrant. It is important for people to feel like they are making use of their skill set in an environment that is challenging. It would make sense for Roberto Guerrero to feel as if he is “in the zone” each time he found himself behind the wheel.
Taking all of this into consideration, it is imperative to maximize the amount of time we spend in the upper right quadrant with both high skill and high challenge. In order to accomplish this, encourage your employees to focus on the following mental skills:
Stimulation – As a manager, you must help your employees to balance their state of arousal. They should be excited, but not anxious; calm, but not too relaxed; and motivated, but not over-eager.
Breathing – Deep, controlled and relaxed breathing is conductive to more focused performance.
Confidence – Flow is entirely dependent upon a person’s perception of his or her own skill as well as of the challenge at hand.
Focus – Your employees must be able to block out distractions and concentrate on the task.
Mental Imagery – Encourage your employees to picture themselves executing proper shills and techniques. Imagery leads to the building of confidence and promotes good game-time decision-making.
Motivation – Intrinsic motivation is key for peak performance.
Positive Mental Attitude – Having a belief in oneself, seeing the good in mistakes, and possessing all positive thoughts – is essential to achievement of flow.
Relaxation – Your employees should go into work relaxed and able to manage their levels of tension and anxiety (especially during critical moments).
It is important to remember that your employees will never reach a flow state of performance if they are being screamed at and or dictated to from their managers. Help them to achieve greatness by enabling them to perform at their best.