How Map of Everyday Experience (Flow Map) is presented in FLIGBY
The different states of mind can be effectively assessed through the Flow map and then intervened in through effective people-centered decision making that cultivates emotional intelligence. It is those soft skills that FLIGBY players learn first-hand in a simulated business environment of the Game as they receive immediate feedback through the use of the Flow Map. Players can periodically or continually check the Game’s dashboard for instruments that show how their decisions as a general manager of the Turul Winery impact the Flow state of each member of the management team, as well as the “corporate atmosphere” and the Winery’s profit potential. They use this feedback and employ different strategies to move their team toward Flow by either strengthening the skills and/or raising or decreasing the challenges for the individual members.
The Flow Map is not just another psychometric assessment. As part of the FLIGBY business simulation game, which allows its players to experience directly the optimal state of Flow because the game itself is tremendously absorbing, the Flow Map teaches managers how to measure and increase the levels of engagement on their teams. Top leadership simulation games like FLIGBY not only closely resemble the complex reality of operating a business environment but also recreate the internal mental states one is bound to experience as a manager of a team.
What are the benefits of using Simulation in Leadership Development?
Through a scenario-based approach to sequential decision-making in response to series of progressively complex workplace assignments, players can see how the choices they make affect their colleagues’ motivation and emotional states, and how those in turn influence business outcomes. Today experiential learning through serious gaming is one of the most effective ways to teach and practice leadership skills and emotional intelligence. Learning by doing is recognized as the best way to retain knowledge, and managerial simulations that enable strategizing and problem-solving through risk-free business decisions provide invaluable experience in responding to realistic business situations.
In the Game, the Flow Map is a visual, dynamic and continuous indicator of your team’s experience where real-time positions and movements on the diagram represent the team members shown together with their respective states of mind. The distinctions between the individual states of mind are important indicators that support in-the-moment problem-solving while assessing skills and measuring the progress of the players.
Map of Vereyday Experience can help to improve the managerial work
If you, as a leader, are able to position your colleagues properly on the Flow Map, based on their current behavior, you can then devise a customized strategy for each of your colleagues to help them achieve the Flow state. As a practical tool, the Flow Map can be harnessed to manage motivation and can ultimately become a catalyst for increased performance.
Our jobs determine to a large extent what our lives are like… Work can be one of the most joyful, most fulfilling aspects of life. Whether it will be or not depends on the actions we collectively take.
Csikszentmihalyi, 2004
One common example of how Flow Map can be used in practice would be to use it to assess the team’s motivational states in planning and preparation for a new project or in anticipation of major organizational changes.
In the ideal situation, if you as a leader wanted to learn about group dynamics and assess management behaviors of your team members you would invite them to play the Game to obtain their profiles through the Master Analytic Profiler which measures 29 leadership competencies. The comprehensive FLIGBY reports not only provide valuable information in terms of everyone’s capabilities and managerial skills but can also point to how individuals make decisions in specific situations. Their profiles can also help you predict how your colleagues will respond emotionally to particular challenges and give you the opportunity to match them to tasks that create win-win scenarios for the business and everyone involved.
In the event that you can’t obtain such profiles, you could use what you have learned in the Game to create your own Flow Map of your team based on the knowledge you have about your employees. Let’s say that during the initial project planning meeting you observe a difference in attitudes and associated behaviors between your colleagues. One of your employees seems restless, is avoiding eye contact and makes negative comments about the project. You remember she was in the office late the night before and overheard her complaint to a colleague that she is not sleeping well. Another team member shows up late for the meeting and seems completely uninterested in the discussion. The rest of the team is curious, actively participates and is generally excited to pursue the project.
You can invite a member of your team who seems uninterested to comment on the project during the meeting. Perhaps, during the discussion, you will realize that he or she was not given much in terms of individual responsibility or was assigned to sharing a task with another who took on the entirety of work. This can give you an opportunity to inquire about what aspect of the project he or she would be excited to work on and where he or she feels they could contribute the most. Alternatively, you can brainstorm with them ways in which they can re-design aspects of their work to make them more engaging. If you find that they crave more autonomy you can empower them with the appropriate level of decision making, and if you find they feel isolated in their work you can find the opportunities for deeper collaboration.
With the teammate who seemed stressed and worried, you may choose to address her concerns separately and invite her to your office after the meeting. Stress can become a barrier to high performance. When on the job challenges exceed skills the likelihood of achieving the goal decreases as the size of the gap between personal resources and opportunities to act gets larger. Say you observe that your colleague has taken on new responsibilities. You can ask how your team member feels about her tasks and what kind of support she may need. By validating her feelings, acknowledging her concerns and asking her for suggestions of potential solutions you can help her balance out the demands of the job with the available skills and resources.
The power and the responsibility of creating a workplace conducive to Flow rest with every leader. Regardless of what strategies you use as a manager to support matching everyone’s skills to challenges, your team’s goals, collectively and individually, must reflect organizational values, be clear and be supported by frequent feedback.
Conclusion
The relationship between one’s ability to perform the task and how they perceive the challenge at hand has an influence on motivation and performance. Map of Everyday Experience that tracks Flow and other mental states of a team can be a very powerful management tool when used to its fullest potential. As Flow is a mental state of true engagement that leads to optimal performance, awareness of its existence within a group or an organization can be very useful in understanding individual and collective motivation. But most importantly, it supports the growth of optimal working environments where work can be Flow and everyone can thrive as Csikszentmihalyi envisioned.
A business is successful to the extent that it provides a product or service that contributes to happiness in all of its forms.
Csikszentmihalyi, 2004
The Flow map can be employed as a practical management tool that allows everyone to make leadership decisions in a way that creates opportunities for people to experience more Flow in their work. It can be used to match employees and their capabilities to the tasks they will enjoy more and which can give them a greater sense of accomplishment. It can also inform leadership decision-making in the direction where employees feel more involved in their tasks and perceive their work as more meaningful.
To learn more, and to experience the joy of Flow while learning the Flow-promoting leadership skills, get your map to Flow.
Sources
- Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1996). Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention.
- Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2004). Good Business: Leadership, Flow, and the Making of Meaning. New York, NY: Penguin.
- Dale, E. (1954). Audio-Visual Methods in Teaching. New York, NY: A Holt-Dryden Book, Henry Holt and Company.
- Harter, J. (2018, August 26). Employee engagement on the rise in the U. S. Gallup.
- Marer, P., Buzady, Z. & Vecsey, Z. (2017). Missing Link Discovered. ALEAS Sims Hungary-USA (Publisher)
- Roberts, D. C. (2007). Deeper learning in leadership: Helping college students find the potential within. John Wiley & Sons.
